Life to Afterlife: Mom can you hear me OFFICIAL FULL MOVIE

(light music) - [Craig] Imagine you're goin' about your life, everything seems normal, everything seems to be in its place and then out of nowhere, the worst possible thing happens. Your child is gone. Join me while I sit down with these 17 brave parents that were not only able to piece their lives back together again, but develop a communication from the beyond. (thunder crashing) (dramatic music) (sentimental music) - Honestly, I felt like I'm incredibly blessed. I mean I loved, loved everything about life. - I honestly felt like life was pure magic and I literally would wake up everyday and say, "Wow, can life be this good?" - From the beginning, I believe I was living a fairytale and it was just everything we possibly thought happiness could be. - Oh gosh, we had a very happy family. Everything seemed to be perfect. - We did everything together. We loved to travel, so the kids would always be getting into our Chrysler Town and Country and going all over the place. - We had a lot of fun, we did a lot of things. We went to concerts, we snowboard, we're always active. - We as a family did everything together, so we had a great thing goin'. - We were busy, the kids were in lots of sports, activities. - Many respects, it was very typical, so a family of four. - Loving and sensitive and we were always close. - I think by most measures we were a very happy, normal, engaged family. - Probably just like any other normal quote unquote normal family out there. - It was amazing, it was everything that I'd hoped and dreamed of. Just a very full, amazing, awesome life. - There was a lot of love and we were very close, blessed. (light upbeat music) - [Carol] I had teachers that would tell me when he was just in elementary school, I had a teacher call me to tell me that she was so proud of him because this one boy that people pick on all the time, Tyler stood up for this boy when everybody was teasing him, and she said he started yelling at the kids. And this was when he was just a little boy. - When Carly was, she was just about four years old and we were in the grocery store and we were heading to the checkout and there were balloons or stuff at the checkout and she wanted something and I said no, it wasn't the time for a treat, we were just here to get groceries, and she had a meltdown. And she looked at me and she said to me, "Out of all the mothers in the universe, why was I born to you?" And the woman behind me said to me, "Wow, that was really heavy." - Such a loving, nurturing, easy child, easy child. His upbringing, he was always the go to kid for peace. All the kids that played with him, even the kids that remember him from his schooling, he was the peacekeeper on the bus. - Oh, really? - He was the peacekeeper on the bus, for even the elder children. - It's funny, now Spencer, our oldest son, very easy, quiet kid, he'd sit and draw and occupy himself, slept through the night. Griffin was the complete opposite. He was into everything and up all night and colic, and then just all over everywhere in the house. I mean it was funny just even changing that kid's diaper, it was like a wrestling match. It's like, here, you hold him, he's probably gonna pee on me and we're trying to get the diaper on. Yeah, he was a bundle, ball of energy and yet joy at the same time 'cause he was just so much alive, just so there. - He hit the ground running. He started walking when he was seven months old and never stopped. And he was always the biggest kid in any situation. He ended up being six foot six. - [Craig] Six foot six? - He had a size 17 foot as well. - [Craig] Wow. - Very, very big kid with a heart to match. - He was the kind of the kid that was like the go to. A kid with a cut or if they were sad at home or if they needed to talk to somebody, Austin was always the go to. - Derrick was my firstborn, he was premature so he's a little slow out of the gate. But he was calm, cautious, hesitant, serious, very sensitive, and at the same time, he wanted to make everybody okay. If there was a conflict in the family, he wanted to smooth it over so there'd be no arguing, no fighting. - I realized he was super sensitive. He liked to stay home a lot. Then I realized he was probably picking up other people's energy as a teenager. I didn't figure that out til after. He loved kids, he worked at a after... our church, summer camps. - From the day he was born, he had what people will say is an old soul. Have a very special relationship, not just your typical mother son bond. - [Craig] Okay. - And highly empathic. - Highly empathic? - Highly empathic, very caring, would give you the shirt off his back. - Garrett loved attention, he liked to do things that would be silly to get the attention. He always had a smile on his face. Loved animals, loved babies and kids, very loving. Just a really, really sweet kid, always. - Devon was a shy child, kind of unsure with who he was when he was young and he would often go inward. We would watch him pace the floor, go up and down the couch for hours at a time and his brain always seemed somewhere else. And when he was in school, he didn't make friends easily, but he was intelligent. - Very introspective. - Yeah. - And how old was he would pace the floor? - I think two. - Very easy to be around, had a dry sense of humor. - [Craig] Yeah? - Pretty funny, but really was none judgemental and befriended kids that didn't have a lot of friends and had empathy for them and would do stuff with them and enjoy their company as well. - Happy child, fun, full of energy, just life. He really was the light in our family. His nickname as he got older was sunshine, 'cause that really depicted who he was. He had that joi de vivre in life, he loved everything, he was just adventuresome. - He was always in a hurry, always running, riding his bicycle fast, he was always in a hurry. Played soccer, wrestled, kind hearted. - Kind of a dare devil. - Yeah? (match blazing) (light music) - [Craig] What did you believe back then about death? - I started believing that when you die, there was nothing, like when you sleep, and I would sleep so deeply and I remember thinking all the time when I would wake up, "Wow, that must be what it's like when you die, just nothing." - Did you fear death? - I feared death, yes, and chose not to think about it and my first experience was with a grandparent passing, which just it felt like it was a natural thing to happen. He was old, he was ill, he was gone, and I chose not to think about where he was or what happened and just-- - So you felt no connection, the disconnect was there? - No connection whatsoever. - So what did you think that happens when you die? - I didn't think about it. - What about you? - I knew that they went to a higher place. I had loved ones already on the other side, where he hadn't really experienced death, I had already experienced it with my Grandfather, my Great Grandfather, so I knew they were in another place. I didn't fear it. - [Craig] What was your belief back then about death? - Well, wow, now I was a believer, but I had this belief that life was a test and that God was going to judge me and I was probably failing the test based on just this perfection complex I had about, gosh, I'm never gonna be good enough. - Yeah. - And so a lot of my religious practice was probably out of fear. Well, I better check off the boxes. I better make sure I do it right. I wanna be in good stead when I meet my maker. I'm not saying that was a bad thing, but it certainly has shifted having had a peak into the other side now. - I did not fear death. Being in India and seeing people dying on the streets but also seeing this celebration of death, and I don't know if you know about in India when you get married, you wear red, women wear red. - Okay. - When you pass, you wear white (crickets chirping) and white is the transition color, no one wears black and death just doesn't exist in an Eastern religion, there's no death. - Oh yeah, I'm still, I still even though I know that we don't die, I still have a fear. - And I really didn't spend much time on it because even I know none of us are gettin' out of here alive, I also felt like this is never going to be touching me. - Both of my parents died young, so I was only 24 when my Dad died suddenly, and then I was 35 when my Mom died and she was only 66. My mom actually came to me in spirit. - [Craig] Okay. - So I knew that she was whole. - How long after she transitioned did she manifest? - Like right away. - Like right away? And do you think why? Where you having some trouble? - No. It was just random? - I think I was open to it, I believed in it. Dad's sister was a well known in her little town psychic medium. - Oh. - So we talked about the door would fly open and my mom, "Oh, come on in." to spirit or whatever. Sometimes she set a table if the door flew open. Grew up that way, but we also grew up going to church. - Mmhmm. - So I didn't fear that, but I didn't really talk to people about it. - I knew that it wasn't the end. I knew this vehicle, this body died. I knew our soul went on, but I didn't have the information, and nor did I have the time to actually research it. - Nor the need. - Or the need. - [Craig] Yeah. - To see where they went. Anybody that passed in my life at that time were well into their 70s or 80s. - [Craig] Natural courses. - Correct. - I didn't really think about it that much. - I didn't fear death, 'cause I put no thought into it. - You just figured that when you die it's-- - Yeah, that was it. - Lights out. - Mmhmm. - The core part of me is gonna go on. Then the core part of those I love is gonna go on. - Mmhmm. - Is what I believed and continue to believe. And as I've gotten older, it's been more evidence based too than just belief based. - Did you fear death? - Absolutely, it was my biggest fear, especially being a mom of kids. You don't want anything to happen to yourself and then you're always looking out trying to protect your children. So death is terrifying, terrifying. - Did you fear death at that point? - It's just the uncertainty of it, just the unknown. So I guess partially, yes. - I fear death. (light music) - By the time I get home, he'll be there because I'm sure it's a quick ride. And it wasn't like Tyler to just take it and disappear. I thought, "I bet he went for a quick stroll." The school was a few minutes away. So on the way home, of course I started having anxiety. I was always the overprotective mom, and so immediately I start calling him and it's going immediately to his voicemail, straight to his voicemail. So I think, "Okay, he's riding, maybe his phone's off, maybe the charge is low." So I'm having anxiety, and driving home on the radio I hear that there's been a collision at Cape Creek and Pinnacle Peak, and immediately I start to get very panicky and I call my husband 'cause that's so close to our home. And I said, "Have you talked to him?" And he said, "No." And I said, "Well, I just heard on the radio that there's a collision." And he said, "Well, why would he be heading South?" 'Cause he would always ride into Cape Creek, which would be North of where we lived. And I said, "I don't know but that's too close to home, I'm gonna drive by there." So I did drive by the scene but there was police officers everywhere and the area blocked off. And I almost got out of my car just to say just tell me it wasn't a motorcycle. The report did not say that a motorcycle was involved, it just said that there'd been a collision. But I was feeling so uneasy, so I went home and Tyler was not there. So now panic is really setting in and I know he's gotta work at four o'clock and he's never late for work. He's very, very responsible. Well, I look at my phone, it starts to ring and it's a number I don't recognize, so I think, "Okay, maybe Tyler is using a friend's phone, his phone's dead." - Yeah, yeah. - So I answer and it's a woman and she says, "Is this Carol Allen?" And I said, "Yes, who's this?" So they escorted us up to wherever he was in the ICU and I walked out of the elevator and immediately could see my Mom crying. They all lived closer to the hospital than we did, so they got there before we did. And my sisters were crying and I looked at them and the nurse walked, well, she wasn't the nurse, she was the doctor. She walked up to me and her lip was trembling and she said, "Before you go in to see your son, we need to talk." And she said, "We've done everything we can.". And she said, "We gave him surgery and I don't want to mislead you, he's not gonna make it." And I remember just falling, falling to the floor and my mom walked over to me and she, says, "Let's just go see him, let's just go see him." And she helped me up with my husband and I walked in the room and he looked perfect, he looked perfect. He didn't even look like anything was wrong. He just had his head wrapped. His face wasn't swollen, he didn't have a scratch on his face and they said he had no injuries except for his head, which he wasn't wearing a helmet and he promised me he always would, but he didn't wear one. I guess he thought it was a quick ride and it was a hot day, and I see it as a blessing that they resuscitated him because I had that opportunity to go to the hospital and spend the next 24 hours with him until they actually declared him completely brain dead. - Carly was about four weeks out of a major surgery. She had esophageal gastric cancer. She suffered horribly and to witness a child suffering is just the worst thing in the world. And she was home and it was the first night that I hadn't slept with her. I slept with her, we had to have a special bed for her because she had to be upright because of her surgery and her condition. They removed her stomach, they removed a portion of her esophagus, so she could never lay down. And I would be in bed with her and just spend the night with her. Neither one of us slept much. And that night, when I was helping her get ready for bed, there was a lot of things that had to be done medically before she could rest, and she said to me, "You know what, Mom, why don't you go sleep with Tony tonight." She said, "I feel good, I'm okay." And I said, "Are you sure?" And she said, "Yeah, go ahead." And I gave her a hug, and I didn't give her a big hug, she had a port, she had a feeding tube, and she said, "That's not the kind of hug I want, I want a real hug." And she said, "I love you so much, Mom." And I went to bed and slept, which was something that didn't happen very much through her illness. And she woke me up in the morning and she said, "Come quick." She called me on the cellphone, she said, "Something's very, very wrong." And I went running and she collapsed in my arms in the bathroom and I called out to my husband and he came. I called 911, they came. They got her heart beating again and we went off in an ambulance and they worked on her for about an hour and a half in the hospital. And I'll never forget the doors opening up with the doctor walking out and I just ran down the hall, 'cause I knew what he was gonna say and I didn't wanna hear it. And he told me, "I'm so sorry, she's passed." - But the axle broke, we end up 30 feet off the road when the unspeakable happened and a young lady fell asleep. No drugs, no alcohol, at about 10:35, 10:40. Went off the road and came into the area where we were at, airborne, and took us out and changed our reality. I meant that's where the (claps hands) that's where the rubber met the road, so to speak. - And I had no idea that Quinton was still out of the vehicle. I knew we were 'cause he was off to the side and I was on the passenger side of the vehicle and I had just finished telling Quinton, "Go get back in the Suburban." So my understanding that he had went around, was on his way there to get back in the Suburban. Never realizing that he was actually between the Suburban and the trailer. - There was reports of crosswinds that were blowing over a hundred miles an hour, and there was reports of a red pickup truck that was driving erratically on the Interstate. But what I believed happened, is that I dozed off at the wheel for just a second, just nodded off. But when I did that, I was still holding Tamara's hand but I swerved to the right, I over corrected to the left, and lost control of the car. And the car then began to roll, not off the road, but down the road at 75 miles an hour propelled by that concrete. And it was a horrific automobile accident. I mean the police reports say the car probably rolled six or eight times, you know at that speed and going down the freeway. Now I blacked out for most of that, I don't remember... I remember losing control and then I remember when the car came to a stop. And I was completely conscious at that point, in fact the first thing I heard was Spencer, my seven year old crying in the back seat, he was crying hysterically and I thought, "I've gotta get to my boy, I have gotta get to my son." And that was my first reaction. But as I thought that and went to move, that's when I realized I couldn't move I was pinned, and I couldn't even tell if it was the floor board or the seat. But I was pinned, there was excruciating pain, I was losing my ability to breath, I couldn't breath. And I wasn't even really aware of my injuries, I mean what had actually happened is both of my legs had been crushed and shattered. The left leg was amputated above the knee, my back had been damaged, my rib cage had been damaged and my lungs were collapsing. My right arm had almost been torn off and then the seat belt had cut through and ruptured all my intestines out. I had no idea. All I knew was my little boy was crying and I had to get to my son. And that's when the brutal reality hit that nobody else was crying, and that's when I knew, and when I say I knew I saw some things that I don't like to talk about. But I knew Tamara and Griffin were gone, I knew that they were gone. Tamara, because she had laid her seat back the seatbelt had not restrained her properly, so she had suffered some pretty severe head trauma and Griffin, and this was the horrific part is, his car seat had broken up and he had been ejected from the car. I mean that's the worst hell a man can be in, it's like, I've got a hysterical seven year old that I can't get to, half the families gone I don't even know where my little boy is, but I know in the core of my heart that he's gone. I felt it, like they're gone. And I was driving the car, I mean the guilt, it was just like, "Oh can't I just take those three seconds back." I mean that's what I was thinking, "Can't I just turn the clock back, what just happened, what just happened?" And it was the most horrific, hellish, you know, what horror I will probably ever encounter. - "There are 13 kids on the program who are all going to Lhasa, and we're studying to that right now in all of our classes, how bout if I go there?" They flew to Lhasa, which was eleven thousand feet, and landed, and the next morning they started up the mountain to go to the base camp of Mount Everest. Normally when you do that kind of thing you have to have two days to adjust to the altitude before you do something like that. And so they weren't able to do that, the Chinese tour guide that they had and the two professors ended up not coming, but the Chinese tour guide that they had just wanted to push them up the mountain as fast as possible. They were dizzy, they had terrible headaches, and they were vomiting. Morgan really wanted to turn back, but this Chinese tour guide was very adamant about getting up there. So, and you know the problem with altitude sickness is that you're so disoriented that you don't realize what the danger is. I was trying to call him just to make sure that he gotten in okay, and I think his phone was ringing but I don't think that he was hearing it because he was really out of it as well. After that they got up to the base camp Morgan took a picture outside of the yurts where they stayed. He's taken many pictures throughout his life where his arms are up like this, and especially at the end, almost like an angel, almost like getting ready. And then he had his arms in this picture like this and I could see that he was trying to get them up, but he was already under the effects of altitude sickness. So his arms were down here. And so the next morning at nine in the morning when they were supposed to leave one of the kids tried to wake him and he was foaming at the mouth, and they couldn't wake him up. So he called his mom who's a doctor and she said, "Get him down in altitude right away." And so these 13 kids picked up this 280 six foot six pound kid, carried him onto the bus, they started down the mountain and then he stopped breathing. During this time I'm hearing about this from the director of the program, and so when I called Colin told me, "Ms. Boisson, I don't think it's good, he's not breathing, he's undergoing CPR and I don't think he's gonna make it." And so I said, "Colin please put the phone up to his ear." And he did, and I said, "We love you, we're proud of you, and don't be afraid." And right then he hugged me. And I could feel it. - You felt him hug you. - I felt him hug me, I was in my office in -- - Thousands of miles. - Cave Creek, Arizona. I felt it so clearly, it was so tight, and so loving. And as you know, yesterday when we were, day before yesterday when we were talking to Isabella she was saying, "That, that hug was also from Chelsea, that it was both of them." Chelsea helped Morgan find me, then hugged me. And at that instant I realized that Morgan was not, he wasn't dead, and that love never dies. And so when it happened I thought to myself, "Oh my gosh, this must happen to every parent who has a child transition, this must just be something that everyone is able to feel." - So I had four kids to myself, took them quadding. Ages 11, 13, 15, and 16 and I knew nothing about quads, yeah I ride motorcycles but I just ... And we got down there, Austin was almost six foot, he was younger than the other kids but he was taller. So they ran out of the medium sized quads so they told me that Austin needed to go on the adult sized quad. So I'm like whatever, we had helmets the whole nine yards. And the terrain wasn't even like, we were out in the sand, but it wasn't like crazy it was pretty flat. For some reason, my daughters 11 and my sons 15, I was only our father and hail marrying my son, like just for Austin, not my little baby girl. And he wasn't even really going fast and I remember saying, "Austin." I go, "Slow down." And then that picture I gave you, he turned around smiled at me and then that's the last picture I ever had of him. I finally saw and then the quad was tipped over and Austin was just laying there. I don't know how to give CPR, but that was my first instinct was I looked at Austin's face and I said to the kids, I'm like, "What happened?" And they just were like standing there and not talking the two boys, and then I'm looking at Austin and his blue eyes were turning gray. And basically while I was giving him CPR I heard his last breath and he died in my arms. - And a guy examined Derrick, and he called me on the phone, and he said, "Has Derrick had an MRI in the last two years?" Or whatever, four years. I said, "As a matter of fact he did." When he went to lift in the gym, and it was continually happening, he felt this tightness in the back of his head. He said, "I wanna see those." So we got them sent over, they had another appointment. He said, "I'm no brains surgeon, I'm no neurologist, but there's something wrong with your sons brain." I said, "Okay." He stayed the weekend with us and I called a neuro oncologist. "These are the things that are happening with Derrick, something is not right." Every test, he had surgeries, and it wasn't definitively diagnosed then, but ninety some percent that he had myasthenia gravis. That was the beginning of the end for him. He went from weighing 178 to gaining a 100 pounds, continual blood clots, PE's, and DVT's. In and out of hospitals. Was walking down the hallway, we have very wide tall ceilings and so it echoes, it was flagstone so it echoes, and I thought, "Damn I don't hear his t.v., that's so bizarre." He had his t.v. on 24 hours a day, 24/7 that was his friend, his coping mechanism. "That is really odd." Nobody else was in the house, so I walked down and the door was cracked about this much, and it looked like there was a thousand of these lights. I thought, "Oh my god, maybe he can't see so he's got all the lights on." So I knocked on the door, no answer, knock, "Derrick, Derrick, Derrick, I got to go out to the small office." Didn't answer, this is really odd, "Derrick, is the t.v. broken?" So I was having a conversation with him, and never looking down on the ground to see Derrick on the ground. So by chance my husband came home, I said, "What are you doing?" He said, "Something told me to come home." And I said, "I'm trying to get Derrick up, his t.v.'s not working, somethings not right." And he looks at me, and I said, "No." Then I turned around to my husband as we're walking down the hall and I said, "I think he's dead." - So Garrett was in high school, a good kid, and then he was in his first year of college. He got to a point where the drugs made him angry and he left. He had took off for about six months. That was pretty hard cause we're a pretty close knit family and then anyways, he got into trouble with the law. That was in July. November, October he went to court and he didn't do one thing so the judge put him in three jails in two days. - He wouldn't comply. - Basically she was trying to scare him. Cause three jails in two days, he was 19 but more like 15. So when he was there the people were saying, "What are you doing here, you don't belong here?" So November was his court case, court for that, he would have got probation, no big deal. But he didn't go to court. I'm in my dining room my Mom comes to me in spirit and I talk to her and say, "You better not be here for what I think you're here for." - Ohh, okay. - So my soul knew. - But your mom. - So my Mom came in spirit to me at eight o'clock Tuesday night. Wednesday morning my husband goes to the court and I'm out helping kids, that's what I did for four years at the elementary school, get out of the car safely. I didn't have my phone with me so my husband calls to say he never made it to court, for eight o'clock or whatever. - Mmhmm. - So I run over to his employer, cause then I don't know where he is, and he had a address, called him. We both called him, and I went to the wrong place, went to another apartment, here there. Anyways I missed him by like 15 minutes. He had killed himself. - It was a typical Monday morning, the weekend had been really, really busy, Sean had just that week moved to Virginia Beach so new duty station, Navy Special Warfare, new apartment by the beach. So he was buying furniture and he was really excited. The biggest thrill for him was to have an indoor washer and dryer. That was, you know. - Yeah. - That was because he'd have to go outside to do his laundry in San Diego. - Sure. - So he called me up and he said, "Mom, I can wash anytime I want." Which now is precious to me, but at the time I thought it was hysterical. Anyway, but we spoke every Sunday. - Mmhmm. - So no matter where in the world he was, and he had just come back from a long cruise, he would make sure that the message got to me on a Sunday. And I didn't hear from him on Sunday, but I was also moving into a new office, so busy and I would send him text messages and he also has a propensity to lose his phone. So I just kind of chalked it all up, I said, "World Cup, friends are coming over, new apartment." Now looking back I remember on that Sunday night we went outside to just sit down and watch the sunset, and I took the phone with me which I normally never do. And there was no phone call and I think at that point something started to stir, but again I went from here to here, going, "Okay it's fine, he's busy." Monday morning I received a phone call, or a message from a friend of his and she said, "Have you heard from Sean?" She said, "I'd been texting him but he's not returning my messages which is highly unusual." I said, "No, actually I hadn't." His Dad hadn't heard from him either. So she said, "Well let me call the base, his new duty station and see if he's checked in." She called back, she said, "Yes, they said he's there, he's doing a walk around." - Okay. - "When he comes back we'll have him call home." (sighs) Okay, everything's good. No phone call, so a couple of hours later we decided to call the Virginia Beach Police and just say, "Could you just do a wellness check." And they went into his apartment and I got a call from a detective about an hour later. The military was there first. Just a FYI. - Okay. - And then the police were able to come in. And anyway I got a call and they said that, "Is your son Sean Patrick McCarthy?" I said, "Yes he is." And he said, "I hate to inform you but we found your son deceased in his apartment, and we're starting an investigation." And it was just that, matter of fact. - Matter of fact. Yeah. - And they said, "The Navy will be showing up sometime this afternoon to give you the particulars of how to proceed." Cut and dry. - He was in a good place, he was living with my parents. He had been clean, so that was why he was able to live with my parents, because otherwise I wouldn't of allowed that but it was kind of just an interim thing. And so he went to work that day and we talked during the day and said we can still have dinner tonight, we'll just celebrate everybody's birthdays on Sunday or Monday. And he said, "I want to go home after work and I'm just gonna take a little nap, and I'll let you know when I'm up." And that wasn't unusual, Garrett when he would come home because he had to get up early for work, there were a lot of days that he would come home and take naps. He was gonna get back to us, I don't know what time it was that we started texting him to see if he was up yet. And he didn't get back to us and I wanna say it was maybe around 9:30, my Mom called and said that Garrett was in the bathroom and the door was locked, they were trying to ... They were calling him, they were knocking on the door, and he wasn't answering. So Scott and I, we live three minutes away, jumped in the car and we looked at each other, and I think we were both thinking maybe, but no. I don't think either one of us were expecting to get to my parents house and find what we did. So we got to their house and right as we were walking in my Dad got the door open and Garrett was laying on the floor, he was face down, there was a needle on the counter, and I don't know how long he had been gone. But he was... He was in overdose. - I was in the kitchen cooking dinner, pretty normal day. Our daughter was at college, away at college so she was not in the house, just an average family day. - Sunday afternoon. - Yeah. Yeah. - And then we got the call and then everything changed. The phone rang, I picked it up and the voice on the other end was garbled to the point that I almost hung up, I thought it was some sort of a prank call. And then it kinda came into focus and it was a young man that we didn't know, it was an acquaintance of our son who had accompanied our son from Prague to Frankfurt, Germany. They had gone to the concert, they had hung out with the band after the show, they had gone out after the show to look for their hostel. They had arrangements of a hostel but they did not -- - [Craig] Check in. - They didn't check in before the show. So they were wandering through Frankfurt two o'clock in the morning or thereabouts, at some point they got separated, and Devon's acquaintance couldn't find him so he ended up going to the hotel by himself assuming that when he woke up Devon would be there. Devon didn't turn up. So at this point all we knew was that our son was missing. - [Craig] Right. - That was a little disturbing but Devon had traveled the world and he knew his way around, he had been living on his own abroad for several months. We weren't immediately concerned, but this behavior was out of the ordinary. - And this was 2000.. - 2009. 9. - So there were cell phones. - Cell phones, all that. - International calls were. - It sometimes, sketchy yeah, back then. - But yeah certainly doable if he had gotten into trouble I'm sure he would have called us. - So he's missing at this point. - Right, now all of a sudden we've got the German Police behind us in this situation. And this starts basically a month long process of going through the search for our son. - So it was, what was that like, the month? - It was hell, I couldn't really function. I'd pace the floor up and down, pace the hallway, I didn't really know what to do, - Were you feeling anything? in the first few days. - Like besides worry, did you feel there was no foul play, or nothing to worry about, that he'll show up? - Well I like to live in my bubble so I always try to think that the outcomes gonna be the best, you know positive. So for awhile I did live in my bubble, but the first night after the phone call I had gone to bed and this ball of light crossed our room. (eerie deep sound) And the word river came into my head and I knew then and there that Devon was in the river, I just wasn't ready to go there in my brain yet. I couldn't. - So it was pretty profound but it was also sobering. Did you tell Jeff about the .. - I went downstairs and asked him where the river was, he looked it up, I didn't even know if there was a river in the Frankfurt area. And I didn't tell him what had just transpired, it took awhile before I did that because I didn't want his brain to go there either. But I knew in my heart that he was in the river. - Wow, and had you ever had any type of spiritual encounter or some kind of message like that before? - Well I live my life by the signs I received, so I was open to signs. - Okay. - If I had ever had anything that profound I don't remember it or wasn't aware of it, but I did get signs. - Okay, okay. - I didn't really know what that meant, she always told us that and it's like, whatever, we'll just go with that. - They laughed at me. - We did, we did and now it's pretty clear that she's always had a sensitivity to that kind of stuff, she just didn't really know how powerful her intuition truly was. - So it was January 10th, 2004, I had been traveling the week prior, I got home Friday night. And happened to see Brandon and then gave him a hug that night before going to bed. The next morning on Saturday the 10th, got up and found out that Brandon had planned to go on this hike to the top of the McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale. I was a little concerned and later that morning I get kinda this feeling like an anxiety and I felt almost like a presence or something, that felt like a warning being given to me. It's hard to describe because it's not really a tangible thing where I'm hearing a voice say something, it was just more like this feeling imparted. And I tried to talk Brandon out of going, but he was 18 at the time and he and his friends had planned to do this and they were going, there was no stopping 'em. So my last words to him was, "Brandon please don't go it's too windy today." And he said, "We're going Dad." So he went and that day we'd already made a commitment to go across town to see my nephew who was actually in some sort of rodeo event or something to that affect. And so we went there, but I was kind of stressed out all day worrying about Brandon. I had left a note on the counter asking him to call me as soon as he got home. And it was later that afternoon, many hours after we had left, that my phone rang and I thought, "Oh great it's Brandon." But it actually was my older son Steven calling. He was at work at the time and he was asking me to connect, try and ask the authorities for help because the boys who were with Brandon were trying to call for help but their cell phone wasn't working very well on the mountain. And he just said that they had reported Brandon had been passing out and so they needed help. And so I did manage to get through to one of the boys, it was kind of sporadic connection, but I learned enough to figure out, "Hey I need to get them a helicopter up there." And so I called 911 and asked for help, and they had sent a chopper, by that time we ran got in the car and drove across town and by the time we got to the base of the mountain there was just a hoard of spectators there, and a fire truck, and an ambulance, and the chopper. Then they introduced us, when we told them who we were, they introduced us to a Chaplin and soon as they did that, I was like, "Oh no." Cause usually that's gonna be the bearer of bad news and within a short period of time that indeed was the case. I just flat out asked them, cause I felt like they were stalling, and I said, "Did my son pass?" And he says, "Yes he did." - Started out as just any other normal day. Andy and I would have coffee every morning, we spent a lot of time together, so for a 16 year old boy to have that kind of communication with his mom. We always talked, we spent time, and he went off to school. We had argued a little bit because he was struggling with some of his grades and that was super important because of what he was doing with baseball, grades were a integral part of that. And so when he walked out the door we weren't on the best of terms, but it really didn't, I didn't think anything of it. And then I went on to work and at about three o'clock, we always talked after school because he had a really intense baseball schedule, he was a baseball player, and there were a lot of activities. So to try to make sure we were all on the same page we talked everyday and I couldn't get a hold of him, and even when we were mad at each other he never didn't answer my phone calls, he always answered my phone calls. So that kinda struck me as odd, and then I called again still couldn't get a hold, and then I called his coach cause he would go straight to baseball practice, and Andy wasn't there. And then I started calling some of his friends, and when I got a hold of one of his friends who said that Andy had left school at nine o'clock that morning. And then panic set in. - And he was in high school. - He was a junior. - Okay. - And I closed my computer and my gut turned. And I had started calling home, no answer at home, continued to call his phone, no answer on his phone. And so I drove as fast as I could home, I was about 20 minutes away from home, and when I turned down the corner down my street I saw the first responders at my house and I barely remember putting my car in park. I couldn't even get up to the house because they were blocking my driveway and the first responders came running out to me and I started yelling and screaming, "Where's my son." And they told me he was dead and I fell to the ground. - We normally wake up, it's a Saturday. - Okay. - We normally wake up eight o'clock, he wakes up at 7:30 and I remember asking him, "What are you doing up?" And you just said, "I dunno I just woke up." Get dressed and about a half an hour later I get a phone call from my neighbor, she said, "Why are there two police cars in front of your house?" We immediately knew why. - Because of your profession. - Yeah, it's the only reason why they'll come, especially two. So we start, I'm still on the phone and we start walking out to the garage and open up the garage door and there they were, and they were just starting to walk into the house. And do you remember what you said? - I knew, cause I had to do that for my job, make notifications. So I knew it was bad. - You could tell the way they were walking up. - Well he said, he just said, "Kyle?" And they said, "Yup." And he said, "Motorcycle?" And they said, "No." And then neighbors started coming and one of our neighbors was driving by our house and in a joking laughing way she yells out the window, "I hope nobody died." - Oohh. - So they're pushing us in the house, the police. - Of course, get off you know. - Yeah, so we come into the house and they hand me Kyle's phone, cell phone and his wallet. So I'm like, I start screaming for Ethan, 'cause Ethan's still in bed, and I just I don't know, I was just panicking. I just started screaming and he comes out of his bedroom like half asleep and he's goin', "Mom you're scaring me." And I yelled at the police and I said, "Tell him, tell him." - You wanted the police. - I couldn't, I couldn't even, I couldn't tell him, I couldn't tell him. I just yelled at them to tell him. (soft instrumental music) - [Carol] Months later when the shock started to wear off, I remember thinking, "If I felt the way I feel now that day at the hospital, I probably woulda had a heart attack, I would have been screaming at everybody. I would have been calling for other doctors." I understand now when you see in news and you see parents that seem so calm, I used to say, "What's wrong with those parents, why are they so calm, their kid just died." I get it now, because you are in complete and total - [Craig] Right, right. shock. And that's what happened to me. - You know we as parents we worry. Did you notice, do remember anything a little different than this worrying? - I'm an overprotective mom anyways so I always worry, but I think even though I had extreme anxiety, I would always get extreme anxiety if I'd heard there was an accident. But there was something inside of me that I just never believed that something like this would really happen to me. - You had a feeling that she wasn't gonna be .. - Mine for a long period of time. And a fleeting moment I thought, "I was right." - How did that come to you, was it a dream, or was just a feeling? - It was just a feeling. And it was just a knowing. - Wow. - And in fact a friend at her memorial service, a woman that I had met in Lamaze class, we were in Lamaze class together. She said to me, "Do you remember you said to me when Carly and Ryan were about four or five years old, will I still be a mother if something happens to Carly?" And I had no memory whatsoever of saying that to her. - Until she reminded you. - Until she reminded me, yeah. - There was something about this one, I just knew he wasn't gonna be with me for very long. I was super protective of this one child and I had a knowing "Was I supposed to prevent this from happening, were my spirit guides telling me, 'Oh you gotta watch out for this one?'" And I'd always tell them, "No, this is your soul recognizing that they weren't going to stay long, they were going to finish up here and go home earlier, than you and your other children. You weren't supposed to prevent." I don't feel that how they passed is set up in advance, I just feel like there's a plan of I'm going to leave in a certain time frame. - Okay. - Maybe a window of opportunity, I've heard it called exit points. - Sure. - So it was really obvious that you felt something unusual up to the moment. I mean we as parents, we worry all the time. - Right. - I felt something, I mean and I can't say anything definitively because I'm not that in touch, but the best I could do is, is I felt something. Something was shifting somewhere and I'd felt that it was pursuing us and I was trying to get away from it. - I guess it sounded to me like you felt like you were in control, but I get the feeling you feel that maybe perhaps this wouldn't of mattered what you have done. No matter where you would have went. - Right. It just seemed like. - This was comin. - Yeah. - You were covering the bases. - I felt in some sense we were being prepared, for something you know. - Oh okay. - I felt, because looking back I look back and I think, "Well I prepared all his favorite meals, Quinton's favorite meals." Not Shyanne's, not my Mom's, not mine, not Ernie's, Quinton's." My children didn't drink soda but occasionally when we would go out to dinner he would ask for a root beer, I took a case of root beer. - This was on our vacation. - On our vacation. So that he can have root beer. - I didn't share what I shared to be morbid or graphic, but it was such a dark, dark, I mean horrific place. And actually what happened is I felt this light come. I literally felt light come and surround me as if it was comforting me in the most horrific moment of my life, and I felt as if I was rising above the accident. - So you were uh.. - And I think, yeah, I left my body. I mean that's what was happening, is I was literally going too. - Is this in your book? - Uh-huh, yeah I cover this in the book and this is what happened to me, I can get specific about what happened at the scene but I felt as if I was rescued or lifted out of this traumatic moment. And then the interesting thing is, and I was thinking, "What's going on, now I can breath, the pains gone, what's happening?" And the question I had is, "Am I okay, am I okay." And suddenly as I'm asking that question, in this light and I call it this bubble of light, it was like this light was almost tangible, it was comforting me, suddenly there's Tamara my wife. Who I knew was deceased at the scene, but there she is and she's gorgeous, there's no head trauma, there's no injuries and yet she's emphatic that I've gotta go back. She's like, "You've gotta go back you can't come, you've got to go back." But it was confusing to me, even as a believer I thought, "Well what's happening?" - It wasn't like a dream, it was very... - No, no, in fact gosh it was so really, this feels like a dream, I mean this realm feels like the crazy dream. That was so real and there was a... My senses were exaggerated like if I could taste, or touch, or feel, or smell anything it was like accentuated, it's like we were communicating but I could taste her tears. I mean and she was upset, she's like, "You got to go back, you've gotta go back." - Before this happened there was a fork in the road and I saw it clearly before me and I was thinking to myself, "Either I'm going to be that crazy lady of Cave Creek who lays on her bed and drinks a bottle of vodka a day, curled up in a ball. Or I go the other direction and I honor Morgan, and I honor my two beautiful girls who deserve to be honored as well." And in that instant I chose the right path, but then when they came home and they were crying and screaming, I held up my hands and I said, "Listen, Morgan doesn't want us to do this, he wants us to be happy." - So it sounded like you were feeling something all the way up to this point. - Yeah I felt-- - And it wasn't just a typical worrying, you did not want to be there. - Right. - You didn't want your kids to be there. And this is much different than worrying. - Yeah, I didn't wanna even go on the trip which was, for whatever reason, and then the day before the accident I was begging and pleading everybody, "Let's just pack up and leave." Like let's pack up and leave and drive to San Diego. - Did you rationalize why you didn't wanna go? Did you consider like, it was just a gut feeling. - Just a gut feeling. And then I'm praying for just Austin, like why wouldn't I be praying for Ally? - You said that your husband felt something, enough to have him leave work and come home. Did you feel... - I felt, well I felt. Okay first of all I need to tell you, for years I would go in every morning before I would go out to the pool and I would do this, to see if he was still alive. Why I did that, then it became a habit. - Let me ask you this, did you think that he was going to pass from this disease? Why were you checking? - No, I don't know. - You had said to me that, "I went from here, to here." - Mmhmm. - We parents, we worry, can you go back to that moment where you were here in your heart. - I don't know where that came from, it just came out of my mouth. I said, "Let's go bring Sean home." And that's all I wanted. - So you said that when you and your husband were in the car you looked at each other, but there was some unspoken words perhaps? - Yeah, I think at that time, we looked at each other because we were maybe going to say something. - Why did you sort of think this could happen? - This has been in the back of my mind ... It's something that I always knew was a possibility. If you've got somebody who's addicted to heroin. - So this is after the addiction that you started to have this idea that maybe perhaps this could happen? - Oh yeah, Garrett was using heroin for about five years. - So while Jeff was working on the media aspect of it, that's his thing not mine, so I went to a psychic which I'd never been to before. Why I even thought about it I'm not sure, but when you're desperate, you think outside the box. - Of course. - So the psychic said that, "Devin would be fine, and it would take us four weeks to find him." So I interpreted fine as alive, so I kind of put that ball of light out of my brain for awhile and I just went with the fine. - I have a feeling you connected with something, that you felt, was it different than a worry? - Yeah it was panic, it was sick. - But you weren't aware of what had happened. - No. - [Craig] You know I always wonder is there any indication you had that something was wrong? I know you, Glenn, said you knew immediately. - Why? - Because of the way they. - Right. - The way the police walked up. But was there anything intuitively? - There was for me but it was several months prior. I was about October, November prior, this happened in April. I started feeling like something was coming. But I didn't necessarily think that it was a personal thing, I thought maybe another 9/11, something on that scale. We always had a Christmas party, every Christmas, and that year I just couldn't do it. (somber music) - I couldn't sleep. I remember feeling like I couldn't get away from what had happened to me, I would fall asleep and I would be half asleep half awake, you know that deep sleep I used to go into. And I remember just, I used to describe it as, it was here as I was half asleep saying, "Tyler's gone I can't believe this happened, I can't believe this happened." And it was like I couldn't get relief. - I barely functioned, could not, I didn't get out of bed for a long time. It was this total shock, and I literally everyday my mantra became, Tony can't be twice widowed, because I would think, "How can I leave? I need to be with Carly." - So you had thought of suicide? - Absolutely. - I was checked out, I was in the hospital for six days. - Were you physically injured? - Yeah, I should, I basically died at the accident and came back. From what I remember, my last memory is, I believe in the helicopter, them reviving me. Cause I had passed. Telling my Mom to get off my chest I can't breath. And she's telling me, "I'm not on your chest, come back to me, come back to me." There's a big echo in the background and she's telling me, "Don't leave me, you can't leave me." And I believe that's what brought me back. In my heart I know there was some sense of Quinton's spirit leaving his body coming into mine and I woke up in ICU. - At the end of my hospital stay was probably the most profound experience I had. I think it's interesting that the two most profound experiences were, at the scene of the accident when I obviously had no narcotics, I left the scene. But then I had been through ICU, I'd been through surgical recovery, I was in the rehabilitation unit at the end of my hospital stay, and I was off of all the heavy narcotics. I was taking some Tylenol and I was actually only a week or so from coming home. But I had a profound experience which I'll share because it's probably the pinnacle of everything that happened, I fell into this deep, deep sleep, and then I felt that light again, almost like the scene to the accident. There's a light came, and I thought, "Oh my gosh it was like a warm blanket of love." It's just like comforting me, because I was still just a wreck really within the grief and wondering what to do. And how this was gonna work out and what life was gonna be like from here on out. But this time the light went away, it dispelled like a fog or a mist that goes away. (ocean waves crashing) And I was in the most beautiful place. I mean people say heaven or the other side, the only word that comes close is home. I was home, I mean I was elated, it's like I'm home and I actually begin running, I was running. You know in this realm I wasn't gonna be running with the state of my legs and all, but I was running and once again it felt so physical. This was the quandary, I could feel the ground under my feet. I could feel the energy firing up through my calves and thighs, and I'm running, and I'm just thinking, "Wow, how can this be? I'm running and I'm feeling all this joy and happiness." And then I got the message that I wasn't there to stay, it's like, "Wow, okay, I'm not here to stay." And about that same time there was this corridor off to my left and I knew I was to go down that corridor. So I made my way down the corridor. - You knew that you were supposed to. - Yeah it was just like I just knew, I'm mean to go this way and I made my way down this corridor, and at the end of the corridor was a crib. And I raced to the crib and there was my little Griffin, and I swept him up and that felt ... I mean I could feel the weight of him, I could feel the heat of his body, I held him against me and he was solid against me. I was thinking, "How can this be?" I could feel him breathing, I could feel his lungs expanding, I could feel his warm breath on my neck. And I remember leaning over and smelling his hair, you know when you pick up a child from the... I'm thinkin, "It's him, it's really him, I can smell him, I can feel him." I began to just weep, holding my boy I was just weeping thinking, "Wow how can this be." And as I held him I felt a presence come up behind me it was an overwhelming, I mean so powerful cosmic wise, I began to be fearful because I thought, "I'm in the presence of God." And all those fears about judgment begin to come up, in fact it was worse because here I am holding my little boy and I'm thinking, "He's here because I wrecked the car, he died because I lost control." I mean the guilt was just and I had this thought as I'm holding him thinking, "I hope I can be forgiven somehow." - Yeah. - And as I had that thought and I'm holding him, I felt this being come up behind me, and this almost felt physical too and it's almost like those divine arms wrapped around and held us. - Yeah. - And that was just a huge download, I was just told, "There's nothing to forgive, everything's in perfect order." And then boom I saw my life, I started to see Mom and Dad divorced and the insecurities that caused and my brothers, and all the things in my life. I saw the things that I was thinking, "Oh no, no, no that was a mistake." But in those divine arms this communication was coming, there are no mistakes, everything's in perfect order, you're in perfect order. I mean I saw things that I knew were wrong and I did 'em anyway, you know, but in those arms all I felt was look how much we love you. Look how much we support your choice, your life, everything's perfect, even the accident, everything that went on, and that was just so much unconditional love. There was no judgment whatsoever. - Can you explain to me what the life review is like. What should we expect? - Gladly, surely, and I hope this will help everybody that's watching this, because it's really important. The life review is very, very important in that, when you leave the body and you go to the spirit world one of the first things that happens, besides meeting your loved ones and you get to the awareness that you've left the body, you might go to your memorial service everybody does or a funeral, sit with the family. And then every single soul goes through what's called a life review. And a life review, because you're outside of time, you get to become aware of your entire life that just passed so there is no God that goes, "You go there, you go there, you go there." You're your own judge and jury. And what happens is, you become aware very quickly of the thoughts, the acts, the lessons, that you shared with other people. And you see those things, those scenario's, from the other persons point of view. You feel it ten times, twenty times, thirty times stronger. - I've explained this, because he's done this over and over again. In the very beginning it was hard because every once in awhile I would start feeling like I was just so sad and I was missing him. And then all of a sudden I'd have this hug, and it was almost like I would drink a glass of red wine if that makes sense, and it would just calm me down just having him hug me like that. And so this kind of thing would happen in the car when I'd be talking to him and then I'd start getting emotional and saying, "You realize that you're not going to be able to do this and this." And then I would hear him saying, "Mom I'm gonna do all those things, I'm gonna do more than that." But for me the hard part was that I wanted to find other parents who were going through the same thing and unfortunately the groups that I went to at the time were much more geared towards talking about the way that our kids transitioned and kind of dwelling on that. When I would go to some meetings and mentioned signs that I was getting from Morgan, or ask other parents if they were having any kind of things happening in their lives. I was stopped by the moderators and told that it wasn't something that they discussed in that group. And so, I realized I need start something. - Yeah. - I need to start something where people can talk about these wonderful connections that exist with our kids, because we can't have parents believing that this is it. And the kids don't want parents to believe that this is it either, and so a week after this happened I started the Facebook group and immediately had so many parents who were interested in the group and I don't even know how that happened because I don't know how to advertise on Facebook. (laughing) By the time that I held the first meeting and Mark Ireland came to that meeting in the beginning of February of 2010, which was just a couple months later, we had 25 people at that first meeting, which was wonderful. - There's not a lot of crying, like I just don't remember me crying. I remember me being very stoic and just very serious, just kind of no emotion. And then I filed bankruptcy and then finally January of 2010 I'm like, "Okay I gotta get some kind of job, I don't want to go back into escrow, but I need to do something like minimal minded." - Really for about the first year it was a blur, it was a haze, it was probably like, I'm not an addict but it was probably like being fed some sort of drug to where you just kind of exist. I existed, I didn't live but I existed. - So after that ironically I drove the car home and I started cleaning the guest house bathroom for knowing people are coming. - You went into autopilot? - Yes, definitely. - Did you feel that, now reflecting back, that maybe that was like a little bit of shock or were you just.. - Oh absolutely. Processing it. - I believe that God took me and cocooned me. - I went into a mode of just compartmentalizing what needed to be done, it was more like a zombie for lack of a better word. - For me, the first thing I thought was that I was happy for Garrett. I was happy that he didn't have to suffer and struggle anymore. So when I was happy that he didn't have to suffer anymore I think maybe something was guiding me to go there, because Scott was struggling so much. When he was up I was down and when I was up he was down. We balanced each other out and I think that there was something behind me that was picking me up and giving me strength that I never knew I would have had. - We're home now, it's a couple of days before Christmas, we have obviously no interest in celebrating Christmas, we have no interest in doing anything. We were all in the same house my wife, our daughter, and I, hanging out in three different rooms. As a father, as a husband I can't bear to look at the pain in the eyes of my girls so we made it easy, we just hung out in different parts of the house and dealt with our grief in our own manner. - First few days were brutal, I mean your vacillating between laying down, you can't really sleep but you're just exhausted emotionally and physically, mentally. To getting up and being with people that are supportive and them giving you hugs or trying to talk. Then you're wiped out again and you go lay down again. Then I'd go see my son and hug him and just try to be with him, he's off in his own room just laying there. You're in shock, you just have to go through that, for me that was the pinnacle of the grief process was that first few days, first week. - And shock is a blessing, it allows you to function, even the first week leading up to the memorial service. There's a lota people around at that point in time and so there's so many things to do, and you get up and the first thing you do when you open your eyes is you're sick. You're just immediately sick, "Is this really my reality." But there are other people around, I had other kids, I had grandkids living with me. There were people that, there were a lot of Andy's friends and they were showing up at my house everyday, and they were counting on me to be there. - For them? - Mmhmm. And I think that was an important thing for me to recognize and understand, even within an hour after Andy passed they wouldn't let me go home, so we went to the neighbors house because he shot himself in our house. All of his friends started showing up, literally there were hundreds of kids at the neighbors house. Andy had a tremendous impact on the community, a huge outreach because of who he was and what he did. And the kids were there sobbing and crying, and I felt this need as I remember holding some of their hands, and telling them I didn't want them to be mad at Andy, "Please don't be mad at Andy, he loved you, he loved you." - But that's a big responsibility for you to be this community cheerleader. - It was a divine experience, when I walked into the bathroom, probably a couple hours afterwards to make my first you know, and I walked into the bathroom, looked in the mirror, take that breath to reconcile that this was my life. This really happened to me. I said two things and I know that these were divine messages and it was a journey for me that was controlled from outside. And I said, "I will praise you in the storm." So that was a decision, that was a decision on my faith that when things fall apart I'm not gonna lose my faith, I'm gonna praise you in the midst of this storm. And I also said, "I'm not the first mom to lose a kid." And that helped me to connect in a sense with other moms, that if they could survive, I'm not the first mom to lose a child. I know there are other moms that have survived this, if they can so can I. - For me you don't, didn't function for awhile. I mean you just went through the day in a daze, you just did the things you had to do, eat and that was it. And just cry, a lot. - I couldn't eat, Dan would make me eat. - Yeah, she wouldn't eat. - After awhile. And we would just cry ourselves to sleep in bed, we would just hold each other and cry and cry. - So if you are in the depths of grief, you may say, "I can't imagine every shining my light again." No you can't right now, but can you imagine that your child is this beautiful shining light that has not gone out. Doesn't that give you hope rather than, "Oh you're a bereaved parent." - Even though they are in heavenly home and you want them here, please know that in the span of and fullness of time, even if you're here without them for 30 years, it's like that (snapping fingers) to them. That time (snapping fingers) does not drag, it's quick, quick, quick. (rising inspirational music) - I was angry at God. I remember saying to my husband, "If there is a God he royally screwed us over we don't deserve this." And so I can't say it was all directed at God because I didn't really know that I believed in God. I was just angry in general at everything. I was angry because I thought, "This is not fair, my kids are my life." There are so many parents out there, I mean most parents their kids are their life, but there are so many people out there that shouldn't even have children, they drowned their kids, they do these horrible things. And I thought, "Here they're my world, it's the one thing that I would take anything." I thought, "Give me cancer, give me anything, but this." I thought, "I have just been dealt the worst thing." And I believed that, I believe that losing a child is the absolute worst thing that anybody could be dealt with. - I was so angry with God. When Carly was diagnosed I remember talking to God and saying, "You would never take my only child from me." - Yeah. - "You already took my Mom, please don't take her." And I always believe that if you were a good person, and you did the right thing that what your belief, or what your perception of good thing happening to you, would happen. So I thought, "I'm such a good person, why would God take my child from me, that's just not gonna happen." - [Craig] How 'bout you? - I was never angry at God, never angry, I never questioned it. I did question her being, what her role was in this, I assumed drugs, alcohol, it was broad daylight. So I was very angry, very angry. And ... - I can imagine. - Yeah, I was in a dark place when it came to her. - I was not angry at God, I didn't really know God before, but I was not angry at God and people would ask me, I've been asked that question several times. And I mean even within the initial months after the accident and I would look at them, I couldn't understand the question I would be like, "Why?" At the scene where I wanted to take her pain from her, the answers no. - You wanted to take her pain? - Yeah, she was hurting at the scene, and I wanted to take that from her, so for me it would be a crazy dichotomy to want to take her pain and be angry at her too. So for me I wanted to take her pain, she was over the coming months she was, years, she was gonna be in a really bad place and I didn't want her to feel that. - I didn't know who to be angry at, I was angry that God would allow this to happen to me. I was angry that I crashed the car, I mean I was angry-- - At yourself and fearful, Yeah, yeah I was angry at myself, really there was no one to blame but me. - [Craig] So I would say that you were not necessarily angry at the tour guide? - No, I mean I know that-- - I mean you have every reason to be angry because it put the kids in a really... - I was very upset at the time at the university for actually not having those two professors go, - Oh okay. - Who were told, we were told that they were going to be going and the head of the program never said anything about it. Never gave any kind of altitude instruction or even any of the pills that you can actually buy fairly easily. But that's totally in the past now. We went to a psychic medium a couple days after Morgan passed and she said, "I hope you realize Morgan's telling me that if he hadn't passed at the base camp of Mount Everest, he would have passed on the I10 driving from U of A up to Cave Creek." It was just one of those things that, that was the exit point that he chose. - From what I understand you're saying it woulda happened shortly thereafter? - Or shortly beforehand, yeah it would of happened at some point, because his exit point was determined and he had finished everything that he needed to do here. - Yeah I feel gypped, another one of Austin's best friends Austin didn't hang out with him as much because then he got into drugs and then now they're in their 20's. These kids are 24, 25, 26, and they're still degenerates, I feel gypped, I'm ticked. - Do we feel gypped? Absolutely. Are we gypped in the human terms? Absolutely, because the norm says your child is with you your whole life, the parent dies before the child. We got gypped. That's valid, but we need to learn, and this is part of the journey after the death of a child, the souls journey, that we are both human and a soul. If you continue to only see through the human perspective you will feel gypped til the day you die. When you can learn to shift your focus and understand from the higher perspective, how it all fits together to help each other, then you're no longer gypped. - God is good, I don't resent God, I don't hate God. He's still my God and he's still good. And my son is with him. - I was not, I mean I'm sure I went through the anger at Garrett. My husband was very upset and still til this day probably can't forgive the friend that sucked him down the toilet. - So your husband is angry at the friend that kinda lead him into this. - And I forgave that friend right away because I knew if I didn't, it's not good. - Were you angry at God ever? - Oh yes. Here you've got this great kid who would give you the shirt off his back and his life ended. - I never had anger and I remember going to my therapist and you know, you're told that there are the stages of grief and anger is one of them. I wasn't angry, I just wasn't angry. - I had a lotta anger, probably at God if I thought about it and admitted it. And I had anger toward the guy that Devon was with. - I really think that I was too emotionally exhausted to feel much of anything. - Exactly. - I felt lost, I felt sadness, I was in a very dark place, and I just don't think that I could muster up enough energy to be angry at somebody. Cause at some visceral level I knew that, that wasn't gonna bring Devon back, it really wasn't gonna help anything. - No I can't say that I was. I was just very sad and in a state of shock. I didn't blame anyone, that's the only thing where I thought sometimes, "Well maybe I shoulda done that to keep him from going." But if indeed it was his time, had I stalled him that day, maybe it would of been the next day or a week later, or whatever. - [Craig] Were you angry? - No never. - Never. - Never. - Wow. - Not a moment. Devastated, yes. - Of course. - I do get angry in life at other things, in this journey I've not been angry. - But you never questioned God? - No, two reasons. Number one, what's it gonna change? - Yeah. - Andy's not here, asking why is only torturous to me. - Okay, okay. - I didn't need to torture myself anymore, I was already tortured enough. There are no answers to the question why, I will never get them here. There will never be a satisfactory answer to the question why, and when I do get there it won't matter. So why serves no purpose, so it's a decision, it's a controlling of not allowing yourself. It doesn't serve any purpose. - [Craig] At this point in time were you angry at maybe God, or someone, or something, were you angry at anybody? - Oh your betcha, oh yeah. - Angry at God. - You know before we moved I would pray every day, going to work, pray everyday and I asked him, I said, "If we get to move to Arizona we will be in church every Sunday, just take care of my kids. Don't let anything happen to 'em." So yeah I was mad. - [Craig] A lot of the parents that I've been interviewing feel gypped. Some of them are angry. Do you have any advice for that? - They may not want to hear this at this point, but their soul knows that it's all going be okay, and hopefully down the line they can tap into that place in their heart where they are still connected with their child, not just figuratively, literally that's the connection with their child. And if they can see that by their passing if they can grow stronger, the parent, if they can grow stronger. If they can help other people here through some kind of loving service that, there's purpose in that, they won't feel gypped any longer. It's a totally understandable and very human reaction. - Of course. - But at a soul level the soul knows it's all okay. - That their child can see that, them feeling that way and if that's what they wanna to share with their child, cause that's all they can do to get through each day then that's all they can do. But they'd rather share the laughter with you than the tears. (soft instrumental music) - You know you were a Catholic but you had a tendency to feel that atheism was a logical... Were you confused now at this point with? - No at this point I wanted to believe that there was more because now I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, if there's not anymore." I was okay with that when I didn't think I was gonna have to ever lose my kids because you expect to lose things in the right order. But when all of the sudden I'm thinking I lost Tyler I wanted, - Sure. - To believe that there was more. But I struggled with the fact I was confused and I remember I had people reach out to me and say, "You should maybe go to church." But then I remembered thinking, "If there is a God why would I go now after what he's done, after he's taken my child away." I mean all kind of things were going through my mind, all kind of things, because I wanted so badly to believe that it wasn't the end and that I would see Tyler again. Because the thought of never seeing him again I thought, "I am not gonna be able to make it in this world." - [Craig] Ernie you really didn't have much view on religion so I'm not sure you were really questioning your faith. - No I was finding my faith. (laughs) I had the first sign from Quinton 30 hours after. I'm alone in a room and I felt my hand being held, and I was so new too this, I didn't speak this language, I wasn't sure who was holding my hand but I knew my hand was being held. - It was a lot to digest, I mean religion had been turned inside out and upside down for me. Suddenly I had experienced this unconditional love, I mean seriously, unconditional. - Yeah. - And it was like nothing I will ever experience again, or had ever experienced. And I mean I did, I dove into my own belief system, and others, Buddhism, I became a student of religion. But I thought, "It's not religion I want, I want that spirituality, I want that connection." I mean I began studying energy work, reiki, and reconnective healing. And I mean I'm talking about years, it was ten years really that I was just, number one trying to process what had happened. Number two, trying to make sense of it all and number three, wondering how do I apply this now? - So I am angry with the Catholic church to date. My Mother and I have not gone back to church since. I was still in Mexico, my Mother immediately called our Catholic church and asking the priest for help. And so it turns out that nobody from that Catholic church ever called my Mother back. So then I call them and I wanted a Catholic priest to speak, as well as the pastor, whether it be at the non denomination church or not, I wanted a Catholic priest to speak on behalf for me. And pray for my son. And nobody from that church every called me back. I was really, really ticked off, I was beyond upset. - Yeah. - And then that Sunday, so you know when somebody passes away if you're a member of that church, they mention the person that passed away. So we went one more time, so it was that Sunday, my daughter, myself, and my Mom and we sat there in the back and we waited, and we waited, and we waited for them to mention my son. They never mentioned my son, not once. They never acknowledged him at all. So I wrote a letter a year later and I got a call apologizing but that was it. They had an excuse why, the priest was on vacation. Well why didn't somebody else pick up the slack, you have a priest still performing Mass, so that was the last time I ever stepped foot in a church. - Heaven becomes this place, whatever, wherever it is and however it is, it becomes a hell lot more real when you have a child there. - [Craig] Do you question the religion? - I don't think I put that much thought into it. We did go to our church to talk to our pastor, and I don't know that he really understood where we were coming from at that point, he's a nice guy but he hadn't never experienced anything we had. And I didn't feel a lot of support, emotional support from him. - [Craig] Are you starting to question your religion? Or your spirituality, were you confused or anything? - No I think the thing is that you have to realize, no matter what you believe or what you feel you know, or how strong that belief set is, when you go through a loss like that there's a physical reaction that you are dealt with. It's a physical, emotional, mental reaction. And even though I still knew that Brandon had gone on, he still existed in another form. Despite that belief, that feeling of knowledge, I still had to suffer through that grief process. You can't avoid it, you can't go around it and just say, "Okay well he's in heaven now, everything's good, I'm fine." There's a process you go through because your life is forever changed. And there's a definite shock period there and there's no circumventing that. So I would say no, my belief system didn't change but it didn't keep me from going through the grief process. - I started wanting answers. I started questioning what I had learned in church and there had to be more than that. - Mmhmm. - My faith became stronger, but I was still angry, like, "Why would you do this, why would you let this happen." - Especially when you made that kind of a promise. - Yes and we kept it, we were in church every Sunday. - So this group of parents that I was interviewing, I noticed that these kids that passed were unusually compassionate. Like I remember high school, we didn't hug each other. But it's a lot of these kids were like, if a kid was being bullied they just went out of their way and gave the kid a hug. Unusually loving. - Yes. - And I didn't expect that part of it. Do you think that, that has something to do with their early transition? - I do. - Like they're really ... They're almost enlightened. - I think they're more. Yes, well look at this way, once they have arrived back in heavenly home they're congratulated, "You did well, you're back the time you're supposed to be back." You get to cheer your family on, you're gonna continue to have a relationship with them, a different one. And now remember why this happened this way. - Okay. - Right, so, Yeah. when they're born here there's this forgetful veil that comes down, I don't know that I'm going to die at 16, I forget all of that. But what I have brought with me into this world is, closer to that perfect love that every soul is trying to get to. Because it takes a soul that is very, very loving to want to leave early. (dramatic music) - You know our job as parents is to take care of our kids, now did you worry, you're starting to think that he's somewhere else. - Right. - That you kinda shifted your atheism to maybe-- - Right, hoping, hoping So now were you worrying - That there was something else. Still not sure. - Not on board yet. Okay, but were you worrying that someone was taking care of him in the after world?" - Well. - Cause that was your job. - My father in law passed away when he was young, he was only 55. And he passed away four months after Tyler was born, and I thought, I didn't worry, because I thought, "If there really is something else up there, then I'm sure he's with his Grandfather." - I prayed that since my Mom had passed, that my Mom was there for her, but it literally became an obsession of, "I need to know, that she's okay." - Okay. - And that she wasn't frightened when she passed. And that opened up for me an avenue to start reading and researching about the afterlife. - I without a doubt knew my Dad was already on the other side. He was the best person possible, to greet him. - So he was in good hands. - He was in the best hands. - And you felt the.. - Well remember, I didn't know. - Okay. - So it pierced my consciousness five days after. - Cyril, when he saw me saying, "We love you, we're proud of you, and don't be afraid." He said, "Let me take the phone." Because he thought that I was just talking to him, and I told him, "No he's gone." And he immediately just melted screaming, melted, I mean it was just horrific because he had no idea that it was that bad. - You're so calm on the phone. - I was so calm because I was talking to Morgan, and he actually heard me, and I knew that he didn't want me to be falling apart. - So you had a comfort that he was still.. - Oh completely. - But you knew he was gone. - I knew he was gone, I knew. I mean there was no way he could have hugged me that way. - But you felt like he was right there with you. - But I also knew that he was at peace and that he would always be with us, I mean that was just this download that I got immediately was that he's never going to leave. - [Craig] I mean my first impulse would be, "Who's gonna take care of my child now?" That I can't see, touch. Did you worry about that? - No. - You knew he was in good hands. - Right. Because I was told that my Grandmother was there before even it was his last breath. - So you went to a medium right away? - Right, the medium that I knew from Sedona, cause she knew Austin and Allison. - So you were seeing mediums before. - Yeah, so she came down for the celebration of life, and then she did a reading for my Mother, my daughter, myself, the night before the celebration of life and she told me that my Grandma was there. Austin was never like, "What's happening, what's going on?" He immediately knew what was going on and with open arms and a smile he went. - And again based on our faith and not really being sure whether there was anything after death, I think if we had thought about it, it's like there's really nothing to take care of anymore. - Care of, yeah. - He's gone, we're here. - [Craig] Okay. - Well I knew my Dad was already on the other side, and I felt like he would be there for him. And later on I got some, what I feel is strong confirmation validation of that. - [Craig] Okay. - And there are other loved ones who had passed as well. - I was more focused on him being taken care of by Jesus until things shifted later, and then I'd recognize who he's with. - [Craig] Did you begin to start to worry as to who was gonna take care of Kyle? - Well that's when I started looking into where he was and what he was doing. Like just being in heaven wasn't good enough for me. - Right. - It was okay about my Mom and Dad because you expect that to happen, but not your child. - Sure, of course. - So I had questions I wanted answers to. - Can it be sometimes confusing for a person to pass, let's say a horrific accident, and you're all confused and there you are in the afterworld. Can it be all little like whoa whoa crazy, I don't know where I'm at, I'm confused? - I believe you can, I believe you can be very confused depending upon the situation. It can be confusing so yes, like let's say a young boy's going on a date and he's on a highway or freeway, and a car accident happens and he's still in his mindset and memory of going on this date, but he's out of the body and he's looking down at this car mangled. These fire trucks, or ambulances coming and he's like, "What's going on, where am I?" He's suspended in time remember, because he's outside of linear time. But the memory keeps him drawn there so he's suspended in time, until probably his grandfather, someone from the spirit world comes to get him, which everybody does. In the spirit world they're very aware what's going to happen by the way, there are no such things as accidents in that the spirit worlds very aware that they're there. But they gotta change that mindset, so the grandfather in this instance might say to his grandson, "You have left the body, you're in a car accident." "I feel fine how could you say that? But you're dead, wait a minute, I feel fine." - Yeah. - And the grandfather would say, "Look at the clothes on that person." "Oh my god, that's my body, but I feel great." And that can happen. - I believe it can be a confusing, somebody passes fast they go to the other side, but I think when you go to the other side I think there's help there. I don't think you just ... And I always say to Craig too, the people that have lost someone, "Your loved ones never go home alone, they never go home alone there's always somebody there waiting for you, or to take you to the other side." So I think that they can be a little confusing, confusion when you go over to the other side. But I think there's clarity once you get there. But I've never had them say to me, "Gee John, when I got over I didn't know where the hell I was." You know what I mean, I've never had that, I can only go by my experience and what they've told me. - I do not feel that anybody gets stuck here and it really makes me upset when a medium will say, "Oh your son is stuck." - Yeah. - Or this and that, because that can just be so devastating and I don't believe it. So yes it can be, take longer and the transition is different when there's a tragedy, or I worked with a gentleman who didn't believe in the afterlife through his cancer passing and he said, "We're worm food, it's the undarkness." Whatever, so. He was like, - What. ♪ I feel good ♪ Right, (chuckles) when he passed he was like, "Whoa." (soft piano music) - [Craig] So how was your relationship with your husband? - He was amazing to me but I was kind of mad it him, because I thought, "Why are you acting normal with what we've just been through?" - You were mad at him. - I was mad at him because I thought, "Why aren't you crying, why aren't you laying in bed here?" - So you questioned his love. - I questioned his love and yet the crazy thing now is, is he's so sensitive and he cry's a lot more than I cry now. - For a short period of time I kept him at bay, I just felt that the love that I had for my child, that love couldn't be broken but the separation from it was so great that I was so afraid that something would happen to him and I'd have to experience the same thing again. So I kinda distanced myself. - Why did you feel somewhat contagious? - You know your mind. Your minds just .. - Your grief mind is so irrational. - You become, yeah. Yeah, yeah. - You probably become, you question everything. - Prior to the accident, like I say we were content, going on with life what have you. After the accident we were a little removed, cause we were grieving in different ways. Now I believe we're stronger than ever, my opinion, nothing can break us, we've been through the ultimate. - So you were divorced at this point, how is the relationship with your ex? - So I told you that he had blamed me, when I called him. - Yeah. - He finally told me that, he did not blame me for Austin's death. I think after the death we actually became closer. - There was no relationship, we were both residing in the same house, but I know without him saying, his heart was broken, mine was broken. He was not around much, but I was gonna persevere, I know I had to go through all these processes. With time, time is the ultimate healer, with time I think he found his way and I found my way, not necessarily parallel, but everybody grieves differently. I respected his process, he's respected mine. - True. - He's not going anywhere and neither am I, but it was a... I understand divorce, I understand suicide, I understand alcoholism, addiction, whatever comes from the loss of a child. Makes a lot of sense. - The gamut. - So my husband was amazing, the thing that we kinda decided together is that when one guy's going down, the other guy keep the other one up. - Sure. - So that was good. I think we're slowly getting back to normal, people on the outside wouldn't know but for me, we think different, we grieve different. I delved into the afterlife, it scares him, he knows his son's around, that kind of thing. Not that he would ever say, "I don't want to hear about it." Or whatever, because I myself have spiritual tendencies. - So you're saying he handled it pretty good. - He handled it good, yes. - But you went investigative, you wanted to learn. - Yes. - My husband and I have such different perspectives on the afterlife and so for me as a parent, as a mom, I wanted to know where my son was. And so in physics if energy doesn't die, okay, where does it go? And I was determined to find out where Sean was. - So, My husband not so much. - You wanted to talk about this idea, - Mmmhmm. - Of what you ... you're trying to process it. - Absolutely. - He's trying to process it this way, you're trying to process it this way, - Right. - But you're in a different campground, and he's in a different campground. - Correct. - So you guys are not helping each other. - No. - Because you're resisting each other. - There's a huge wedge. - We have a strong marriage, we definitely have a strong marriage. I mean any marriage is work, - Yeah. - It takes, it does, but I don't know I've just always said and we always told the kids, as long as you've got love and communication, - Sure - Respect and trust, yeah I think that if you have a strong marriage, even people with a strong marriage many of them fail after losing a child. - Of course the statistics are. - The statistics are crazy, I know that. - How did it affect the relationship with you two, as a married couple? - Not well, you wanna expand on that hun? (laughs) - Well, we were grieving in different ways and in different rooms. - Okay. - So, we didn't have a lot of interaction, we just, I think Jeff said that it was too painful for him to look in my eyes and visa versa too. We just, when we looked at each other we saw what was missing. - It triggered. - Just a giant hole in our lives and we couldn't look at each other with that. - And what was the time frame with this, when did you start to interact with each other, how long did it take? - Probably, a Well .. A month or so. - Yeah we really, and when we were in Germany together and during that first month while he was missing, we had hardly any interaction, just very superficial. - That was really by design, because, I'm not patting myself on the back, but I was kind of the appointed family member to do the heavy lifting. The one to go to the police station, the one who was, along with my sister, organizing the searches and all that. And I didn't really want the girls involved with that. - It was good, and you always hear about people saying, "Oh the death of a child will destroy a relationship or marriage." I figured it's gonna go one way or the other. And for us it went the other way, we became stronger together and helped each other through that process. And then as time went on I think we really relished the things that we learned and experienced that were hopeful things. But in our case it was more providing like an anchor that helped us through the process. - My husband works out of state, so I'm the one that had to call him and tell him about Andy. And he was in North Dakota at that time, so I can't even imagine how terrible that flight must've been home for him. There were possibilities for us to have blamed each other in this journey, it would of been very easy for him to blame me for Andy's death, because it was on my watch. - Yes. - And it would of been easy for me to blame him, because he wasn't here. - But it didn't go that way? - We made a decision when we got married, that this was a decision to be married, not an emotional process. And that decision supersedes anything else that's going on in this life, we process things totally opposite from each other, we couldn't be anymore opposite from each other. - Right. - And so, our marriage has shown us, and it hasn't been easy, cause we've had many times when we didn't like each other, how to allow each other the grace to take our own journey. And still be married. - Especially when their parents get divorced, I'll bring them through and they'll talk about feeling bad that their parents didn't stay together. So they do see their death and how it changes the people that love them, but they want to be talked about, happy, and funny, and interesting memories of themselves. They just can't get enough of hearing people talk about the good things, the funny things about them. If the tables were turned is that how they'd want their child to live? - [Craig] Did it put a strain on your guys' relationship? - No. - Did it bring you closer? - Mmmhmm. (soft instrumental music) - [Craig] You know happiness is getting a new house, or a new car, and then the payments roll in and the happiness is fleeting. (chuckles) And then there's that other thing called joy. - I never, I really believed even once I got out of bed, I thought, "Okay, I'll just exist." I did not believe I could ever really have joy again, I just thought, "How could I?" I never had guilt, while he was here, I never had any regrets, so I think when I did find myself laughing again, I never felt guilty, because number one, by this point I was laughing because I knew he wasn't gone. - [Craig] Could you describe to me, happiness and joy at that time. Did you experience any? - None whatsoever, and it was also a thought that went through my mind many times that, "I would never experience happiness or joy again." And I felt that I had always lived a joy filled life, and that was another loss. - You might understand, or think you understand the concepts of happiness and joy, but you're just trying to stand. You're just trying to get to - Get to the next moment. - You're trying to get your footing, and you might have a moment of happiness, but on some level you got to remake yourself. And it's not gonna happen overnight. (ocean waves crashing) - [Elizabeth] We can get there, it's not out of reach to be able to be happy and to experience joy. And to be able to talk about our kids in a happy way, and to tell each other things that are going on in our kids lives, as well as things that are going on in our lives. - [Craig] Could you describe those emotions of happiness and joy, you know joy -- - I didn't have any of that. - So there was no -- - No, I cried so hard that my contacts got stuck on my eyes, and I had to have my eye doctor come to my house twice to pull the contacts off. And she said, "Do not wear them for awhile, but Kim you gotta get a hold of yourself." And I said, "No I don't, don't tell me I have to get a hold of my." I heard, and all the other mom's and dad's have heard the same thing, "You know, when are you gonna move on?" That's the big one. "When are you gonna move on?" "Well move on where? Where you do you want me to move on to?" (chuckles) - I remember after Garrett's celebration of life, now this might be normal for everybody, but it was, there was so much laughter, it was so much drinks going on, it was like a party, celebration. - You were laughing? - I was laughing, talking, this, that. My cousins were all here. So right then there was joy. But even from the very beginning, I mean, I just tried to be normal. - I couldn't find out a one. - Nothing could. - Not initially, no. - Sure. - And happiness as we both know, is fleeting. - Sure. - It's temporary and joy is here. - Right. - But I think I was so broken, I didn't know where to look for joy, I didn't know how to find it at that point in time in my life. - So joy was out of the question, did you ever think you were gonna see a glimmer of happiness at some point? - Oh I knew I was, I just had to work through it. - You know, having two other kids you have to still be able to feel joy. I forced myself to just be so thankful that we had Garrett for 27 years, - Right. - 27 years we did a lot of stuff in those years, and I know that there are people that had one year. I forced myself to be thankful for that, and I forced myself to find all the things that I should be thankful for. All the great things that are still going on in my life. - Yeah. - And by doing that, it just makes it a little bit easier, it doesn't take away the pain, doesn't take away the sadness, but it gives you permission to still enjoy things and find reasons that you're still here. - Very early in the journey, from time to time, on a somewhat regular basis, we were getting little tid bits of Devon coming through. And at some level those were the moments where we could actually paste a smile on and feel somewhat sincere about it. It wasn't often, it didn't last for long, but it was the beginning of the process. - I'm not a great meditator, but in this particular instance I sat in a darkened room and was able to quiet my mind, and within a relatively short period of time, I saw an image in my minds eye of Brandon, kinda scrolling by smiling, like I felt happiness. And then right after that was a cross with a oval loop at the top and I'd seen those but I didn't really know what they meant. So I had to google it, and when I googled it I found out that, that's called a ankh, it's the oldest cross of human history. The lower portion represents physical life, and the oval loop at the top represents eternal life, so symbolically I got, he's happy-- - So he gave you a riddle. - He gave me a riddle, Yeah. - That I didn't know and I had to research, so for somebody with an analytical mind like me it was more validating. - Just glimmers and giving myself, even though I might have felt happiness and joy, it's giving yourself permission to display it, you might want to keep it as a secret. - It was not like it used to be, I could laugh and have a good time, but it was way down here. - So it was like a subtle laugh, little bit of joy. Was there anything that made you happy, or any type of joy, did you experience it at all? Or was it just... - It was almost non existent at that time. - And that's the life plan of the light worker. The light worker chooses a specific mission, they're coming into a particular vibration with the pre-birth intention of changing the vibration from within. So on the earth you have a lot of grief, because there are many parents who have lost a child and everybody loses some loved on at some point. So there's this energy of grief all around the planet, so if you are a light worker and your pre-birth mission is to help others resolve their grief and heal from it, you can't just ride in on a white horse and start handing out candy bars to help people feel good, that doesn't do anything to address the issue of grief. The way it's done as a light worker is, you go in, you have the experience yourself, you transform it within yourself first and then you offer what you've done to everyone else. That's what a light worker does. - It's like just a piece of their soul has been ripped out and it's raw, and they can't even taste food anymore, or get out of bed, or they don't want to go to the supermarket and things like that. So what I say to them is, "If you could just imagine that, if you could just come a little bit out of this heaviness of grief." And I understand in the beginning stages they need to feel it, to heal it, and to experience it. And not heal it in the sense of, "Oh it's going to be healed." But allowing some type of lightness to come in, so that they can feel their child more, because a lot of folks that I work with, with parent loss, they feel they need to stay in that heaviness of it or they would be letting the child down. - Sure. - And I say it's the opposite, if you smile and laugh again it vibrates through their soul and it lifts them higher so they can reach you better. And so I help them to work on the relationship, I say, "Okay, we can't turn back time here, we can't hit rewind. What can we do, what can I show you, to help you get to a place that you form and develop another relationship that's the non physical." "Yes I want that, I want to learn how to reach my child, and do what you do, and have communication, and validation that they're here." So my goal is to help them to see that, we can still have a relationship it's not physical, but it can be really beautiful. And you can still be sad, and cry, and grieve, and then you can have moments of enlightenment, like, "Wow, I hear you, you're right here." (whispering) (laughing) (heavenly music) - [Carol] I desperately, desperately wanted to communicate with him. I desperately wanted to see him, I thought that I would go to sleep and it would just be so... - You were waiting. - I was waiting for so long, but I was in such a dark place that it was hard to get past that cloud of grief to be able to let him in and have that. - You think that had something to do with it? - Oh yes, I do. - I didn't just want to communicate, I was desperate to-- - And you would even take just a little sign, something. - Anything and for me, I know a lot of parents talked about the head signs in the beginning, but I think I was so deep in my grief that if a sign was right in front of me I never would of been able to see it. - Yes, absolutely. I mean initially for me, like I said, I was checked out, numb, but I was hearing him and I always heard him. I just I wanted to see him. - [Craig] Did you yearn to communicate with Austin? - Oh my god, yeah. I'd hear about dreams or you know... At first it wasn't easy and it's still, sometimes I think my brain is too boggled, I have too much going on with everybody and everything-- - Wait, wait, wait so you they were telling you that they're communicating with their kids? - Right, right way, yup. - And you're like, "Ah I want a little bit of this." - Right, "I'll have whatever you're having." I said to Elizabeth. (laughing) And I knew, like I said earlier in the conversation, that Derrick and I were very close. So I feel like this is a no brainer, he trusted me and told me everything, I was there by his side, that I knew everything about it him, he'll come to me right away. Well that didn't happen. - [Craig] So in the beginning it was, not really communication, but just an apparition or a manifestation, you would see him? - See him, feel him, I would talk to him, but I wouldn't get answers back, because possibly I was blocked in grief. - [Craig] At this point in time did you want to communicate with Sean? - Oh yes, absolutely. I had actually communicated with him three weeks after he passed. I was packing to go to Virginia Beach. - Uh-huh. - So you're throwing in a dress and whatever jeans, but when I got to Virginia Beach and I opened up my luggage there was a foot long white feather sitting on the very top of my clothes. - Are you kidding me? - No I'm serious, I brought it because nobody believes me. (chuckles) But I can assure you, first of all I would have no place in my home to put a foot long white feather, but it was in my luggage when I opened it. And then the communication just started. - I felt us connected, in some ways I did, but in other ways I just had a feeling that he was around us. - [Craig] Did you yearn to communicate with Devon? - Of course we did. Well people kinda just found us with his messages, apparently he is loud and in your face if you're a medium. - Oh really? - And they just call us, I don't know that we've ever paid for a medium. (chuckles) They just find us. - [Craig] Did you really wanna talk to Andy? - Oh my gosh, that's the first thing I wanted to do. And within my religious framework that was not acceptable, not allowable, and I was gonna go to hell. But I kept getting these, I got a few messages from people on my messenger, or Facebook social media, and they told me that I needed to see this one women, this medium who lived in Carefree. And I was like, "No." But I wanted to talk to Andy, so I googled her to make sure that she was as renowned as a medium could be. - Right. - And took my chances, 40 days after Andy passed. And talked to my kid. - He was with me the whole time. - He was with you the whole time. - He was with me when we went to view him the night before his service. He was with me, I was so calm and I could just feel this calmness all around me, and the same thing with the service the next day. - You know, my husband could, started to see Tyler, which is crazy, and he would turn and out of the corner of his eye he's see him and he'd start to cry, and he would say, "Oh my goodness, I felt liked I'd wanna turn around and chase him." And my husband could see this cloud around me, he said, "You know you, he can't get through to you." Because my husbands ears would ring and all of the stuff would happen. And it wasn't with me because I was in this dark, dark place. - And a lot of place say to me too, Craig, "Are they okay on the other side?" I say, "They're absolutely fine, we're not." We're the ones that are here, and we miss them in a different way than they miss us. We miss the physical presence of them, their touch, they're still with us so I have to believe that they're not missing us like we're missing them. Same intensity, but we miss them on a physical level, when they can still be around us all the time. - [Craig] So you were asking questions? - Oh yeah, yeah, "Come to me, come to me I want to see you." So then when he relays to me that he's seen him, why I am I not seeing him. - So you were hearing him, - I'm hearing him, I wanna see him now. - You're seeing him. - I saw him. - Full body or just... - It was a silhouette walking across his room, then it was one of the earlier things that. - How long after he transitioned? - About seven weeks. - Seven weeks you were starting to see. - Well I saw him and I saw him once but, coming from a guy that didn't know, each moment of "Wait a second," was magical. And that was one of those moments, it's like, "Wow, I just saw my son." - I went there thinking, and I did I collapsed onto the ground, I'm sobbing into the grass on top of the grave, and I'm like, "How could you do this to me? I mean how could you leave me alone?" I mean I limp, I don't walk right, I'm trying to raise our son, "How on earth could you leave me?" And you're in that beautiful place and I'm in this hell hole I tried to make sense of it all. And the interesting thing was I felt her as real that day as anything, I was hunched over, over the grass and I felt as if her hands came upon my shoulders and she said, "Stop, stop berating me." And this was very powerful, she said to me-- - You had an argument. - I was having an argument with her, (laughing) and she came calming saying, "Stop." - Cut it out. - And this is what she communicated, she said, "I loved you enough to leave." And I'm like, "What." She said, "I would have loved nothing more than to stay and grow old with you, but that wasn't the plan. You're soul would've never expanded, you would of never known, or learned, or remembered the things that you're remembering had I stuck around." And it almost like she had this cosmic deal we made that she was gonna go and that she loved me enough to go. And of course then yeah, we're arguing and I said, "Yeah but I'm having feelings for another woman." And she laughed at me. She's like, "Of course you are, I want you to, I am not jealous in this realm, I am orchestrating." In fact she even indicated that she had sent Tonya along my path. - Listen he's right here with us, and he is going to be here with us for the rest of this journey. And they, without necessarily believing in all of this, the fact that I was so calm, calmed them down. And they, - Wow. - have been incredibly enlightened, my two daughters, my husband as well. It's not easy, it was not an easy situation. - Of course. - But at the same time, I think that Morgan and Chelsea, made it so much easier for us. - Austin's like, "Will you chill out so I can come and talk to you for a little bit." - So you just said, Austin's like. So he talks to you? - Okay, so.. So at first it didn't happen as easily as it is now for me, but I had dreams, but they're not dreams or visits. I had beautiful visits, I've probably had, I wanna say four or five of them, I have two that are my favorite. - From what I've noticed with all of the other parents was, that once they changed their mindset, in our society you're not supposed to laugh because, "How dare, you must not care about your kid." That you should feel guilty, you shouldn't ... So there's this paradigm in our society-- - And I did feel guilty for awhile. - Sure. - What if I laughed. - [Craig] You can see your mom, your mom had passed. - Mmhmmm. - But yet you could see her. - I was in my kitchen and she hovered above my island, and part of her, her whole top part was her. - Okay. - And then the bottom part was wispy like Casper the ghost. - Did that ever happen with you and Garrett. - For-- - Full body, like half partial. - Not like that, but Garrett I could see him like walk down the hall, or whatever, to his bedroom. Shortly after as well into maybe four or five years later. - But when I was getting ready to go on the medication I reached out to Shannon, another one, and I said, "I don't know what to do, I just wanna feel better." She said, "Ask Garrett, when you go to sleep tonight, before you go to sleep, you tell Garrett you want him to help you get through this rough patch right now, and whatever it is he needs to do, but ask him to help you." And I thought, "Okay," I mean okay, "I'll ask whatever." (laughs) I mean gonna, - Sure. - Do what she says, and I swear to god, I woke up the next morning feeling so much lighter, and it was just all lifted off of me. - Oh, he administered some.. - I never went on the medication. - You know Mark Ireland, - Yeah. - was talking to a medium on the phone and the medium would say, "Do you know somebody named Lynn or Linda that lost a child because he's right here with me and I need to get in touch with her, or he's not gonna leave me alone." - Yes. - We had a lot of that stuff happen. - I mean I've met people on airplanes, it's interesting. (laughing) So I haven't had to do a lot of work, he just.. - It really does fall on your lap. - So like I talked about my Father and his abilities to communicate with spirit when he was alive. And it was only like three days after Brandon passed that I was in the mortuary and I talked to my uncle. I had actually called him like within hours after Brandon passed and he asked if he could do anything for me, and I said, "Well if you get any kind of message or anything you can share." And he told me that he had tried to meditate the night before and didn't get anything, but that morning he had actually connected with my Father, who had come to him. - Okay. - And had shared that he was there when Brandon transitioned, he helped him adjust. Brandon wanted us to know that we were the best parents he ever could've had, but then he gave me a piece of evidence too that was confirming or validating. And that was that he said that my Dad had conveyed that Brandon's death was caused by a lack of oxygen that caused his blood oxygen levels to drop and his heart to fail, and at that point we didn't know the cause of death, it was about two days later I spoke to the autopsy physician. And she had said that Brandon's death was caused by a severe asthma attack that dropped his blood oxygen levels and caused cardiac arrest. - If the tables were reversed and I was in heaven, and Andy was here, what would I want him to be doing? How would I want him to be living? Would I want him to be sad and stuck, or would I want him out there with all of his friends, living an awesome life. I would want him, and he wants that for me, I don't want him to be worried about me, I don't want him to look in on me and go, "Oh my Mom, she's so sad." I want him to say, "My Mom's tough as nails and look at her." - Awe that's awesome. - "Look at what she's doing." That helps me everyday, what's my kid gonna see me do today. - The book "Soul Shift" - Okay. - And started reading it. And so I emailed him, just saying, "Thank you, I'm reading your book and it's the first thing that's ever given me hope." The very next day he called me. We had about a half an hour conversation he said, "Can I give your number to a woman named Elizabeth Boisson, who started this work group?" And I said, "Of course, anything." (chuckles) So then she called me the next day and we went to our first meeting. Elizabeth invited us to go out to dinner with a small group. We're sitting with these beautiful, happy, people that are laughing, and I thought, "Oh my god, we're gonna be okay." - There are several key elements that lend themselves to better communication and number one is the belief that they really are here. If we don't believe they're here we will be shut down to that. So belief and then intention to connect is key. - Okay. - You need to set the intention, "I really wanna connect with you." And then learning to shift your focus from the human world to just the soul connection. Sometimes that happens, we call it by grace, when suddenly the child is here, but you can actually cultivate that conversation. But belief, and intention, and raising your vibration are key. - So I want to say that, sometimes when parents talk about children that pass over and they really meet them, I really would love people to know that, that soul of the child, there's also an aspect of that parent in the soul of a child, we're part of each other. So they recognize that, so we gotta remember that even when you pass out of the physical limitations there's a recognizability of a soul connection, because we're part of each others soul. So that's really interesting to recognize that. - Your child who has passed could be sending you a sign and someone may say, "I never hear from them." Because they are asking for something so specific, which you can do, but I say to parents that have lost someone, "Just don't focus on the eagle that you said you want from your kid, your kid could be, you could be feeling your kid, you could feel a warmth behind your shoulders." And then we say, we talk ourselves out of it all the time, "Oh it must be the fan that's on." You could feel a kiss and you could say, "Ah it just must be the wind." Try not to talk yourself out of it and an ADC is something that is for you personally, without a medium. But yes, the parents the veterans here, they've been through this, maybe they worked with other mediums and themselves also, so there can be communication. Not just between mother and child, or a father and child, but all of us. - Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. - Absolutely. - The signs start coming and the signs start coming when the grief, the heaviness is lifted, because we've talked about vibration, grief will lower your vibration. But if you walk through the grief and you allow yourself to cry it out as much as you can, and you try to be grateful for the time that you had, you'll get to this point where it starts to lift a little bit, and then because you've survived something so horrible as this loss, the energy centers in you are even more powerful now. So if you were having a hard time connecting with other loved ones on the other side before, after going through the grief your energy centers are ready to go. - You are still here, and I will see you again one day. And we'll be together again one day, so let's work together. You from the spirit world, me right here on earth, let's weave this together, and I have chills right now, and form a really deep spiritual relationship so that when I get there and I see you again we can say, "See, this is why I had to go first, so we could do this." The parents I work with will say, "I just, I can't feel anything." Or, "I don't want to." Or, "I feel bad, I feel guilty, I shouldn't be out having a good time." And I really wanna stress that when they see you smile, and laugh, and start to live again, you actually lift them up and you may actually get more signs because you're in a better place to receive the validation. - [Craig] Was there anything that just, you just could say, "I put my finger on this, this was the click." The just (snapping fingers), what was it? Was it the medium that you talked to? - No it was that reflection of his face, that reflection of his face is what started, where I knew he was not gone. That, you know when I told you about in my husbands helmet, - Yeah, I know I -- - And that's when I knew, that's when something clicked, he's not gone. - I decided that if I was gonna go to a medium, I was gonna go to a tested medium. I set my intention that all I wanted to know is that Carly was okay, and that she wasn't frightened when she passed. And within about five minutes he looked at me and he said, "You have a child on the other side, you have a daughter. She wants you to stop obsessing about her passing, it was as easy as walking through a doorway. She was confused but your mother was there to greet her." - Oh. - And that just changed everything for me. - [Craig] So did you seek out a medium, or any type of books or...? - I hadn't, I hadn't sought out anything, I knew, okay he's trying to communicate, we're gonna get this and we're gonna get through this. - I was, (laughing) I was getting the signs (snapping fingers) and five days after it pierced my consciousness that, "Guess what, he still is." And my next thought was, "Why didn't I know?" And I began to read, and I had the most amazing experiences in reading, I had the most amazing experience picking up eight books at a bookstore, down on east Colfax, and driving out of there and having this unbelievable hyper sensitivity to my vision. And then opening a book and in the introduction that described what I had experienced, as being on a spiritual journey and a validation that you're on the right path. And I discovered through reading and having my own experiences, that this is normal. I mean it's, I was on fire. - [Craig] Did you ever think of seeking out a spiritual person, like a medium, or a psychic, or anything like that? - I thought about it, but I'd had ... - Experiences first hand. - Yeah there was this first hand things that I thought, "Gosh nothing compares to my boy coming to me in a dream or (laughing) in a vision, so I'll just take that for what it's worth. - That was pretty sobering. - I think that it's important to be very careful with the therapist that you are seeing, because seeing a therapist who doesn't want to talk about that connection with your child, and maybe poo-poo's it. And I think that it's important to keep a lot of this in a sacred space. - [Craig] How soon after were you starting to have this visitations or communication with Austin? - Maybe a year. - So it took about a year? - Like Ally's now at ASU, she had a presentation she needed to do and so she's nervous but she's really good at speaking in public, not me I don't like it, but which I know is hard to believe. (laughing) But I really don't like it. And so I'm like, "Austin." I go, "Please will you, please make sure she does a good job." - Sure. - And so he tells me, he goes, "Mom she is up right now and I can't listen to her since you keep talking in my ear." So I can hear my son saying, "Will you please stop, I got this, I got this." - He's already there. - He's already there, he's like telling me to cool my jets, stop talking to me, I'm already there, she's gonna do fine, let me be with my sister right now. - Let me do my job. - Yeah, yeah. Nice. - You have to remove common sense and logic, you have to take it and put it over here. You have to be open and if you can't be open, then it's gonna be pretty hard. - Now I have full on conversations with Garrett. And I joke that I have a better relationship with him in spirit. One thing he tells me to tell parents is that, "Don't keep going over it 300 times, I did not die 300 hundred times. I only died once and quite frankly it's not important." - [Craig] You went to see a medium, okay. - Right, so she said to me that, she asked me if I had a son that crossed over, yes. "He had only been gone a few weeks?" Yes, and so she was just doing her validations, which they all do. "Tell my sister it's okay that she can move in with her boyfriend." And I said, "Oh no, oh no, no, no, no." I said, "You're wrong, she's not moving in with anybody." She said, "Well, Sean says differently." Got off the phone, call Shannon, "Are you and your boyfriend talking about moving in?" Silence, like crickets. (chuckles) She said, "How did you know that, we just talked about maybe moving in together." And I said, "Oh your brother told on you." - [Craig] You asked Garrett. - Yes. - And I think that, that has something to do with it. - It does and I've learned that you have to. - You have to ask. - You have to ask, you have to ask whether it's your loved one, or it's your angels and your guides. - Sure. - These are things I've learned, that they're all standing around waiting. - I believe, suffering actually brings about great growth, or it can if you allow that process to take hold, it's not easy but, it's part of life. And I think there is purpose and meaning to life, so because of that I knew that I've got to continue, there's no shortcut really I guess is the point, in my view. - So you had a pretty good strong understanding that there was no option, you had to do what you came here. - Yeah, and I think the other thing that some people forget is you've got a lot of other things in your life to be grateful for. - I kept going back to the actual accident, and I could hear him say to me, "No Mom, no." - [Craig] Like you're wasting your time? - Yeah just don't go there, and he would say, "I'm fine." I would, my legs would vibrate, my legs vibrated for probably three years. And I just, I researched it and the only thing that I could come up with was his energy. - Did you hear anything? - I, no, no. - What did you think about Nita saying that he's giving me words. - Oh I believe it because I think that bond, the mother child bond is, - Yeah. - Can't be broken. (chuckles) - I think it's probably one of the, even cancer, but the death of your own child is probably one of the hardest things that anyone could have to challenge themselves with. - I think it's a tremendously, tremendously courageous life plan, because those souls know before they come into body that this is going to be an extraordinarily painful experience. They they know that it's rich with meaning, that it is not arbitrary, random, meaningless, suffering in any way, but they also know there's going to be a tremendous amount of suffering involved with it. I think many of the people who have that in their life plan have it there to trigger a spiritual awakening, we live in a time of wide spread spiritual awakening. A lot of people have that as part of their plan, some choose to have less traumatic things to trigger the spiritual awakening, but for those who are absolutely determined pre-birth that they're going to awaken, they want to give themselves a lot of motivation to do that. And in the earth school, pain is often the motivation, the more intense the pain the more intense the motivation. So it gives those souls tremendous opportunity and motivation to find spiritual awaken, to create it in this lifetime. It also, I think and related to that, helps them to remember their identity as eternal souls, because when they start seeking out, "Wat happened here, where is my child, is my child still in existence somewhere else?" And then they find mediums and channels who can contact the child, they have contact in which they feel certain that the medium or channel has reached their child, and their child is still alive, then they're opened up to the other side to our true nature as eternal beings. And this is an experience that many people wanted to have in this lifetime. - [Craig] Before you used to think that death was a very permanent thing. - Yes. - What is death an illusion? - Absolutely, there is no death, I wish that we wouldn't even call it death. - So describe to me Carol's version of the after world. - Absolutely incredible, it's what we want it to be, because our conscious is what we want it to be. My energy, my soul energy is so much bigger than just Carol. - Carol's just the spark. - Carol's just the spark, I believe that part of my soul is already up there with Tyler. - Yes. - And I think I'm kinda here and there, I just don't remember when I'm there because my human self has work to do here, so. - [Craig] You didn't think about death, I think there was even a point where you said, "That's it." - There was nothing else. - Almost had a atheist ... - I believed that death was the end of life, it's just the end of the physical body, like wow what a concept that life is eternal. - I had that hurt in my heart of what she caused, but I have to say I was a very forgiving person, so it was almost it somewhat hurting me even more so because I haven't been able to allow myself to forgive her. I knew it was a process I needed to get through, and I did eventually forgive her, and it brought more healing to myself. - That's when you saw more of a shift? - Yeah, definitely, and more of Quin, he came around more. - So it didn't sound like there was just a point in time where your perspective began to shift, it was like over years your perspective was shifting. You had a sign, (fingers snapping) your perspective would click a little, like the cogs were turning and then you just kinda became more and more spiritually aware of perhaps a bigger .. - Yeah. A bigger picture. - Yeah, I mean it felt like I saw the sum and I was figuring out the equation. - Right. - And little pieces and bits would come, and little pieces to the puzzle would come. And yeah, in hindsight it's like, "Wow, look at all the miracles." I mean when you're in the middle of it, it's just a storm that you hope you get through. - [Craig] It wasn't that long ago that if you were talking about a deceased loved one in room with you, you would be institutionalized, so we're still catching up to all these modalities that you know... - Yeah. - I understand the circle, having all the parents get together and communicating with others, what do you think the success for that is, a lot of these parents are having communication? - I think that it has nothing to do with the love that you hold for your child and that's something that's really important for parents to understand. I also think that unfortunately it's influenced by the grief that you're going through, once you have left that huge heavy grief behind, you start... You start moving towards a healing place where you're able to hear your kids and you're able to connect with them. (ocean waves crashing) - I think once I got passed a point of healing where I just trusted and listened, and I just was talking to the air, and I get an answer back. And I know I didn't formulate that answer, it answered my question. And then I would ask another question and I'd get the answer back, and I just know. I'm having a full on conversation with my son. - We talk all, I talk to him all the time, and he will find a way to respond, whether it's lights blinking or... - Simple answers of.. - Simple, right, or I hear him. If I really need to talk to him, he will absolutely, - You'll hear. auditory, I will hear him. - And are you meditating and stuff? - Yes, yes, I meditate every day. - So your a.. Every morning. - You're raising your vibration so he can somehow... - He has to lower his a little bit and I need to raise mine. For sure. - I told Glenn awhile back, I said, "I'm exhausted, Kyle's in my head 24/7." Especially when I go to the dark place, and he just says, "Get outta there, don't go there, stop that." (soft piano music) (ocean waves crashing) (thunder crashing) (inspirational instrumental music)

Channel: Life to AfterLife Spirituality Series

Views: 317,202

Keywords: life to afterlife mom can you hear me, craig mcmahon, life after death, helping parents heal, life to afterlife, james van praagh, loss of a child, james van praagh meditation, james van praagh guided meditation, james van praagh talking to heaven, james van praagh angels, james van praagh soul care, craig mcmahon life to afterlife, craig mcmahon afterlife, life after death documentary, life after death tvb, life after death documentary full series, Near death experience

Id: icwhBSN4rHQ

Length: 149min 8sec (8948 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020