The Top Ten Things Dead People Want to Tell You (12 page)

From outside of time and space, using your imagination, you get to dream up what you want to see happen, where you want to go, who you want to be, and what you want to have. As if by magic, details will be calculated for you. The props and players on your life’s stage will shift around, rearranged through seeming accidents and coincidences, summoning the right folks and excusing the wrong ones at just the right time, for just the right reasons, in the most surprising yet plausible ways to take you, the star, from where you are to where you dream of being.

Your part is the easy part. The Universe does all the rest. You just have two things to do:

Step 1: Define what you want, and

Step 2: Show up to receive it.

You nail these (instructions to do so are in
Chapter 6
), and all else will be delivered to you upon a metaphorical silver platter.

A
S
G
OOD AS
I
T
G
ETS

With such realizations, given that your life is a gigantic work in progress and that no isolated thought or experience is the be-all and end-all of it, you see that no matter how you may feel in any moment, or throughout any series of moments, you cannot know when you will be ready to naturally “die” until after you have. And no amount of claiming otherwise—no matter how great the emotional pain or how sad the claimant—will make it so, any more than a child closing his eyes makes himself disappear. There’s a magnificent production at hand in which you are the author, star, and audience, and the pages are still turning as angels peer over your shoulder to read the story, and even God is on the edge of Her seat. And though you can’t see it, you are now in the midst of an upward spiral, higher than you have ever been before in all of your other lives, and still going higher.

So get on with it.
Being patient does not mean being passive.
Move toward your dreams while you celebrate all that does work, all that you do have, and who you now are. Be with friends. Spend time alone. Don’t worry. Be happy. Look forward. This is surely easier said than done, but that’s just it: if these things were easy, they’d have been done and what would be the point? You signed up for the intensive program: harder in the beginning, more fun thereafter.

Being patient does not mean being passive.

There’s nothing wrong with your life because sometimes you feel lost or incomplete; this means you’re “normal,” growing, and exactly where you “should be” and all is well. You’re not handicapped by your challenges and desires but blessed by them, even if they include missing a dearly beloved who was “ready” before you …
you are blessed especially when you miss such a person, for the love you knew and still know.
The greater the perceived lack in your life, the greater the dissatisfaction,
the greater the comeback and future celebration
.

Don’t bother thinking or wondering if it’s “your time.” It’s not. You’ll know soon enough.

And by the way, you’re going to miss earth. Everyone does.

From a Dearly Departed

Alexa!!!

WOW, what a flight! I mean … what a crash! Crazy!

Who dies in a plane crash, right? Almost no one. “It’s the safest form of travel, blah-blah-blah,” except … well, yeah, I totally beat the odds.

Dude, I’m alive! The only thing different is that I can hear and see you, but you can’t hear and see me. The floaters said I was ready and that you weren’t. Yeah, they float around like ghosts, but they’re so loving and wise you want to cry. They said I’m now a floater, too, but I still have legs … here at least.

No … I can’t see you when you take a shower. Seriously? There’s like an automatic barrier-thing that keeps anything you want private to remain private, so long as it’s not part of someone else’s adventure. Like you kissing Bob when he was still my boyfriend, before the crash. That was part of my life; I saw everything in the debriefing after I arrived here. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g, “Lexie!”… But if you’re kissing him now, I won’t know because it’s not part of my life anymore.

“Tramp!” LOL, just kidding! It’s impossible to stay mad here—there’s too much to be happy about. Besides, I already knew, and it’s not as if I was a saint. Sorry, you’ll learn about that in your life review …

Man, the stuff you find out here!

Hey, did you ever notice that I wasn’t too friendly with our humanities teacher at school, Mr. Gresham? Guess what! He was my father in a past life and he left my mother and me in the woods, all alone, after I was born. We died of hunger and cold. Creep! Believe it or not, everyone living, deep down, has a sense of their prior wrongs and they usually try to make amends in future lives without even understanding exactly why. Yeah, remember I got an A in humanities? I think it’ll take a little more than an A for murder! Well, I don’t think that’s the whole story, but I was glad for the A.

Lexie, I mention this because … I have something to confess. I once hurt you, like really badly. As in, knife attack. Really. Sorry. We were druids, living where Galway is; Bob was there, too—I should have knifed him instead, LOL! No, not really! Knifing has huge sucky consequences. Anyhow, sometimes friends like to return together to work things out or just because they like the same kind of adventures. I’m really sorry. You forgive me now because you forget, but oh, crap, when you get back your memory will be on again.

Hey, something else cool. Because I already knew you were kissing Bob and I let it, and him, go without a fight—no resistance, didn’t even tell you—it meant I was free from something that had always held me back. I was able to let him go because I had finally learned that my happiness didn’t depend on someone else and that no one’s lies can make me less happy. I got what I had most wanted. Those were my lessons … plus I learned sharing as a kid—a bigger deal than it seems. Kind of the same. But that’s why I died, or at least came here. Cool, huh?! Told you. You should see where I’m going next, except I can’t tell you …

Anyway, what a flight! Glad you’re okay! Please know that I am, too! That you survived, “Lexie,” just means you still have more adventures there. That I “died” just means my next adventures are elsewhere. But we can keep meeting like this, and like we do when you dream at night, even though you don’t remember those, and like we will forever and ever, here and there and everywhere.

I love you, Sis! XOXOXOXOXO

Trixie the Knife Thrower

B
EFORE A
B
IG
D
REAM
C
OMES
T
RUE

Do you know what happens in the physical world right before a really big dream comes true?

Not a dang thing.

So if right now nothing seems to be happening in your life, take it as a sign. Which is meant to reassure you that if you sometimes wonder and worry if it’s your “time”—or even wish it—it’s not. Like a current underwater, change comes without a sound, and any lull you may now be experiencing is just the calm before a storm of coincidences, happy accidents, and serendipities that will bring about your next thrilling transformation. Always, something wonderful is brewing.

Nor should you wonder and worry that you might be handicapped by co-creations that involved the poor behavior of others. For whatever has transpired between you, your inevitable triumphs will be even sweeter and the humblest of apologies are in the offing. Which is what the dead want to tell you next.

Not only do those who adventure into the jungles inevitably get hurt, but invariably
it’s by someone else!

And more often than not, a loved one; sometimes even the one they loved most.

When the time comes, of course, you will learn that
you
sometimes hurt others as much as they hurt you. And that the ones you hurt were often the ones you loved the most. So naturally, from the lofty views of the afterlife where deep, natural empathy puts you in the shoes of those you hurt, you’re overcome by wanting to share the truths that will ease their burden, change their focus, and send them on a happier way. The dead are truly sorry for any pain they may have caused in your life.

T
HE
B
IG
(L
IFE
) R
EVIEW

When the switch is flipped and the lights of time and space go out, another is flipped somewhere else and the lights come on in what you now might term “the unseen.” You’d expect no less if you’re on board with life being eternal, organized, and of divine intelligence. It certainly wouldn’t be eternal darkness, without form. In fact, words like
vibrant, intricate, thrilling,
and
spectacular
pale next to the beauty and order that are now invisible to you from “the seen.” And with such order and beauty, and given that life within the jungles is an adventure school, would you or would you not also expect a life review? A report card, a status check?

Indeed. You’re coming along so quickly.

And can you imagine who will assign your grades?

Yourself. You created this whole thing, at least your part of it, so who else? Not that you’re supposed to sit in judgment of yourself, but you probably will. Instead, the aim is to learn. To see. To understand. To soar.

Naturally, post-return, with your enhanced perspective, you’ll not only be able to revisit everything that happened between your birth and death, you’ll see and understand your role in its creation: your methods and madness, truths and lies, rationale and justifications, hits and misses …
everything,
to a depth and degree you can’t now comprehend.

Even seeing how one of your lifetimes left off, setting you up for the choices and adventures of the next. How your life two times ago influenced your most recent successes. How friends from millennia gone by agreed to show up again, whether to play, tease, or taunt, and how you agreed to engage with them. You’ll see why you were so good at math or perhaps music, why you hated history or the arts, where you were when you fell in love for the first time, the influences behind your unexplainable urges and fears, the likely ancient connection between you and the parents you chose, and the people you loathed and adored and why.

You’ll radiate pure ecstasy over your every triumph and conquest, beam proudly for your bravery and valor, savor and relish your tolerance, celebrate your dogged perseverance and sheer guts; your compassion, empathy, and tenderness. And all you feel will be amplified 1 million times as you see
your
good perpetuated by others, rippling outward, your smile and strength contagious, spreading like a wildfire through space and time—indeed, into eternity, reaching more lives than you ever might imagine could exist.

“W
HOOPS
, I D
ID
I
T
A
GAIN
”

Yet you’ll also watch in near disbelief at the times when you were bathed in love, supported by angels, and pushed on to greatness with dominion over all things, yet because of your own naïveté, ignorance, or misunderstanding, you knew none of these things. And then you’ll watch as you took it upon yourself to right perceived wrongs, correct sensed imbalances, and claim for yourself what others were too daft to give you. Trying to effect change by manipulating the illusions and other people rather than going within. Being critical, judgmental, and hurtful—mentally, physically, and emotionally—while surrounded by a loving, adoring Universe.
Huh! Me?
You’ll wonder, stupefied, whether the images have been distorted, because you remember all of the hurt and confusion you felt in those times but none of the love that surrounded you.

Such instances will be few and far between compared to your finer moments; nevertheless, they’ll cause discomfort. In spite of so much support, in spite of how obvious it always could have been, you allowed yourself to go “caveman.” And your remorse will be amplified as you see that your actions became excuses for others who cowered, blamed, and withdrew from the infinite possibilities of their own lives. And then you’ll see how
their
actions cast shadows over an ever-expanding circle of others.

Ain’t pretty.