Mailbox from the Afterlife

Letters and Love Notes from Loved Ones

Thank you for offering your comforting condolences following my mother’s passing last week. Grief can be a complex experience, and one of the most difficult challenges of losing a loved one is not hearing their voices or getting messages from them anymore, which is one reason why I like to visit mediums. While I can recall things they said before and hear those words in exactly the way that their voices sounded, I think we all want the people we care about to continue to offer their insights about our lives today and into the future. While I have received uncannily specific messages from those who have crossed over at séances conducted by trusted mediums, mediumship is not the only way to hear from someone you are missing.

I have been reunited with loved ones through dreams, hypnosis, past and future life regressions, synchronicity, signs, meditations, and more. This article is a story about signs and, to a lesser extent, synchronicity. My hope is that this example of my own experience might help someone to see a sign and receive a message that they need or are meant to know. In my mind, these signs are messages, similar to letters or love notes, arriving in a metaphorical “mailbox” that is reaching out to you from the afterlife.

The following post offers an example of unexpectedly finding signs during a walk that included some stops at little libraries, shortly after the loss of a loved one. While I didn’t find these messages in a literal mailbox, they were hidden in little libraries outside of neighbours’ homes, which is pretty close.

You can ask questions about the history of mediumship and spirituality or feel free to offer your own afterlife experiences in the Q&A below.

Rituals and Roles

Last Friday night, I visited with my mom for what would be the last time I would talk to her while she was in bodily form. I prayed for her, sang to her, played Buddhist chants for her, read her quotes from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and recited poems in Italian. I also promised her that I would continue to speak and study Italian, which was the language of her parents and ancestors.

When I let go of preconceived notions of what I thought I should say and meditated on what my intuition was prompting me to communicate, I thought of an analogy which I shared with her. I said that this body is a costume and at some point we all have to get out of one costume and into another to play a different role. This felt very true to me, as real as anything I’ve said or sensed before. I felt it for myself in that the person I now am is a role, like other parts I’ve played in previous lifetimes. Since my mother believed in reincarnation, this comparison aligned with her ideologies.

I had arranged for a monk to visit her and offer chants and prayers in her chosen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. I let my mom know that he was on the way. She couldn’t respond but I believe she heard me. A monk arrived shortly after my visit graciously assisted her transition to the afterlife. Three hours later, my mother passed away. Because of the timing of telling her he was on his way and then crossing over shortly after he departed, I have wondered if she was waiting for him.

Letters in Languages

While it isn’t easy to do anything after the loss of a loved one, I believe it honours their lives and all they gave us by building on their gifts and taking good care of ourselves, not only as an appreciation of continued life, but also as holders of their history, gestures, shared experiences, and legacy. I took a walk that day and to my surprise, the first little library in front of someone’s home that I walked past a collection of Italian language CDs and accompanying book, situated front and centre behind a glass case. I’ve been to many of these libraries before but never encountered something on this topic, and the collection showed up less than a day after I told my mom I would continue to study Italian. By the way, I had never promised that to her before, which makes this find all the more timely and therefore unlikely.

Sometimes I see these messages and leave the book behind as they aren’t something I would use or need. I might take a photo as a memory of the message, but a coincidence doesn’t always mean that I need or want to keep the physical item. In this case, I did hold onto the language collection as I know I will use it, but I will also donate it back once I do not need it anymore. Perhaps it will be a message for someone else at another time, whether from the afterlife or otherwise.

During the following two encounters, the books with messages from my mom were not ones I would read or need so I left them behind, but I did take a photo. Photos of signs serve as later reminders of the connections we have to loved ones. If you ever doubt the existence of continued correspondence, you can return to the photos and stories you document (whether in your journal, on your own spiritual blog, or in another form) of encounters with the afterlife.

Letters in Libraries

After I placed the Italian language collection in my bag, I took a walk by the sea and passed by another little library. I didn’t see any signs in that one but I wasn’t looking for more messages from the afterlife, just perusing selections in search of interesting sources. In the third bookcase, I noticed a German-language biography about Charlie Chaplin. While I don’t know of my mother’s family as having any connection to Germany, her father did used to act as a Charlie Chaplin impersonator in the Mummer’s Day parade in Philadelphia. As a result of this historical connection in addition to the recent timing of my mom’s journey home to her ancestors, I took this book to be a possible message from her father’s family—and one about playing roles, a reminder of the analogy I shared with my mom about the body as a costume that we all have to change out of at some point.

Getting Notes from Notable Gifts

I left the Charlie Chaplin book behind and stopped at one more library on my way home. This final destination offers a larger selection that features multiple bookshelves surrounded by benches where neighbours sometimes sit and have a coffee or a cup of tea to accompany their newfound literature. This last library of the day was emotional for me, as it contained a collection of books that my parents had given me while I was in elementary school. More specifically, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Beverly Clearly were the main authors I was interested in from the time that I was seven to nine (along with The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries series) and before I turned to the pre-teen horror genre upon my discovery of Stephen King and V.C. Andrews at the age of ten.

Back to my trip to the third little library of the day, another form of synchronicity in this encounter was the Ingalls Wilder books were situated as a collection. One of the motivations that drove me to read as a child was my interest in completing every book written by one author (that I could obtain) before moving onto another author. I didn’t always achieve this goal but I remember explaining to my parents that I wanted to focus on one author at a time, and I was most adamant about wanting to read the entire Ingalls Wilder collection of Little House on the Prarie books. As a result of that memory and the timing of finding this collection, I would note the presence of five books by Ingalls Wilder as a message from the mailbox of the afterlife. I left the books behind for children to enjoy but took the photo below to illustrate my story about the letters and love notes we encounter in unexpected places and times. So what was my message from the Great Beyond? In this case, the message I got from seeing the Ingalls Wilder and Cleary books is to remember all the gifts my parents left behind that still enrich me, including a love of reading and appreciation of continued education. The letters and notes you get from your own encounter with signs and synchronicity will vary, and every one of them is just as valid.

Times to Find Signs

One of the most remarkable outcomes of my journey on the walk I took a week ago is that these particular books, topics, and authors have never appeared in those libraries on any of my previous explorations. The titles I mentioned to you were there that day and then no more. The transitory nature of some messages, especially on an anniversary, special date, or even when you need to hear a message to help you in your present life, is one way to determine who is sending you a “note” or a “letter”.

Of course, not every mediumship-oriented communicative gesture is through a book title or to be found at a bookshoppe or library. This story is just one of many examples of how signs can appear in places where you’re not looking for them, especially when embarking on everday experiences whose purpose was something other than seeking a sign.

There are many periods when I do not see signs from loved ones. It seems that I have to be ready, open to it, not expecting it, and, importantly, willing for those letters and notes to arrive in the mailbox of life as frequently or as rarely as need be. If I am wondering why I have not heard from a loved one in a while, it helps me to remember that, at least in my own experience, it happens when the time is right in my healing process and perhaps when it’s right for theirs. The kind of signs I recalled in this story tend to occur when I’m open to having something happen but not expecting an experience. In other words, if I am not opposed to a phenomenon but also not waiting for it to happen, I seem to see the signs more often.

Another method for making direct connection can come from a medium, and sometimes mediumship is used a supplement to visitations through signs, dreams, self-hypnosis, and meditation. While I offer medium readings and have conducted séances, mediumship is only one tool and not the only way you will stay in touch with your loved ones. I will describe more methods for connecting with loved ones who have crossed over in future posts.

Communication Conclusion

Without expecting it, nearly every bookshelf revealed a sign to me on a day when I most needed those messages. I didn’t know that was what I needed at the time, but the reinforcement of faith I felt after that walk made it clear to me that the time was right for receiving those messages. All of these books were too specific to my mom’s family history to be a coincidence, especially when I had been to these same libraries before without encountering synchronicity related to her life. However, after my dad passed away, many books began to appear in these libraries that were closely related to things he told me, including specific titles of books and films he had recommended to me…which is a different story for another time.

Coming Soon

“This Week in Tarot: May 16 -22”

“Past Life Recall or Ancestral Memory?: Discovering Your Spiritual and Ancestral History”

Works Cited

Rinpoche, Sogyal. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, edited by Patrick Gaffney and Andrew Harvey. San Francisco, CA: Harper San Francisco, 1994.