Parents hand down their beliefs to their children. In the name of love, my parents portrayed images of what could happen if I explored this dangerous world without sufficient self-control and boundaries. Thus, my childhood was constrained by fears, some real, others imaginary. Thinking about it as an adult, I believe that in actuality, they hoped to preserve themselves, as well as me, from their deepest dreaded fear, the ultimate catastrophe-death. Fear of mortality imposed a limited life.

Apparently, I did not totally assimilate all their teaching for I was still experiencing happiness. Being young, I certainly never thought that the grim reaper was lurking anywhere near me. I felt sorry for others dealing with sickness, injury or death, but I felt insulated from those concerns.

Then, one night in 1993, I had a dream. Or, was it an apparition? I did not understand it, but I knew it was real. My grandfather had been dead for thirty years, yet he was there in my bedroom. I felt him standing at my side. I knew he was telling me, "You have to write something for your father." The day after this happened, my father passed away. No childhood fantasy, this life changing experience happened when I was an adult. Since I had been taught there was no afterlife, nothing in my background offered any help in comprehending how it was possible. But it haunted me.

I never fully understood how I felt about the visit from my grandfather, but years later I was led to a book, One Last Time, written by John Edward. I learned there is no death, only a transition to another dimension of reality. Physical death does not destroy the essence of who we are: the soul and spirit, the memories and connections to those on the earth-plane. I was relieved, but felt sadness for my parents who had endured an enormous fear of death.

John Edward was a medium. He helped people who suffered the loss of a loved one by offering them information he garnered from the energy that surrounds us. He was sensitive to the messages from that invisible world, that spiritual part of our existence. I still questioned where was that place where spirit resided: was that where my grandfather, "Papa," came from? How was a medium