I had a birthday last week. I turned seventy-eight. Even I can’t believe it. I just woke up one morning, and there it was.  I had so many good wishes on my Facebook page and in my email inbox that I couldn’t answer them all. I had messages from friends I haven’t seen in a long time, messages from my daughters’ Friends, messages from friends in far off places, all sending love, love, love. My granddaughters’ messages were so beautiful they made me cry. My step granddaughters’ messages made me cry. My daughters’ calls and posts were precious and loving. My middle daughter was traveling and sent messages from every airport and called when she landed. My stepchildren wrote and called. My brothers called. I was inundated with love. It was a great day.

I’m also lucky. I’m very, very healthy. I have no aches and pains. Well, maybe my back hurts a little when I sit too much. So I try not to sit too much.  I can see, I can walk, I can do almost anything I want to do.  In May, I’m going out to California to see my daughter and granddaughter. I haven’t seen them in a while and I miss them. While I’m there, I’m going to drive up the coast, that beautiful California coast where the Pacific Ocean splashes against the rocks at Carmel. Just because I’ve never done it before. In a convertible, of course. My oldest daughter is going to come with me. My youngest daughter asked if I wanted to go to South Africa with her in October. Did I say yes?  I’m already thinking of what I want to pack. We went to India a couple of years ago, and it was a dream. A dream. My middle daughter, who lives closest to me, and I are sometimes on a quest to place my book in stores around Washington, D.C. We don’t place a lot of books, but we laugh a lot and have lunch. My granddaughter is building a web site for my book (more about that later). Life is good.

But here’s the greatest part: I can tell the truth. I am in touch with the spirit world. There it is. I probably wouldn’t have said that out loud years ago. But age has given me the greatest freedom I have ever had, and that is the freedom to tell the truth.  I don’t have to worry about its effect on my career. I don’t have to worry about what people will think. By now, I am who I am going to be.

Something happened to me after my son died. I reached out and touched the world of spirit. It responded. And saved my life. For years, I kept it a secret. I was afraid of appearing…well, you know…daft. What I have found out is that it happens to a lot of people, maybe not exactly in the way it happened to me, but it happens. Now that my story is out there – in a book – I’m hearing from people who have wanted to talk about their experiences, but were reluctant – or afraid – like I was. I love their stories. They’re sometimes alike, sometimes different, but they all boil down to one thing: the people they love who have passed over talk to them. They communicate. Sometimes they feel them close by. Sometimes they’ll have a sudden, bright thought that seems to come out of nowhere, a thought that only their loved one would convey. Sometimes their jewelry is moved. With me, it was my Christmas decorations that fell off a shelf –  my son telling me to celebrate, to continue with life.  Things happen to many of us to let us know that life is more than we can see or touch. And those of us who have had these experiences know that somehow, somewhere, our loved ones are living and love us still. We know that Nobody’s Gone for Good.

I believe that the Universe is loving and compassionate. I believe that there is comfort for those of us whose loved ones have gone into spirit. I believe that life is continual and eternal and that they who live on the other side want us to know that, and be glad. I believe it because I have been given a glimpse of it. And knowing that is what makes life good and worthwhile. I can’t see the point, otherwise.

I’m not one for whom life has been easy, so I speak not as a Pollyanna. I have a close, intimate relationship with grief and loss. I have nearly lost my own life, more than once. I miss my son and my husband every day of my life. I miss my lovely mother and my father. I know what it is to dwell in the dark. But I also know that life is not just one thing. It is night and day; it is sunrise and sunset, spring and autumn. It is lessons. It is learning. But it is forever. And it is good.

And so what is seventy-eight? It is just one more step along the way. It is time to plan a trip, time to tell the truth, time to live.

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Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Available at www.Amazon.com