I was 29, I believe—the age at which, if you are a believer in astrology, we experience what is called our “Saturn return.” This is when the planet Saturn returns to where it was when we were born, and when we experience, ready or not, a major reality check with regard to all of the choices and decisions we’ve made thus far along our path in life. Saturn is the planet with a reputation for being a stern disciplinarian—a harsh teacher of lessons. It is also known for giving us—if we are open and humble—wisdom. So here I was, from all appearances developmentally where I should be in my very late twenties. I had finally settled into a job that seemed to suit me, and had been living on my own for some years—a grownup. I had been in several relationships, but none seemed to satisfy the deep longing I had to feel….what? To be honest, to feel safe, and secure, and treasured. Isn’t that what we all seek? If not, I suspect that it’s because we already feel that and therefore can turn our attention to other things.

Anyway, I was in my office when a trusted friend and coworker who had been widowed a few years started telling me out of the blue about an experience she’d had with a British woman who was a Spiritualist—a “psychic”—who lived in Harrisburg and who had given her a “reading” wherein my co-worker’s late husband had communicated with her. Very personal information that the psychic would have no way of knowing was mentioned during the reading, and my friend had found the whole experience immensely comforting. Intrigued, and what I would call curious but not gullible, I made an appointment to go up to Harrisburg with a friend for a reading. Oh—forgot to mention something. The week leading up to my initial conversation with my coworker, I had had a series of dreams—three, in fact—about my father, who had died suddenly when I was thirteen—a severe blow that had served to teach me very early on that what one assumed to be solid could give way very unexpectedly.

In the first dream, I was walking on the sidewalk along a very crowded, city street somewhere like in New York, when I noticed a man walking somewhat ahead of me who I recognized with amazement was my father. I tried pushing through the people ahead of me to get to him, but he was always just beyond my reach, disappearing down the subway stairs and then reappearing back on the sidewalk. I woke up frustrated but crying real tears of joy at having glimpsed even the back of a father I hadn’t seen in some sixteen years. In the second dream, I was a young girl and still living at home, after my father had died. My mother and brothers and I were relaxing in the living room after church one Sunday during the summer when there was a knock at the back door. I got up to answer it, opened the door, and was astonished to see my father. I brought him into the living room to show everyone else—“Look who’s here!!”--, but for some reason, they couldn’t see him. I finally gave up on them and remember just crawling up onto his lap and blissfully hugging him.

In the last dream, I ran into a friend who told me she had seen my father recently. Shocked, I of course asked where she had seen him, and she gave me directions to the place. I got in my car and drove to the entrance of a beautiful, lushly landscaped wooded park with a winding drive. I drove along it until I reached a clearing, and there in the distance I saw a man dressed in khaki work clothes pushing a wheelbarrow. It was my father. I got out of the car and ran to greet him, and he lifted me up and spun me around with joy. When I woke up, just as with the other dreams, I felt as if I had really been with him. The feeling was indescribable, as if I had stumbled upon a magic passageway between life on earth and the hereafter.

When I sat down with the psychic, she began with a beautiful prayer, asking for “upliftment, guidance, comfort, and encouragement” for me. She proceeded to describe my aura, noting that the color peach was prominent (interesting as that had long been my favorite color and in fact, my nickname.) She made other observations about me, which were accurate, but nothing that would startle you with their very specific or highly personal nature. She then went on to say that she had someone “there” with her—a man who was dressed in his Sunday best, with his shoes polished and his hair neatly combed—hair that would not lie flat, but that “stood up” a bit. She said she didn’t understand, but that he was showing her a picture of himself pushing a wheelbarrow and saying “show Jeanne this!” Astonished, I told her that I had just had a dream about my father in which he was pushing a wheelbarrow. The psychic said to me, “well that wasn’t a dream, my dear; that was real—you really were with your father! After all, who’s to say what’s the dream and what’s the reality?” She proceeded to tell me the story about the man who wasn’t sure whether he was a man who dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly who dreamed that he was a man.

To say that I was blown away doesn’t do justice to the feeling that I had, because such an experience absolutely stretches the boundaries of what we consider to be our world and the rules that govern it. In fact, I recall walking around for weeks afterward feeling as if I was straddling two worlds and wondering how I would ever, ever, reconcile them. It seemed impossible to go back to living life in a world where what you see is all there is. And the need to share what I experienced with others was overwhelming. I quickly found, however, that most were either simply not interested (what?!), or highly skeptical (more understandable, but frustrating nonetheless.) Looking back, the second in my series of three dreams was preparing me for this. I have since had many other experiences that would seem to confirm that our loved ones who die are able to communicate with us, and I am grateful for the assurance they have given me. But I also realize that our beliefs are tightly held and easily threatened.

I think I chose to write about this experience because a friend of mine died very recently, and yesterday I witnessed the unbearable grief of her mother at the beautiful memorial service that was held in her honor. Those of us who are raised in a religion are given, among other things, the hope of life after death. But I have to say that that hope has always seemed very vague, very far away, and very not like what we think of life as being. In fact, no matter what euphemisms are used, that afterlife has always seemed dreary, humorless, and lacking in anything that would make us not be very sad indeed to contemplate it, if not downright dread it. And so I longed to be able to reassure my friend’s mother that her daughter was fine—was good, even—was alive in a different way—a way we don’t understand yet, maybe. But I couldn’t. This is one of the places where I think—I trust--that science and spirituality will merge someday. Science teaches us that life in the physical world operates under certain laws no matter what we believe, right? So whatever happens to us when we die must be governed by certain laws as well, regardless of our beliefs, right?