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Parents know how caring for a child is central to family life, and its safety is on the mind from babyhood onwards. Losing a child is something parents can never forget. The tragic death of Rhys Jones, an eleven-year old boy, who was fatally shot on his way home from football practice in August, shocked a whole nation. To nurse a child through a serious illness and then lose it is tragic enough. To have it murdered by a bullet on its way home to tea is enough to break the heart of any parent.
The media carried the story of the Jones’ family’s grief for days, and millions of parents grieved with them – and also grieved for a society where a gang culture has taken so many young lives in recent days.
For all the detailed coverage of the family’s grief and the sympathy shown in words accompanying dozens of floral tributes in Croxteth, no one asked what was happening to young Rhys, the murdered boy, yet, as we know, he is as alive and aware as he ever was when playing football or eating his tea. To the presenters and journalists the question did not arise – Rhys was dead. There was nothing to be said about him. Yet, as we know, millions of people around the world watch psychic programs such as Colin Fry’s
‘6ixth Sense’, where children who have died manage to identify themselves to parents and send meaningful and loving messages to them through a medium. These messages are necessarily short and have to be passed on in the medium’s voice but they prove that the child’s life goes on. The point is, what is that life like? Where is that living, loving soul they knew so well? What are they thinking and doing now?
I remember, an incident, some fifteen years ago, in the Exeter Spiritualist Church where I was secretary, of two people coming in to the church, just after the service had started. We later found that they were on holiday from Scotland. During the clairvoyance, Pam Beer, the medium, brought them a message from their daughter.
“Oh! What has happened to her?” she said.
“She was murdered a month ago!” was the response.
Pam continued, “She says, ‘Dad, I’ve been dying to get through to you! Will you promise me something – cross your heart and hope to die?’”
“Yes” said her father.
“Stop looking for the man who did it. It’s not your job! Will you promise?”
“Yes”, said the father.
I forget some of the rest of the message, except that the daughter said she was happy and sent her love. The couple were so thrilled with the message that they photographed the rostrum, the inside and outside of the church and, as their car blocked the exit from the church, we were all rather delayed in going home.
Having acted as recorder with a group of trance mediums, for sixteen years, I have had many conversations with children who have passed over. After being lost for a time, one 12 year-old lad, Billy, returned to us every few months, to describe his life, and growing up in the next world. He had been invited by an older boy to go for a ride in a car. He did not know the car was stolen and the driver unqualified. He was killed when it crashed, to the desolation of his grieving mother. At first Billy refused to believe he was dead – he just thought people had stopped talking to him. His mother kept crying and would not answer him. When we explained that he had died, and therefore she could no longer see him, and that he could now move on to another world, a spirit helper came and took him on to the Children’s Sphere of the life after death.
Working with a team of trance mediums, we have the advantage that spirits can speak in their own voice and accent through an entranced medium. Billy was no exception and had an unmistakable, cheerful, lively, cockney voice. He was taken on to a place reserved for those who have no family members to care for them. This a flavour of what he said to us:
“I got a teacher. He’s nice. His name’s Trevor. Don’t sound like an angel, does it? He loves children. He died trying to save a child. I’ve learned all sorts of things. We have to try and make things by thinking about them. Sounds daft, doesn’t it? There’s a lovely big box and you try to make the thing inside it, but you can’t see it. Then they open it up and they see if you’ve made it properly. There’s some funny things come out. I tried to make a tree the other day; you’ve never seen anything so funny in your life.
If you want a toy to play with, or a ball, they won’t give it to you, you have to make it. I made a good football, I did. They said I knew what a football looked like. These grown-ups, when they do it, they just go like that, and there’s this train or flowers. It’s fantastic. They say there’s a serious side to it but it’s great fun. It’s not hard like it is down here. Everything’s fun and if you do something like my tree, instead of the teacher being cross with you, the teachers just laugh and I laugh too.
Lovely buildings there are. Our school’s lovely. It’s not like what you lot do (two of the group are teachers). I help some of the little ones now. I made a little rocking horse for this baby that came.”
“What do you learn in school?”
“We do history of things, but instead of sitting in school and having these blooming books out and being bored silly, there’s this real windmill and you can go in and they show it you. Then they showed us a water wheel, and then the first steam engine, and you see them all working. It’s very interesting.”
“Do you do Biology?”
“Yes! We go out in the fields and they say we ‘re going to learn about animals. It’s not like your schools where we’re just given pictures; they bring on the animals and we can talk to them and touch them, and some of them let us ride on them. I rode on the elephant’s trunk, I did. We’re learning about insects and things, as well. They bring them all in - a load of spiders. I like ‘em.
Sometimes they take us around the world, which is Geography. I can go and see it all. Can you stand on top of the Empire State Building? I can.”
“Are you happy now?”
“Oh yeah! Wouldn’t go back now. No, it’s lovely. Very soon I’ll be moving up a grade. I shall be moving on. I’ll be doin’ real learnin’.”
Over the years, Billy gave us fourteen separate talks and he still visits us briefly every Christmas to say a few words. He went to a college and then the equivalent of a university. After a well-known film actress gave us a talk about the arts in the Spirit World, she spoke about Billy. She said, “That young man who was here just now. You think of him as a little boy, don’t you.”
“Yes.”
“He’s a fine young man now but when he comes here he takes on this younger persona again, as you know him, but he’s great fun and very intelligent and, how can I put it? Very kindly and thoughtful and a lovely soul if you could see the light that comes from him. I thought you’d like to know that.”
Copies of a tape recording of Billy speaking, and of the book, ‘Billy Grows Up in Spirit’ had gone to many parts of the world and when we asked Billy what his work was now he said,
“I’m still doing all the work I do. I’m watching out in all the places where this tape goes, ‘cos you see when they listen to it, it’s like there’s a light what says ‘Billy’ in the cosmos, and I know I’ve got to go and see if there’s anything I can do. It’s a lot of work.”
“I’m sorry!”
“No, this is the work I came to do down ‘ere. I’m ever so pleased!”
A lady member of the group asked, “Do you have a girl friend Billy?”
“No! I got friends – girls, or ladies now – I’m not a kid any more.”
“Do people have boy friends and girl friends?”
“Well, we ‘ave parties. We go off to a lovely place in the mountains and we play games and we sit and talk to each other.”
“You don’t kiss any more?”
“I ain’t goin’ to kiss and tell! That’s private. You see I didn’t go through that on earth so there is some experimenting.”
“What games do you have?”
“Well I went what you would call the equivalent of skiing – ‘ave you seen those people goin’ down the mountain on a board, not on two skis? Well we do that, only we can’t hurt ourselves. We go sailing, we go under the water; we do trips to other spheres; we’ve got our lessons to learn. Sometimes you’re with your own guide – a private one. I learnt all about cars - remember I told you I was interested in engines - I learned about aeroplanes and boats, how they worked, but I’m not very keen on boats. They’re all right. I like goin’ on one of those yachts; they’re lovely they are. But if we go over the sea and we’re right out in the middle, you can just dive in and you’re safe. You can go down an’ down an’ down and see all the things down there, all the beautiful things.”
“You remember my old Mum. Well she ain’t ‘ere yet but she won’t be long, and I looks forward to seeing her when she comes over. That’ll be great!”
“She’ll be pleased to see you!”
“I think she’ll be a bit surprised.”
“OK! See you sometime! I’m off. Work to do. Bye!”
“Bye-bye, Billy!”
So many Mums and Dads will be amazed at who meets them when they pass over, just as Billy’s Mum will be! What a pity that so many of them will have no reassuring message from their lost child and do not know that they will see him or her again one day.
Michael Evans
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