Guppy,
I was greatly saddened to read about your loss. As the father of two sons, I can state that my wife and I live in mortal dread of something happening to them.
I agree with your statement that sometimes things just happen. We are mortal beings and exist in a world that is subject to natural law. The flesh must, eventually, die.
However....
I believe the spirit lives on. There have been a number of incidents in my life that reinforce that belief. A couple have made my hair stand on end.
The first happened while I was in high school. A farm family in our church had three children; the youngest a boy of about five. One day, he rode with his mother to the field to follow the father home at the end of the day. His dad was driving a tractor and the boy wanted to ride it with him.
Nobody knows exactly what caused it, but the child fell off and was run over by the rear wheel. The distraught parents rushed him to the hospital, but there was no hope.
Two days later the child was buried in a small woodland cemetery. At the gravesite a young girl was snapping pictures of the proceedings with a camera and watching the pictures develop while holding them in her hand. On the first, the grave was in the foreground and mourners behind it. At the foot of the grave she noticed a ball of light...which was odd since the sun was behind the trees. She called it to the attention of the mother and the father.
In the second picture, the father can be seen looking at the first photograph while the mother looked over his shoulder. In this picture, the ball of light could be seen to have moved about halfway up the grave.
When the third picture was developed, the ball of light was gone, replaced by a smear of light, roughly in the shape of an x, at the head of the grave. Within the x could be seen two faces: one the face of a bearded man; resting on his left breast was the face of a child.
The work of an angel? Perhaps...but definitely a miracle.
A few years after my wife and I married, her brother and his wife lost a young child during heart surgery. A month after the funeral, we were visiting the parents when they suddenly asked us a very strange question: Did we believe in ghosts?
To say we were startled would be an understatement. According to them, on more than one occasion they had been lieing awake in bed at night and heard the baby playing with his toys in the living room.
Being caught off guard by the question, we didn't know how to respond, except to say we didn't really believe in ghosts.
A couple of days later, we were visiting with my grandmother. My grandfather had died the same year as this child. Anyway, we recounted the story of the baby and the toys to her to get her opinion.
Well sir, she got the strangest look on her face. Tears started in her widened eyes and her hand flew up to cover her mouth.
After a moment, she said that a similar thing had happened to her. My grandfather always made a habit of rising early on a cold morning and, if she was still asleep, of pulling the covers up over her to keep her warm. On the first cold morning after his death she said that she felt him pull the covers up over her as he had always done.
My grandmother and I spent a lot of time together in the summers when I was growing up. She had a strong part in raising me. A few years after this incident, she suffered a series of minor strokes that steadily robbed her of her memory. Over a period of two years her health steadily deteriorated. During this entire time she was staying in a nursing home.
One night, shortly after midnight the phone by our bedside rang, when I opened my eyes, I saw a hazy light at the head of the bed, on the other side of my wife, the direction my eyes were looking when I awakened. After a few seconds it slowly faded.
My wife answered the phone. It was my mother, calling to say that my grandmother had died.
I never could find an explanation for the light; not one that is rational, as the world defines rational. There was no way for a reflection to appear in that particular spot. I looked at the site from every possible angle and could not figure out a way that a light could have been reflected to that particular spot.
So...I have reason to believe. I believe in miracles....the kind sent by a loving God to give comfort in times of grief, or guidance in times of trial. I don't believe God desires that harm befall anyone....save in those rare instances when it serves some purpose benefitting mankind.
Regards, Shuckins
