My sister and brother-in-law were 'fixed up" by her best friend and a good friend who was serving with him in Germany. When she got his first letter, she handed it to me and asked what I thought. I  told her she was going to marry him. Absolutely no doubt. she didn't believe me--but they've been married since 1972.

sometimes--rarely--I get something so rock solid. A few years ago my son and I were back visiting family and had to change planes at Chicago. I told them that when we went back we would take being bumped for the free tickets. Everyone tried to tell me not to be so set on it that I would be disappointed. I was first in line when the attendant started asking for volunteers to be bumped--and I use a cane. we also got bumped to first class for the final leg, even if it was commuter first class. My son enjoyed the leg room, and we were the only ones who got drinks, enabling me to get in a pain pill. everyone was shocked that it came true except me.

I got my senses blasted open here when a dear friend lost her daughter and premature granddaughter the same week. I had prayed that i could find something, anything to help ease her pain. I was awakended at 2 Am with a poem about them. When I was telling myself I'd write it down in the morning, I was told I wouldn't be going back to sleep until I took it down first.

I had a vision of a toddler looking back, waiting for her mother to catch up. the blond little girl was surrounded by flowers and had an absolutely blissed out expression from all that beauty. the only pictures I'd ever seen of her daughter she had beautiful auburn hair. When i was adding the poem to her daughter's memorial book, i somehow got the pictures of her daughter's life. In one of them was the little girl I had seen, surrounded by flowers and blissed out. I started crying because it was such a shock...she was even blond then.

I got one more message from her daughter when her sister gave birth--there had been fear the child might have spina bifida, but she was perfect. that one was simple "ten perfect fingers, ten perfect toes. the first job I did here." After that they had their own connection but since then I can sense when someone here really needs to just be told someone heard them. I guess you could call it having feelers out--I don't know how to describe it.

It bothers my husband and son, although my son has been contacted by Grandma--he'd cooked dinner, and then was too tired to do all the dishes. I was on my 3rd and final sink of dishes when he came downstairs to get a drink. He was back a few minutes later wit an odd expression and offered to finish the dishes. Grandma told him "Did you see all the dishes you left for your Mother?' He asked me if that thought had come from her--and boy, had it. Nice to know she waas looking out for me.

I'm sorry for both of your losses.

I'm sorry that you had to endure all the pain of watching someone you loved so much die bit by bit. I'm delighted that you both met through Beliefnet--how rare is that? You are trying to remember her as she was before going through so much change.

I know that you have to be completely drained from this ordeal. I don't know if we have to get the first part of our grief by keeping in mind that the person we loved is now out of pain so it is easier to let go or not.

but if you need to retrace things, try to go back to how you fest during those early posts, when you were both finding a soulmate apart from how either of you looked physically. No make-up, no gimmicks--just seeing the person through their thoughts. You finally meet, you marry--and you both have joy and happiness that neither of you would have had if you'd spent those years without each other.

People's physical bodies die; who we are, and whom we love doesn't. I was a teenager when my father died from his 4th heart attack at 47. Even then, when I would have given anything to have him alive, there was a voice that asked me "And if you had the power to bring him back--but only as he was, without being able to fix him--could you use it?" And as much as I hated it, the answer was no.

A dear friend died suddenly--my sister-in-law and i both loved her--and what she showed my sil in dreams was that she was just dead--she wasn't gone. I had an anniversary card from her drop out from my cookbooks 2 years ago a few days before our anniversary.

When my paternal Grandpa died, he gave me a final gift. I had been suddenly surounded by love, and it was the love I'd had from him all my life. I got the call telling me that he had died  150 miles away from me about 10 minutes later. I wasn't afraid of death after that because he'd shown me that we survive. (His death was years before my friend's...it was just that her message was in words. My sister-in-law needed those words; i didn't.)

When you think of her with love, she'll know it. And here's one that might not be in the current customs, but despite the 3 days legal mourning that seems to put an end to our grief as far as the business world is concerned, no one else expects that of you. At least in Victorian times you could wear mourning or a black armband and everyone knew that you were grieving and cut you some slack. You are allowed to be angry she got ill; anger and anything else you feel right now is valid. So is numbness; even when you know that someone is going to die, it doesn't lessen the shock. Just because it sin't a surprise doesn't prevent the shock of it actually happening.

My Grandma dreamed she was at a huge party, with everyone she knew and loved who had gone before she did. After awhile, she realized that the room was too big and the colors too magnificent to be anywhere but Heaven. When she woke up the next morning in her worn-out 100+ year old body she wasn't exactly thrilled about it. but while the dream relieved her fear that the reason she had lived so long was because she wasn't going to make it into Heaven, it made me see how few the ties were that were holding her here on Earth compared to all the people waiting for her in Heaven. My mother, older sister and I were all with her and had a final chance to tell her how much we loved her and how much she had meant to us our whole  lives. We told her we'd be there for each other and it was okay to let go and go back to her party. And she was gone with in an hour.

Your love for her still has a place to go--send it to her. And her love for you now is free from pain, but just as strong.

Hugs,prayers for strength, and the knowledge another soul heard you tonight.