Hearts from Heaven: Love from the Afterlife

By Leatrice L. Marson

Hearts from Heaven is a true story of a love that transcends life on earth. Leatrice Marson met her husband Robert in 1952 while working at a large pharmaceutical company; they married in 1953 and had three children. Over the next five decades, their life together was filled with love, adventure, and faith. Robert was asked to join the companys international division in 1954, for which he traveled to thirty-three countries. In 1971, the company moved him and his family to Johannesburg, South Africa, to work on a special project.

The family returned to New Jersey in 1975. As their children grew and grandchildren came into their lives, Leatrice and Robert continued to live a full and happy life. A romantic husband, Robert often left a rose on the kitchen table or a small note with a heart on it for Leatrice when he left for work. Although cancer eventually took Roberts life in 2001, he has continued to be a presence in her life. Beginning about a month after his death, Roberts form appeared to her in church, and then other mysterious signs of his presence began happening.

As evidenced in this beautiful, heartwarming book, Hearts from Heaven, Leatrice has received many hearts from heaven from her beloved Robert. They often show up in the most unexpected ways, but always at just the right time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inspiring Voices
• Release date: Aug 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781462410200

Leatrice L. Marson

Leatrice Marson, along with her late husband, raised three children. She enjoys traveling and her church community and is a proponent of homeopathic medicine. She lives in New Jersey and Florida.

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Copyright © 2014 Leatrice L. Marson.

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ISBN: 978-1-4624-1019-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4624-1020-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014912640

Inspiring Voices rev. date: 08/04/2014

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Where It All Began

The Beginning of My Spiritual Journey

Persistence Pays Off!

The Innocents Abroad

Very Special Guests, Indeed!

Journey of an Illness

My Spiritual Journey

Our Broken Hearts

Some Powerful Coincidences!

And Then One Day, an Answer

From Robert with Love

Hope and Inspiration for all Mankind

Poetry

The Institution We Call Marriage

PREFACE

This is a true story of love beyond the grave and how this spiritual phenomenon took place in my life.

Have you ever wondered about the existence of life after leaving this earthly plane? I have, and I’m sure many others have too. I’m also certain there are those people who do believe from the beginning, based on their faith alone, in a life after this one.

One of those people who possessed unshakable faith was my mother. As a teenager, I pondered the dogma of God and creation, and I would ask my mother, If God created us, who created God? She would say, Just believe. I eventually was able to accept this theory. First Corinthians 15:12, 16–20, refers to this very subject:

If Christ is preached as raised from the dead, if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised your faith is in vain, you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all. But now Christ has been raised from the dead the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

My dear husband, Robert James Marson died November 14 2001, around nine in the morning.

Before I go into detail about how our love has transcended not only time and distance but also the afterlife, let me go back in time and tell you how our love affair began.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the following people for their help in the preparation of my book.

Denise, my niece, for typing my manuscript and coming up with the chapter titles.

My sister Virginia, for retyping my manuscript with information I had added to the story.

My daughter, Jazzmyn, for her reminders to me of other events that took place in our lives, and for once again retyping the book, with the added information.

My grandson, Austin Stoddart for suggesting that I put a dove in the center of the heart for the book cover.

I want to especially thank Tamara Pessah for encouraging me to finally write my story. She saw the tea bag heart and took the picture of it. In awe, she turned to me and, pointing a finger, said, You better write that book. I really had no intentions of doing that.

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

My parents were born and raised in Brazil, and all their families still reside there. My parents came to this country in 1924. Their journey started in 1920, when my father, who was a graduate engineer from the University of Recife, received a scholarship to attend Columbia University in New York City.

When he completed his graduate studies, he returned to Brazil in 1924 to marry his fiancée, Maria, who had patiently waited for his return. She was being groomed to be a concert pianist. Leaving her country and putting her piano studies on hiatus was difficult for her. They sailed to America with intentions of staying only five years and then returning to their homeland in a better financial situation. Fate had different intentions for them. Over the next thirteen years, they had six children. The Great Depression began in 1929 and made it hard to save money, so they gave up their idea of returning to their homeland.

Those were hard times. Jobs were scarce. Many people were out of work, including my father. He taught himself a variety of skills so he could take jobs when he could find them. Often he would work from home to support the family. He did barbering and cobbling, and he also worked for the local park for the city of Fords, New Jersey. I remember watching him sole shoes with his cobbler tools. He had different sizes of shoe irons to slip the shoes on, to facilitate the nailing and gluing of the new soles. It was fascinating to watch him and my mother be a team for our family’s survival. When she came to this country, she didn’t even know how to boil water, cook, or speak English. Back in Brazil her parents had maids. Here, she learned not only to cook but also to speak English and so much more. She was a person who would rise to the occasion. My father planted a vegetable garden, and my mother learned to can the vegetables for wintertime meals. It was common back then for people to plant their own gardens, and they also raised their own chickens. Laundry was done by hand and hung to dry. My mother even had to make her own baby food each day, for all three meals. We had hand-me-down clothes to wear, as well as clothes she would design and sew when she could save up money to buy the fabric. We all have innate abilities, and they all come to the forefront at the time of greatest need. My parents were an inspirational example of this to us.

Even though we were very poor, my parents somehow provided wonderful Christmases. How they did it, I don’t know. It was important to my parents to make the holidays a magical, happy time. Every Christmas they would decorate the tree with small, real candles and ornaments. Christmas lights were too expensive for most people, so they would clip tiny candleholders to the tree branches and insert tiny candles. It looked beautiful and magical with the lit candles. After we went to bed each night, my parents would extinguish the candles. The next morning we would find our

Reviews for Hearts from Heaven

[judyg54 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a good romantic Novella. I liked many aspects of these 4 stories. 1)I liked the beginning Prologue, which set the tone and theme of all four stories; of a Grandma who sets out to find a mate for each of her 4 granddaughters. 2) I liked how each author had different yet good message on the plan of God and how even with our best laid plans, we need to leave the final outcome up to the One who knows best. 3) Yes the outcomes in each of these stories is one you will instantly know, but it sure is fun watching how it all comes out and since I love a good romance, these stories fit my idea of a good story. 4) In most novellas there might be one or two stories that aren’t as good, but in this Novella, I enjoyed each story equally and would have a hard time picking which one I liked best. I just thought this was a Novella well worth your reading, especially if you are a romantic at heart. In story one you will see the need to not be too hasty in reacting to a blind date that doesn’t show up. Chelsea sends the blind date a rather hurtful e-mail telling her blind date what she thinks of him, finds out that the nice guy fixing up her apartment building was the blind date. It gets interesting from there on out. In story two Grandma tries to get her successful interior designer, Callie, hooked up with a architect. In story three Melissa finds herself trying to drive off her latest blind date when she realizes that he wasn’t really a blind date, but just the new youth pastor coming to call. Story four is about Matttie who is set up by Grandma to renew a relationship with Jeff, “the one who got away” years ago.