my relationship with the veil

At no disrespect to the other side of the veil, prior to my husband's passing, I didn't really relate to the veil. It was a non-factor for me, and what I mean by that is that while I had known people who had passed away, it was just a part of life, and it never really hit home. My grandparents lived in Canada my whole life, and I didn’t get to see them very often, so even when I knew they had passed away, my mind told me they were still in Canada. Then, when my husband passed,  there became an intense need to understand the veil because of the separation that we had experienced. What did that mean? 

I started reading a whole bunch of gift books and other things that people would give me about death and grief and things like that. But the thing that connected me most with the veil and the relationship between my spouse actually occurred before I knew he died. 

I was sitting with my son at this Eagle interview for Scouts. Rob usually took charge of this kind of thing, but on this particular day, I stepped in so Rob could help his friend with the flight. As a child, I wanted nothing more than to be in Scouts. It was always more appealing to me than the foo-foo, fluff, and sewing that girls did. I wanted to wear the tool belts and build the campfires. In that moment, I found myself getting angry, but a fleeting thought flooded through me. “Kristen, you’ve got this.” And I was instantaneously calm. It surprised me because I don't calm down easily over stuff like that. It wasn’t fifteen minutes later that I was at home, being greeted by the sheriff. In the chaos of that moment, I remembered that I had already felt the veil so thin. 

The next one came later that evening, around 11 o’clock. After the house had emptied out, I took all my kids into our bedroom, just like we always did when Rob was out at work or on another adventure. We would have slumber parties in my room, watch movies, and pop popcorn. We'd turn it into something fun to pass the time and not feel like we were missing out. But that night, there was no movie, no popcorn, and no adventure to be had. My kids pretty much collapsed on the floor, stood there looking at them, and I thought, “I don't know how I'm gonna do this.” Immediately, as clear as day, a series of thoughts and emotions flooded in. “Kristen, we've got this. It's all true. The connections we have, they continue.” There he was again. Those thoughts that are just so intimate in this precious sense, and they can get so hard to share. But when they come up, they literally take your breath away.

It was one of these moments that inspired the Still With You Statues themselves. I was cooking at the stove, and from behind me, I could just feel his arms wrap around me, and it took my breath away. I just kept thinking, “Please don't go. Please don't go. Please don't go.”  You want to will time to stop, which you know you can’t, but you still try. 

At that point, my relationship with the veil became as real as I would allow it to be. I don’t believe the veil is any more different than between you and me here on Earth. For me, it came down to where I wanted to put the energy of my belief. Did I want to put more belief in the faith of our loved ones and what's beyond this life, or did I put more belief in the fact that there wasn’t something beyond this life? 

The reality is that you don't have the sure knowledge until you get there one day, but why would we choose to give more faith to the absence of knowledge than we would to the reality of the knowledge? When you watch a child be born, you witness the new life breathed into it, and you watch that life fade out at the end of life. You know there is a spirit beyond this mortal experience. So why would we discount the logic? 

My relationship with the veil certainly became more intimate when the passing was so close to me. And it is so thin. Those precious and spiritual moments are more real than we even know. And that's what we have to hold on to.