Heavenly Visits

By Betty Jane Rapin

After death, reuniting in heaven with our deceased loved ones is a belief readily accepted by many religions. However, it is possible to have a get-together with our dearly beloved in the here and now by dreams or other means. Some dispute this possibility. However, in this book, forty ordinary people share their personal experiences. These accounts of visits and messages from loved ones human and pets are proof that this is a possibility for anyone, even the strongest nonbeliever.

In her book, Betty discusses the death of two husbands, how she experienced the different stages of grief, what she did to get her through it, and what she learned that made a major difference in the grieving process with her second husband.

She explains the many ways the departed can make contact and how you can sharpen your observation skills to recognize the often-subtle heavenly visits and messages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524531119

Betty Jane Rapin

Betty Jane Rapin is a freelance writer who has published more than 250 articles, essays, stories, and poetry in magazines, newspapers, newsletters, Web sites, and three anthologies. She is the author of Dreams Designed by God for You, a study guide and workbook. Besides being a published writer, she is a minister, spiritual teacher, and adult education teacher, and workshop facilitator, inspirational and motivational speaker. Betty has appeared in many radio and television talk shows where she has been interviewed about her personal experiences with dreams, out-of-boy travel, near-death experiences, reincarnation, and many other related spiritual topics.

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Copyright © 2016 by Betty Jane Rapin.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016912621

ISBN:   Hardcover     978-1-5245-3112-6

              Softcover     978-1-5245-3110-2

              eBook           978-1-5245-3111-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 09/24/2016

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Contents

Acknowledgment

Introduction

Chapter 1

Experiencing Life

Chapter Quotes • Journey of Soul • Celestial Travelers • Parting with Pets: A Painful Ordeal • The Grieving Process

Chapter 2

Stages of Grief

Chapter quotes • Dealing with Denial • Denial of Diagnosis • Reality Resolves Denial • Bargaining with God • Guilt Trap Release • Anchored to Anger

Chapter 3

Stages of Grief Continued

Chapter quotes • Managing the Anger • Depression: The Downward Spiral • Recognize and Rectify Depression • Acceptance: Facing the Future • Adjustment and Rebuilding Your Life

Chapter 4

Ways Heavenly Visits Occur

Chapter quotes • The Love Bond Connection • Visits with Loved One in Dreams • Confirmation by Sight • Signs and Symbols Carry a Message • Sight, Sound, Smell, or Touch Validation • Follow Your Heart and Believe

Chapter 5

Personal Experience Stories

Chapter quotes • Jonah Talk • Candy: A Sweet Sheltie • My Snuggles: Josie • Cyrus Comes to Visit

Chapter 6

Personal Experience Stories

Chapter quotes • The Loss of a Cat: Fifi • Mickey’s Farewell • Purrfect Ending • Family United • Butterfly Messenger

Chapter 7

Personal Experience Stories

Chapter quotes • Symbolic Recognition of Heaven-Sent Message • To Sparky with Love • Alerts from Alice • Grandmother’s Gift of Love • Comfort from a Hawk

Chapter 8

Personal Experience Stories

Chapter quotes • Dad: A Magical Personality • The Snack Go-Getter • A Child Helps Mother Believe • A Mother’s Vision

Chapter 9

Personal Experience Stories

Chapter quotes • Many Mother Stand-Ins: Much Love • Gifts from Heaven • Experience by Design • Unlikely Aromatherapy

Chapter 10

Personal Experience Stories

Chapter quotes • A Loved One’s Presence • A Night at the Mausoleum • Phone Call from Heaven • A Spiritual Apology • Precious Moments of Time

Chapter 11

Personal Experience Stories

Chapter quotes • Promises Kept • Emma’s Nice Man • Gary Says Good-Bye • A Night Visitor • Guardian Angel Grandmother • EDNA • Guidance from George • Knowingness

Chapter 12

Personal Experience Stories

Chapter quotes • Extracts of Life Experiences • Visitation Rights • A True Friendship • A Son’s Mission of Love • A Wonderful Gift • An Irish Blessing • Siblings

About the Author

Other Works by Author

Bibliography

I dedicate this book with heartfelt compassion to everyone who is now or has ever been physically, emotionally, and mentally struggling with the death of a loved one. It is my hope that in some small way my words can bring peace of mind and emotional solace.

Acknowledgment

Sincere thanks to those who contributed their personal experiences with departed loved ones for this book. Most of their names are real; some are pseudonyms. If a name appears to be the same as yours, it is coincidental.

To Deb Scelza, a special thank-you for editing this book. Much appreciation to my family, friends, adult education class members, and workshop attendees who gave me encouragement and support in my endeavor to write about this intense, thought-provoking, least-talked-about subject—the death of a loved one.

I do not claim to be an expert on life after death, nor am I a psychic, clairvoyant, or medium. I am, like all of you, Soul, a student in the University of Life, continuously learning from my experiences. I have, however, done extensive research on the subject, held classes, presented workshops, and personally experienced grief from the loss of loved ones. The heavenly visits and messages from my loved ones helped me through the grieving process.

At the age of eighty-five, I am extremely excited and happy to share what I have learned. Through my study, research, and actual experiences, it is my hope dear reader to give you a greater understanding and some helpful information about the painful process of grieving from the loss of a loved one, along with ideas to help you learn to let go and find closure.

Introduction

Heavenly Visits is about actual visits with departed loved ones, whether humans or pets, through dreams and other means, related to me by individuals who have received comfort and much needed closure from having these experiences. We share our personal experiences in hopes that the reader may find something they can relate to, obtain insight from, and use in their lives to better deal with their personal grief.

This book is not just about how to have a heavenly visit with and receive messages from your departed loved ones to heal a hurting heart. This is the intent, but the book is also about the way to achieve healing by learning how to deal with the intense emotions—stages of grief—arising from the loss of a loved one.

The five stages of the grieving process that Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross pioneered are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I add two more that I also went through: guilt and adjustment. I share with you what I experienced in each stage, what I did to get through it, and what I learned that made a major difference between the grieving process after the death of my first husband and that same process after the death of my second husband.

You will gain knowledge of the many ways your departed loved ones make welcomed heavenly visits and learn how to sharpen your observation skills to recognize these, often, subtle happenings. But most of all, you will discover ways to get a grip on your personal situation from the valuable insights you may glean from this book.

Continue reading to learn how to:

deal will all the emotions related to grieving.

cope with loss, ease the pain of grief

meet with a departed love

develop your observation skills to recognize heavenly contact

heal your hurting heart—find closure

recognize when a dream is an actual heavenly visit

expand awareness to distinguish the reality of what your senses tell you

change your viewpoint—change your life

As you continue reading, you may come to the realization that you too are already experiencing the presence of your departed loved ones but have been unaware of this welcomed extraordinary happening.

My wish for you, dear reader: happy reading, happy visitation, and a happy life.

Chapter 1

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Experiencing Life

There are things that we don’t want to happen but have to accept, things we don’t want to know but have to learn, and people we can’t live without but have to let go. –Author Unknown

1

Experiencing Life

Journey of Soul

You are reading this book because someone you love has crossed over, or you now have a loved one that is nearing the end of this earthly life. You’re looking for guidance on how to understand the why of it, what to do next, how to cope, how to let go, and most of all, how to find closure to ease your grief and heal your hurting heart.

All of us who have or are still suffering the loss of our dear loved one wish we could see them just one more time if only for a brief moment. Of course, we would like this reunion to be more than just a quick look. We want to feel their touch, hear their voice, and find the comfort we so desperately seek to release the sorrowful twinges of heartache. We can!

We are Soul on a journey to experience life in a myriad of ways with the specific purpose of learning from what we go through. As the opening quote tells us, There are things we don’t want to happen. Death of a loved one is one of the multitude of things we don’t want to happen to us, but we have to accept it as part of the journey of Soul.

Learning to live without a loved one is difficult for many of us who don’t want to let go, so we nurture our grief by clinging to memories of a life that no longer exists for us. There are major changes we need to face and learn how to live with, and we need to recognize that life, regardless of what we feel, will continue. We will endure the stages of grief then; when new blossoms of life flourish, we will find happiness in living once again. Life goes on, and so do we.

When Soul travels from heaven to earth by birth, we receive an unwritten roundtrip ticket to return to the place from which we came when we die—the heavenly worlds of God. When the appointed time comes for God to call us home, we should be prepared since we know in advance that death is inevitable for every living thing.

Death is not the end of life is a statement you’ve probably heard before which brings little consolation to one grieving the demise of someone precious. Be it human or animal, the pain is the same—heart wrenching. In his book, Wisdom on Life after Death, Harold Klemp gives this description of death: Death is a doorway, a transition into the inner worlds. Births and deaths mark the journey of Soul. The translation, or movement, from one stage of experience to another is but a further step on Soul’s journey home to God.

We all have two things in common; we—Soul—are born to experience and learn from life then die to continue life in the hereafter, something each of us will experience on our journey of Soul. For some, reincarnation is a belief that they will incarnate to live another lifetime; for others, living for eternity in paradise is their reality; and for some, death is the end—there is nothing else. Each of us learns the truth about the afterlife that we can accept, and if it makes us happy, then it’s our reality.

Death and grieving is one major part of this earthly experience that Soul is usually destined to endure. We cannot escape this fate; it is part of the divine plan. The best we can do is learn how to get through it. With each heartbreaking loss, there is something to be learned that could make the next demise that comes into your life easier to bear. Sharing what we have experienced can help someone else face the difficult task of handling the loss of his or her loved one.

People who have dreams of their dearly departed seem to have an easier time of going through the grieving process. Dreams are the easiest way one can have heavenly visits with their departed loved ones. In chapter 4, I will describe some of the many other ways your loved one can communicate with you.

Chapters 8 through 12 are personal experiences and stories ordinary people have contributed to the making of this book. As you read their heavenly experiences with their deceased love ones, their particular story may trigger a memory that will prove to you that you too did indeed also have a visit from a loved one that you were unaware of happening.

I became interested in dreams when I was five years old because of the encouragement of my father. Unbeknownst to me, my dad was using the dreams I told him about to pick out a word like rainbow and then look the corresponding number up in a Dream Numbers book to play that number with a neighborhood bookie.

Playing numbers was a popular hobby of many of my neighbors as well as relatives looking for a penny hit to make their day. Yes, in 1936, a penny went a long way, and a hit would bring you six dollars—a small fortune back in those days. Today you can pay that much for a specialized cup of coffee. Yikes!

My father unknowingly piqued my interest in dreams. My dreams, I soon discovered, were not ordinary dreams. I lost three pets, two of which died; the other, a dog, was given away because of his destructive habit of raiding the neighbors’ chicken coop. I had dreams with my pets that brought me joy as I played with them—and the reality of these dream experiences brought me peace of mind that my dear pets were alive and well somewhere in the heavenly world of my dreams.

At the age of twelve, the death of my grandfather Peter ignited a flame of burning interest in the afterlife. I was having wonderful, true-to-life dreams with my grandfather and his German shepherd dog, King. I so looked forward to these dreams. I was visiting heaven—I had to be. If he was still alive in my dreams, then heaven was real, and my visits with him were real.

Each time someone died, be it a relative or neighbor, I would have dreams of being with them—real-to-life dream encounters. The dreams seemed so realistic, just as if I was there with them, talking, interacting, touching, and enjoying the experience. Now, dreams, death, and the afterlife became a prime interest.

Talking about this subject of dreams no longer interested my father for numbers, and my mother was really against me discussing the subject—both parents thought it was utter nonsense. To my disappointment, not one relative would listen to my "fantasy world," as they called it. However, in my heart, I knew visiting the departed was a reality, which I now kept to myself.

I began a lifelong secret quest to learn all I could about these fascinating subjects—dreams, death, and the afterlife. In my pursuit for answers, I have not been disappointed with what I have experienced, learned, and benefited from. Now, at eighty-five years young, I am still striving to delve deeper into the warehouse of knowledge and spiritual wisdom that awaits me.

I envisioned the idea for this book in 2007 after instructing adult education classes at the local high school. Several people attending the classes told me to write a book about this subject, which I fully intended doing—but three other books were written and published before this one—Heavenly Visits. It was on my eighty-fifth birthday, this January 7, 2016, that I awoke and said aloud, It is time to write that book about communication with deceased loved ones.

My first class on the topic title was Communicate with the Other Side. Forty-nine people attended in response to this description of the class. Have you ever been aware of a loving presence, felt a cold sensation on your body, smelled a familiar scent, caught a glimpse of a fleeting shadow, heard someone’s voice, or had dreams of deceased loved ones?

We all have the innate ability to communicate with a departed loved one from the other side. You can learn to develop this ability, which can open new horizons of understanding about life in the hereafter, to help you in the here and now.

The classes were always interesting and well attended. A regular classroom could not accommodate the number of people attending, so I presented my class in the lecture hall. During class, many were surprised to learn their loved ones had been communicating with them, but since they had no idea what to look for, they missed this wonderful opportunity.

Millions aren’t prepared for what the sting of death can do to those left behind, not only emotionally but also often the added stress of a financial burden. Others feel comfortable discussing death and trusting in their belief that there is a heaven and are not afraid of their demise, so the often taboo topic of death and funeral arrangements are discussed well in advance. When my first husband died, we had borrowed on his life insurance, so there was very little money at the time of his demise. We could not afford house insurance, so we had none, and we were so young we were definitely unprepared for his departure from this life. It was a financial disaster.

My second husband, Richard, and I took care of our funeral arrangements to take the burden off our children, not only financially but also to ease the task of making funeral arrangements at a difficult time. Our children thanked us for this gift of love, as my daughter Elaine put it. When Richard died, it was indeed quite a different scenario dealing with the death of this spouse than the previous one.

A good suggestion would be to make provisions for your passing now. There are payment plans available, such as I used, that will allow you to prepare in advance without too much of a financial struggle. Remember, you are never too young to think about this matter. Longevity of life is not a guarantee because your grandparents or parents lived to be in their late nineties. A morbid statement to make when you are grieving over the loss of a loved one, I know; however, it is a necessary element of life to be prepared, if at all possible, to avoid more disappointment and heartache than need to be for the loved ones left behind.

Celestial Travelers

Soul is on a celestial journey, a traveler, and a temporary visitor to earth. I now have figured out that my first husband, Bunny, and I were Soul travelers whose lives were destined to intertwine. We met to love, to share our lives together, which we both thought would be for at least fifty years. However, it was a brief moment in cosmic time that we shared these cherished experiences in our journey together.

I feel the need to explain my husband’s nickname, Bunny. That is what’s on his tombstone instead of his given name, Sylvester, which he despised. His cousin, Albert, and he were very close, always together. Albert’s nickname was Rabbit, and one day he said to my husband, You know, you’re my sidekick, and I think I’ll call you Bunny. The name stuck.

I grieved over the loss of pets, friends, relatives, and close family members, grandparents, parents, and two husbands. My first husband Bunny’s death was for me a downward spiral into the pit of despair from which I thought I would never return.

We married on July 23, 1949; Bunny was nineteen, and I was eighteen. We were just seven months apart in age—as young and filled with hope of a happy long life together as husband and wife, mother and father, then as grandparents. Our first grandchild was born fourteen months after his death, later followed by four more. These grandchildren never had the opportunity of knowing their wonderful, loving grandfather.

On Wednesday, January 15, 1972, eight days after my forty-first birthday, my husband of twenty-three years, also age forty-one, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. His passing took its toll on my health—physically, emotionally, and mentally. I fell to pieces and went through the five stages of grief made famous by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance and two more that I experienced—guilt and adjustment.

I spend weeks sitting on the couch depressed, heartsick, and crying during the day and sobbing myself to sleep. My eyes were constantly red. I had no desire to cook, clean, or care about my personal hygiene; some days I never got dressed. I would have spiraled further downward had it not been for my thirteen-year-old son Michael, whom I had to take care of, and I needed to get back to work because of the need for money to pay bills. Six months after his death, I was still very depressed when I returned to work. It was a dreadful ordeal, this grieving process.

No matter how my family, friends, coworkers, and occasionally a stranger would try to help me get over the pain of a hurting heart, it didn’t seem to work. My life was forever changed. I was definitely changed—I was a widow. Without Bunny, I felt lost, abandoned, and scared of what the future held for the entire family. Even more so, did I have the ability to survive and thrive? To sum it up, I felt stranded on a desolated island, with no idea of what to do to survive and, worst of all, no husband to turn to.

I never wanted to endure such a painful experience again. Reality check! This was never going to happen; not experiencing the loss of a loved one is a fantasy. Death is part of the cycle of life. Dealing with is necessary, and continuing to live life without our loved one is required. How to do this? I wondered.

My husband’s dying was a catalyst for me to further my research on death and the afterlife. In November of 1972, ten months after my husband’s death, I began to find the answers I was seeking and much more. I now fully understand, accept, and even welcome my crossing to the other side as part of my Soul journey. I have a clearer concept of the fact that our loved ones do not leave us without a reason.

It was a surprising revelation when I learned that, as Soul, our loved ones agree to depart at the given time. Yes, I said, as Soul, they agree. Prior to entering this world through birth, Soul was made aware of its mission and its departure time. However, at birth, the memory of this fact is removed along with other memories. The awareness that our loved one, as Soul, agrees with leaving us can make it easier to gradually let go of the grief when that loved one dies because you accept it as part of their journey.

The loss of Bunny was a big part of my spiritual journey, my mission to learn from the experience to gain spiritual unfoldment. That I did. I learned that I