Ever have a day when memories of someone who is no longer living, surfaced in your heart and mind? It’s not their birthday, or any particular occasion that would bring them to mind, yet you feel their presence and find yourself grateful for the ways, lessons and moments they touched your life.
That’s me … remembering my dad, Albert Edward (Eddie) Mack. Born in England in 1903, he died in Canada in 1981. He had little formal education because he had to go to work when he was only eight to help support his family. Yet, in spite of only having a grade three education, he became a voracious reader, stock broker, owner of an antiquities store, art historian and consultant to the National Art Gallery in Ottawa.
Dad was a gentle man (and gentleman!), a loving man, a kind man, a romantic … ohhhh, the love letters he wrote my mother! … and a wonderful ballroom dancer. When he would turn on the radio and take my mom into his arms in our living room, magic happened and we all knew it.
Dad was a polymath. His expertise spanned a significant number of different subject areas, thanks to his voracious reading, deep sense of curiosity, ability to reason, and eagerness to learn from others. At the same time, he was a humble man whose love of his wife, children and grandchildren (as can be seen by this photo of Dad and my son Tod when he was a toddler), were foremost in his life.
Dad wasn’t always home as he often traveled for work, but he was always “with us.” His wisdom, lifestyle, mentoring (even when we weren’t aware of it), contributed to make each of us the people we now are. When we all gathered around the dinner table, we would share how our day had gone and would have conversations about all sorts of things including ‘life after death’.”
Some religions state there is life-after-death. Some cultures believe there is life after death. Many people hope there is … in some way. No living person knows for certain. But, if experiences of the presence of loved ones, long after they have died, in ways that are not understood, is any indication, then life after death does exist.
How? I don’t know. Yet I choose to believe that when our mortal life on this planet earth ends, our spirit continues to live. And life-after-death becomes our reality. That is my belief, my hope, my prayer. And in the meantime, in the remembering of loved ones who have died, in the silent conversations with loved ones who have died, in the memories that bring gratitude and smiles and joy, they live.
The photo is of my son Tod Edward Maffin and his Granddad Albert Edward Mack. Life-after-death.
© June Maffin
Photo of Grandson Tod Edward Maffin and Grandad Albert Edward Mack
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Very interesting June. I believe that is something that I will never understand but some things that have been experienced by myself are unexplainable – seeing the presence of her dad my next door neighbor after passing while living with his daughters in Kamloops prior to his funeral. His daughter who lives in kamloops area – used the term “that my dad wanted us to know that we had carried out his wish and he was happy.” I think that if we allow our mind to be open to receive it can happen.
Such a beautiful post. Full of love and hope. Thank you.
Such a sweet photo of granddad & grandson…thanks!
What a lucky woman your mom to be married to a wonderful ballroom dancer AS WELL AS trustworthy, loving husband!!! If only I could find both in one person now!!!!
Afraid, I can only imagine that lives of loved ones exist only in our memories. Nothing else makes sense, & it’s gift enough to remember my loved ones for their goodness, whom I grieve losing.
I have believed in reincarnation for a long time. More than just life after death, it’s more like “lives” after death. But rather than go into much detail I will relay two experiences after my mother died, in dreams. One was I was back home in Roanoke, VA and I dreamed that I could hear my mother in my parents’ bedroom. She was looking out the window into the neighbor’s yard, she turned to me and gave me a hug and said “this isn’t going to work is it?” And I said no mom, it’s not, and she was gone. The other one was in the same house I heard something going on in the back bedroom. She was deep in a closet rummaging around and then was in their bedroom rummaging around in a cedar chest. I remembered that we had disposed of all of her clothes in the week after she died because my sister and I had to get back to Virginia and Kentucky to our respective jobs. And again it was the feeling that this was not going to work. After that I believe she was released.
After 37 years these dreams are definitely fading. I have not seen my father in the same way. But hours before he died he was pretty much unconscious and he said OH! And my sister and I both felt that he was seeing the other side and our mom and FINALLY understood what we all had been talking about all those years about what “heaven” was going to be like. Personally I have strong feeling of having lived in the 1700s and being accused of being a witch and being hanged (not burned at the stake) and I have strong feeling of having been Catholic as well as a cloistered nun.
After many years I joined the Episcopal church which has given me the liturgy and structure from which those times breed familiarity. Crazy talk? Maybe……………maybe not.
One thing we can guess: Life after death will be as different from anything we can imagine as prenatal life is different from life in the womb.