She Remembers

By Ariana Glaser

Death is no match for love...

Nobody knows what happens after death, except Amber Deliah Matthews.

Just before her seventeenth birthday, Amber loses her battle with cancer and is reborn into a less than perfect life. She remembers everything that led up to this moment, and now finds herself left with only an unloving family and Oliver, a friend, and the only person who ever believed her story.

Amber has never wanted anything more than to be whisked back to the life she once loved. So, when Amber and Oliver are given the chance to venture back to Amber’s first family, they embark on the journey of a lifetime.

Equal parts moving and achingly poignant, She Remembers is a captivating story about love, loss, and the threads that bind us all together.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Foundations Books Publishing Company
• Release date: Nov 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005257897

Ariana Glaser

Ariana Glaser has been writing short stories since the age of seven. She finished writing her first full-length novella, "The World I Never Knew", at the age of eleven and self-published it a year later. Her second book, "She Remembers" will be published with Foundations Publishing. Her other creative pursuits include singing, acting, dancing, and playing piano. She resides on Long Island, New York with her family and pets.

Book preview

Forward by Brenda Muntean

While many books have a page that dedicates to whom the book is written for, inspired by, or acknowledges as an influence, not many explain who that person is or why and how they impacted the author’s life. Rather than explain how Isabella Bella Muntean came to be a source of inspiration to me, I asked her mother Brenda to please contribute to this forward and tell the world about her daughter. Her words combined with my own memories of Bella ensure that she will live forever in my heart and now in print.

Thank you, Bella. You taught me that love has no limits…

Born on March 24, 2003, Isabella Grace Muntean changed the world with her bright smile and her big heart. She was an amazing student and dreamed of attending Clemson or Harvard. She spread out her talents in many different ways, such as gymnastics, ballet, and jazz. Likewise, she was an avid flute player and was accepted into the elite state group a week before her cancer diagnosis. When she was fourteen, her parents discovered that after hearing any song, Bella could play it on the piano from memory. Bella was truly gifted!

Though she adored school, spending time with her friends, and performing with her school band, what she always loved the most was helping others. What really sparked something in Bella was a trip to Romania at the age of six. She overheard a conversation between her parents, Dorin and Brenda, about an orphanage there and pleaded to bring a suitcase full of her clothes and toys for the children. While delivering the items, a mute young girl excitedly reached out to Bella. Moved, Bella took off her necklace and placed it around the young girl’s neck.

Bella was also very active in her church when she was little, helping out at the soup kitchen and serving the homeless. In fifth grade, out of the ten required community service hours for Beta Club, she had an astonishing 106. One of her favorite ways to help out was raising money for a local child named Joe who was suffering from cancer. By selling Rainbow Loom bracelets, she raised over six-hundred dollars to help fund a Make-a-Wish trip to Legoland.

In fifth grade, Bella’s teacher nominated her for an Upstate Parents Magazine’s 10 Students Who Make a Difference. She was selected out of thousands. At the age of ten, she also received second place in a competition for fifth through eighth-graders at the State Beta Club Convention which she won with an acrylic painting that she titled, Random Acts of Kindness.

At the age of twelve, Bella was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer. Bella had always been healthy; in fact, she had only been prescribed an antibiotic once in the years prior to her diagnosis. But what was most shocking was what the young girl said as soon as the heartbreaking news was revealed; her exact words were, Mama, this isn’t God’s fault.

Throughout Bella’s cancer journey, she encouraged others to be kind and brave despite their hardships. Isabella was able to reach and inspire tens of thousands of people through her American Girl Doll Instagram account. She was very passionate about photography, which was clearly captured in her mesmerizing photographs. One of Bella’s nurses drew drawings of angels on her pillowcases and inspired by the pictures, Bella came up with the idea of gifting pillowcases full of toys to children suffering from cancer. Thus, the Angel Heart of Hope Ministry was born.

During Isabella’s Celebration of Life Ceremony, Brenda noted that Bella had stated many times that she was not afraid of death. Instead, she was only afraid to leave her loved ones behind. Beginning at the age of four, Bella had a gift to see angels that continued up until her passing and Brenda feels that God blessed her with the ability to see the other side, thus the reason she wasn’t afraid. Shortly after beginning the charity, Bella asked her mother something during her nightly bubble bath. With a smile painted on her face, she said, Ma, nothing is going to happen to me because God is going to heal me, but if something did happen, I want you to promise me you will continue my charity helping all of these children.

Shocked, Brenda replied, Bella, I can’t promise that because if something happened to you I would end up in an insane asylum because I can’t go on without you.

Bella immediately began to sob and begged her mother, Please, Ma, these children need you.

At that moment, Brenda realized how passionate Bella was about the importance of helping children like herself and promised that if something happened (which it wouldn’t because she was confident God would heal her) she would continue the charity. Bella engulfed her mother in a hug and told her how much she loved her. She never brought the subject up again. Bella’s charity was not her only way of helping children with cancer. She was also part of many different forums for kids who were battling life-threatening diseases. Unbeknownst to her parents, Bella also ministered to people all over the world of different religions and cultures. It wasn’t until Bella’s passing that her parents began receiving messages and stories of the impact of her faith. They were in shock because they knew how sick she had been and that her activities were only possible through the grace of God.

Despite her daily challenges through her journey with cancer, she managed to raise $1,100 to buy various American Girl dolls for sick children. On April 6th, 2018, Bella passed away, though her legacy will continue to impact lives and give hope forever. Bella’s charity has been continued by Brenda, and her story still resonates with people all over the world. For more information about Bella, her legacy, and the ministry, visit angelheartofhope.org

Chapter One

Iwas nothing but a mistake. That’s what Mom says. I don’t know who my dad is and I only have one brother, Max. Max is twenty-three, and I’m fourteen. In my last life, I was sixteen. People wish to be younger, but I on the other hand would rather be eighty-seven and be in my last life. This life sucks. I live in a terrible community, school is awful, my family is awful—everything is awful, except for two things. Oliver, my best friend in my current life, and the memories of my previous life.

What happens after death is unknown because no one has ever come back to tell about it. I suppose I haven’t either…technically. I’m not exactly sure what happened. When I was fourteen, I was diagnosed with cancer. Treatment didn’t seem to work completely and we all knew that the inevitable was coming. It seemed that God didn’t want the inevitable to happen. He would often fight to give me good, healthy days. After all, when you have cancer, every day is a gift. He gave me two hard-won years until neither of us could continue. One night I got a terrible headache and then I couldn’t breathe. I was rushed to the hospital. The doctors did everything they could. I remember the drugs making me very groggy. (My mom wanted it that way, I’m sure.)

I didn’t know what was happening. All I knew was that my parents and my siblings, Micah, Riley, and Jack were surrounding me. They had tears glistening in their eyes as I slowly faded into unconsciousness. That whole day was a fuzzy blur in my memories. Many things were said and done, but all I know for sure is the last thing I heard was, I love you, Amber, from my mom. And suddenly, in the blink of an eye, I wasn’t Amber anymore. Almost immediately, I was born to another person and the grogginess was gone. The pain that had coursed through my entire body since my diagnosis was...gone. It was like I’d had a total reset. But I wasn’t a dumb baby. My brain was developed. I don’t know how, but my mind, well, my mind switched from my past life to my present one. To be honest, when I found myself as a baby, I wasn’t really that shocked. I was more shocked that I remembered who I was than at the fact that I was someone I didn’t remember being yesterday. I knew that I was going to die, but I also realized what exactly had happened over the course of that momentous second.

That second between life and death.

God thanked me for keeping my faith in Him. God thanked me for believing everything would be okay. He couldn’t save me in my previous life, so He wanted me to find my faith again.

I said I was a smart baby, and I was. But I couldn’t walk or talk. The only thing that made me different from the other newborns in the hospital was that I wasn’t a newborn. I had a young body, but an old soul. I hadn’t been born that day, I’d simply been reborn into a new life. The fragile girl who was merely waiting at the edge of death’s door somehow became a new being in a matter of moments. Most new beings are balls of potential; stars that are created to shine brighter every day. But I didn’t want to become some amazing, new person. I wanted everything I’d lost.

I wanted to go home. My desire to return to my previous life was stronger than anything I’d ever felt before. But to my dismay, I soon found out that I was born in Arizona. I used to live in Florida—two thousand miles away. I couldn’t exactly crawl all the way across the country, and even if I could, how would I express to my parents that I’m their dead daughter, again in diapers?

So, I decided to wait. It was hard, especially since my current life is not exactly the best. My older brother Max is Mom’s favorite, even though all he does is lay around on the couch, drunk as a skunk. Maybe she’s like the Pharaoh from that Jewish story, afraid the smart ones will overthrow her. Max’s best grade ever was a 72, I think. My worst grade ever was a 73.

The funny thing is I don’t even pay attention in school. I don’t need to. I remember almost every lesson I learned in my last life, whether it was learning fractions with Mrs. Stalless, dissecting a frog with Mr. Patrick, or learning to count in French with Madame Berger. I was a straight-A student in my last life and that had hardly changed, even now.

That 73 was in first grade when I was having a really hard day missing my previous life. And to be honest, I just didn’t care anymore. The subject was simple addition; I could’ve done it with my eyes closed, but I simply couldn’t. I didn’t have the willpower.

When I was taking that stupid math test, I accidentally wrote down my old name. Amber Deliah Matthews. I loved my name. I still do. It rolled off my tongue and even now makes me warm just thinking about it. I was Amber. Some people hate their name, but I couldn’t imagine being called anything else, especially not my new name, Karen Ann George. It sounds like such an ordinary name. Maybe it’s pretty for someone else, but it isn't for me because it’s not…well, because it's not Amber Deliah Matthews.

My name is Amber. It’s not Karen. I used to try to tell my teachers that but they would just shake their heads and say, Sit back down, Karen.

Oliver doesn’t know if he had a past life but he admitted to feeling a strange aching every once in a while. He never told anyone about it until he met me in the 4th grade. I told him I thought he was aching for his previous life, even though he wasn’t sure he had had one at all.

Imagination is such a beautiful thing. You can take yourself away from the world in the blink of an eye. That’s why I encapsulated myself in my memories of my past. It’s practically the only thing I had left.

Oliver doesn’t have the best life either. His parents are rich but that’s the problem. Our school district sucks, yet his parents don’t care enough to enroll him in a nice, expensive school. They used to be nice to him, he says. And then they started drinking, just like my mother and then my brother. Oliver’s parents didn’t abuse him or anything, they were just, well…there. They didn’t care about him at all and in return, he had grown to lose interest in them as well.

For this reason, a few months after we met, we made a pact. We would save every nickel we earned or found. I told him how my true parents had adopted three children in their lifetime, and that I and my sisters, Ellie and Harley, were their only biological children. The adopted children were all born into unsafe homes and my parents adopted them because they felt bad for them.

They would adopt you, too, I had said. We were sitting on a bench in the center of the playground, watching as children frolicked and screamed and played. But we weren’t like them. Even before we met, Oliver would often sit on that exact bench, book in hand. Imagining was my escape; reading was his. You could live with us, since you don’t remember your previous life.

He had pondered it for a mere moment, and then he agreed. We would save all the money we could until we could fly across the country to Florida.

Even though he didn’t remember his past life like I did, I described so many memories and details from mine that it was as if my life had become his. It was as if he was just another one of my siblings back home. Maybe that’s because he’s the only one who calls me Amber.

Oliver’s the only one I can trust and he’s the only one that trusts me. He’s the only one who ever believed my story. I once tried to tell my mother, foolishly possessing the slightest hope she’d believe me and return me to my proper home, but it didn’t go over too well.

We calculated that two plane tickets would cost $418.16, including tax. I’d always been good with numbers when I wanted to be. For most people that would take maybe an hour to get, but we weren’t exactly old enough to get our working papers at the age of ten. And, of course, our parents never gave us an allowance.

So, we gathered money that we found on the streets. We would sometimes steal from our parents in small increments when we were younger. Just our luck, we were both caught doing so by age eleven so we couldn’t do it anymore. By then, we only had $192 saved between the two of us—not nearly enough.

But miracles happen, Oliver had said. Even if it takes years, we will find them, and I believe him. The possibility,