7. Angel Numbers and Eternal Bonds: Emily's Story of Love and Loss

Intro: My mom and I built a very special. I feel like a more deep connection. No matter what was happening in life or what I needed, she was always there no matter what. I thought everything was fine because she had so many times where she was in the hospital and she had a stroke scare. About an hour after I'd gotten home from seeing her, the chaplain called me and said that her heart had stopped. But I kept telling everybody I was like, no, there's four, four, four in her monitors. I remember sleeping in her ICU room and waking up in the middle of the night, and looked at my phone time and it said four, four, four. I looked at her and it was almost like a page had turned. I felt this overwhelmingly just wave of support. It was almost like I was being guided to make this decision because it was happening anyway. The things that happened the first couple weeks afterwards are just 100% a clear cut answer, that it was her. I've always believed there was something more to this.

Episode beginning: Welcome to Next Realm Beautiful Stories from Beyond, a show that explores the profound and heartwarming stories of individuals who have experienced messages from their departed loved ones. I'm your host, Amber Rasmussen, and today's guest is Emily. When she lost her mother at a very young age, she didn't know how to navigate the world. But when she began experiencing the love of her mother from beyond, she knew that she was still with her always and forever.

Emily: So I'm the youngest. I have a sister who's older. She was the first to leave. She was the first one to kind of pave the way. You know, in school, I feel like she was the first one to really get in trouble and, like, make the mistakes. And so my mom and her had a very different connection because she was kind of figuring out as she went along.

My mom and I built a very special, I feel like more deep connection. She is a retired teacher who taught for 34 years. She is a music teacher, so that was all around just who she was. She loved music. She was very engulfed in what music can do for others as well. She of course put me in choir and band and all those things but I think it was much more than that. Like, she really just loved music no matter what it was. she had a very deep connection with it. It made her happy. She, you know, took me to all these concerts when I was younger and it was such a powerful thing for me in my life.

Amber: Yeah. It just kind of speaks to you, right? Speaks to your soul.

Emily: Exactly for sure.

Amber: Now, did you have your father in the picture? Was she a single mom?

Emily: She was to an extent. My dad was in the picture. They divorced when I was five. It was not amicable. It was not a let's put the children first type of situation. They constantly undermined each other. They constantly were talking about each other. It was ugly. And so during all of that, I really gravitated towards my mom because I felt like she was more of my safety. She had her faults, of course, and she would talk bad about him. But from my point of view, she was the one who was taking me on all these trips, and she was really putting effort into my life and really caring about what I was doing in school. And he would just kind of just show up to the birthdays and to the fun things. But my mom was the one who was really in the dirt and the awful things with me, you know?

Amber: Yeah, yeah. The good, the bad. That's what moms do.

Emily: Exactly. So she just became this rock even as an adult. You know, they say that your relationship with your parents always gets better when you move out. And that's exactly what happened. You know, I moved out when I was 19, and it took a second. I kind of settled down. But after that, like, I loved hanging out with my mom. I loved going to her house like it was almost a running joke in my family because I would never go buy toilet paper. I would just go to my mom's house and take it. Right. So, it's just so fun to have that adult connection with your parents. It's different, you know?

You know, we were close. I feel like she never really showed me also like how to be an adult, essentially. Like, I understand the money part of it and like, pay your bills on time and stuff. But when I moved out, I didn't know how to do dishes. I never did my own laundry. So that continued on for about a couple of years after I moved out, that she would just do my laundry. And it's terrible. It's a running joke now because it's like, all right, like…

Amber: She mothered you very well.

Emily: And that's exactly what, like my partner said about me, too, because I, you know, I just was her thing, like, I was just her baby, you know? And no matter what was happening in life or, you know, what I needed, she was always there, no matter what. I do feel like we were very privileged in the sense of whatever she could do to make me happy. She did. And I'm like, forever grateful for that.

Amber: There's something to be said because I'm the youngest child, too, and my mom would always say, it doesn't matter how old you get, you're always my baby, and my mothering instincts will never go away. So it doesn't matter if you're 5 or 50. Whatever. Like, I'm still like, I want to do motherly things for you. And that sounds like kind of your mom, too.

Emily: Yeah, definitely. It almost makes me so sad to think about that. I didn't get more time with her. or that she didn't get to see me continue to grow because I was 25 when she passed. She was 65. My sense of life wasn't completely there still. And so I would call my mom for advice, for anything. How do I do this? Like, what do you think I should do? and that's not there anymore. So it's, it's very difficult because it's very easy to pick up the phone and ask her, hey, or text or hey, what do you think I should do? This is the right way to go about this. And now I don't have that clear cut immediate answer from her.

Amber: Yeah, you have to grow up really fast when you don't have, you know, that person to fall back on for sure. But before we get into how she passed, is there any, like, specific memory of her that is just your favorite that you'll just forever cherish?

Emily: Yeah, I'm gonna say so. Her favorite place in the entire world is London. She had visited, I want to say, about nine times. By the time she passed. she took my sister over there one time when my sister was 14 and just fell in love. Right. And so anyone who knew her knew that her entire apartment was decorated with, like, you know, the flag and just certain, you know, teacups and tea sets that were from London. She just loved it.

We went over there when I was 18. I think it was about the second time that she'd taken me over there. And so we were doing things differently and, you know, going to see things I hadn't seen before. And it was an afternoon we were in bath and we were sitting there and we were just having ice cream. The sun was going down. And she kind of looked at me and she said, you know, Emily, life is an adventure and I hope that you never stop exploring. And I will never forget that sentence where we were, what we were doing that really summed up her. You know, she was very open minded. She was very just up for exploration. You know, she was very adventurous. She had a lot of physical problems also. You know, she had knee surgery. She had, arthritis. There were days that she could barely walk, but she never let that stop her from doing what she wanted to do. And I think that's beautiful. And I think that's going to carry with me for a long time is that even though, you know, London is a very, very walkable city, you know, and you, you walk a lot to get where you need to go. And there would be days during the trip that she was just in so much pain. But, you know, once again, she never let her stop her.

Amber: Yeah, I love that. And that's so true. And that is something that you can take with you for the rest of your life. It's like those words of wisdom that you don't realize it at the time. But now, reflecting back, you can see that that was really special.

Reading Portion: Whether in life or death, a mother's bond with her child is unbreakable. Did you know that our parents are some of the people that we have chosen at a social contract level, to be there for us within this life, to teach us many of the lessons that we were here to learn so we can evolve as souls.

If you're wondering what a soul contract is, well, it's basically an agreement a soul makes before reincarnating into a human life that outlines the experiences and purposes the soul will have in that life. In Emily's case, we heard of just one tidbit of information her mother provided to her while she was alive that shaped the person she is today. Life is an adventure and I hope you never stop exploring.

Well, that's pretty amazing. But have you considered that her mother's death could have possibly been a lesson for Emily as well? What if one of Emily's challenges here on earth was to learn to be more independent and self-sufficient? And could it be that her soul contract with her mother could have been at play? Just remember though, all experiences here on earth are done with love and for our growth, even situations that seem to cause harm to us, the experiences that jolt us deeply carry the strongest lessons.

And speaking of being jolted, let's hear from Emily again about the events leading up to learning of her mother's prognosis that changed her life forever.

Emily: You know, leading into her hospitalization that led to her death. I thought everything was fine because she had so many times where she was in the hospital and she had a stroke scare. And, you know, from me, I was in high school. I was 14 when she had that stroke scare. And so I was kind of used to it. I was like, all right, we're going to we're going to be here for a little bit. She's going to get out and everything's going to be fine.

It was like one of those things where it's like she was still living on her own. She was driving herself. She was doing all of these things independently, and there was never an issue of her getting around by herself. And so it was almost like whiplash. It was like, well, what do you mean? She's so far worse than what she's ever been so quickly.

Some people, I'm sure, are going to have to put their parents in nursing homes and all that, but it was never even an option because it just happened so fast. Yeah.

Amber: And you probably have this false sense of security of she's always pulled through. She's so strong. She's my mom. She's immortal. Almost.

Emily: Definitely. And like the month beforehand, because she had just nobody even knew she was sick. We didn't we couldn't even say that she was sick because she kept kind of putting it off. It's like, oh, no, I just don't feel good, you know? I'll go to the hospital if it gets super bad, but I just don't feel good. I don't really feel like eating. And so my partner and I would take over food for her and she just wouldn't even eat it. But once again, the whole like, no, I'm fine, it's okay. I'm gonna I'm going to be fine. And the whole like week beforehand she was like, hey, I can't really go to the grocery store. Can you please help me out with this? And so we did.

But I think that probably was one of the first signs of like, all right, maybe this is kind of getting bad, but if your mom is looking you in the face and saying, no, I'm fine as a child, you're like, okay, I guess, I guess you know better, you know?

Amber: Yeah. It's like she's trying to protect you from what she probably knows is the inevitable. But walk us through what it was she passed away from. And like, what was that last week when you found out that this is terminal or this isn't going to end well or, you know.

Emily: Yeah, it's funny that you say protection because that's exactly what was going on. Even now, after her, you know, her passing, I still feel like she's protecting me no matter what. That's what she's always done. And I 100% think that she knew what was going on. And she protected myself, my sister and my family from, like you said, the inevitable because she did not want to eat for an entire month beforehand. She just felt bad. And then on a Wednesday at the end of July in 2023, I came over to her house before I went to work, and she was sitting on the couch and she told me that she wasn't able to stand up. You know what was the worst part, though, is that she was crying when I got there already, and she told me that she was sorry for ruining my summer. And I said, mom, that's nonsense. Like, it doesn't matter. You're not ruining anything. Like, let me call the ambulance. And so I did, and they, you know, took her to the hospital.

I sat with her the entire day, and they admitted her for what they thought at the time was a bad kidney infection. I remember sitting there and the doctor in the E.R. was like, no, it's not that bad. You know, we're just going to give you some antibiotics. We're going to admit you, we're going to see what this looks like tomorrow, and you'll probably be home tomorrow evening. Well, she gets admitted overnight. I go back to her house because I was housesitting. I was sitting with her dog, and I wake up the next morning. Everything's fine. I had been in contact with her, you know, the entire time that I'd been away from her. And I tell her, hey, I'm coming to see you around noon, and I go up to the hospital. She was in a completely different area of the hospital, where it was more of a, you know, obviously non-emergent they just kind of need to be looked after. And so I went and I spoke with her, and I sat with her for about two hours and everything seemed okay. At the time, we were talking about what we were going to do after this and how they were talking about sending her over to our physical rehab to work on her knees and kind of give her body stronger than it was. And I left her and I said, okay, I'm going to go back and make sure Scottie, her dog, is okay.

And i get back to her house, and I'm just sitting there and I made myself some lunch. And then about an hour after I'd gotten home from seeing her, the chaplain called me and said that her heart had stopped and that they were doing everything they could to revive her, but that I needed to come immediately. And they weren't sure what the outcome of this will be. You know, when you get that type of call. I've never had that happen to me before. I've never experienced anything like that. I've lost also all my grandparents, and never once had I ever gone through anything that terrible of a phone call. I don't even remember how I got to the hospital. it's 15 minutes away from where I was, and still to this day, don't know how I arrived there. but I got there, and I went upstairs and they told me that she was alive and that they were hooking her up to life support, and they were trying to figure out what caused it.

That night was just the worst. It was Thursday. I didn't stay with her because no one really knew. We didn't have a lot of answers at the time. They just hooked her up to, you know, a breathing machine. These things called Pressors that apparently were trying to raise her blood pressure because that was also dangerously low. she wasn't, conscious, I would say, or went into her ICU room and spoke with her while they were still. I'm talking 3 or 4 nurses just around the clock by her bedside, moving things, giving her this, doing this. And I saw her for about five minutes that night before I went home, because they were just so much going on. They didn't know what had caused it. They were trying to find answers. They couldn't really give us any answers. So I made the decision to go home. and I called every hour that night in the ICU and talked to the nurse and asked her how she was doing. and they told me that they couldn't really give me an answer, but it's not good.

And so of course, I barely slept that night. But this is around 4 a.m. on Friday. Now I get a call from the nurse that was with her, and they told me that they had given her the max amount of what they could give her, that she was maxed out on everything. her blood pressure was not going up, that I needed to come up there and start calling family members. And I think that was the worst part for me is I wasn't hearing what they were saying. I was just kind of on autopilot at that point in time, but it hadn't really sunk in yet. They're like, all right, something is very, very, very wrong. And it's probably it's probably going to the end, you know, and that's kind of how the next three days would look.

her friends came up, you know, the entire time she was unconscious, she would squeeze my hand, she would react to voice. But she never once opened her eyes. Those were I mean, just hands down, the worst three days of my entire life. But what happened during that time is just the weirdest thing, because. I, you know, I've lost my grandparents. I have no living grandparents. I lost my last grandparent in 2021. I don't know if you know you believe in angel numbers, but I do. And I just kept seeing four 444 in her monitors, which is something I know. Everyone probably looked at me like I was crazy because I was sleep deprived. I wasn't eating. I didn't want to do anything except stand right next to my mom and hold her hand. But I kept telling everybody I was like, no, there's four, four, four in her monitors, like in the numbers. Just whatever it was tracking, it said four, four, four. And then I remember sleeping in her ICU room and waking up in the middle of the night. I looked at my phone time and it said four, four, four. That really spoke to me because I was like, all right, you know, in the moment I'm like, all right. This is some sort of like false positivity, all right. You know, everything's going to be fine. She is fine. It's going okay.

Amber: But now knowing, do you feel like the angels were with her and that they weren't going to let her leave you, or did you feel like, oh, no, she's going to be with them.

Emily: So it was exactly, the first one where I felt like they weren't going to let her slip in. Yeah, they weren't going to let her pass. And I think to this day, now that that was my grandparents, and they were either pulling her to the other side or that was their way of saying, hey, do you know, you don't know what's coming, but it is coming and you're going to be okay.

You know. So you know. Thursday, Friday, Saturday past Sunday evening, we kind of got told, like, hey, her liver is shutting down, her kidneys have already shut down. She's maxed out. Nothing is helping. This is the end. You know, a doctor looked me in the face and said her body is shutting down. And, you know, being 25 years old at the time, my sister wasn't there. Also, my sister, chose to handle it the best way that she could. And that was by staying away, which everyone copes differently, but really receiving the worst news that you could ever receive about your mom. But I think the craziest part about all of this is that I had spent three days in denial that, no, she's going to come through this. She's going to make it like, of course, these doctors who haven't, you know, who have spent their entire life studying medicine, don't know what they're talking about, you know, and I just was so in denial about everything that was happening around me. But one of the nurses once again told me, hey, we can't even give you an estimate. It could happen any time now. I would call the last of your family members that you have. If there's anyone you want to be up here in this time because it is happening soon.

I signed the paperwork to end life saving treatment, which is not something I ever saw myself doing. I looked at her and it was almost like a page had turned. I felt this overwhelmingly just wave of support. It was almost like I was being guided to make this decision because it was happening anyway. But at least you were able to say goodbye. You could be there. You could hold her hand while it happened. And that's exactly what I did. I still think it was my grandparents telling me, hey, it's her time. We're walking her through this right now and we're going to be here for you. But that moment of just clarity, almost of like, all right, now I see what's going on. My entire family's here. We're all standing around her. This is the end. And that's not something I even struggle with anymore. I know that I made the right decision. I know that I was being guided to do so 100%.

Amber: 100. I believe that absolutely was your grandparents. And they were kind of holding your hand to, to make this really tough decision that no young person your age should have to do.

Emily: Definitely. That was comforting.

Amber: Question for you, though. What did they find? Did they figure out why that happened or didn't?

Emily: Oh yeah. Like they still have no idea as to why she had a cardiac event like it. But the crazy thing is, is that she was down. You know, she was legally dead for 20 minutes before they were able to, quote unquote, revive her. And even then, they still could have lost her right then and there because just of how fragile the situation was, I never got they say. So on her death certificate, it says a multi-organ failure.

Amber: Oh, and did you do an autopsy or.

Emily: No. No. I did choose, though. She was an organ donor. so there wasn't much that she could give, but she was able to donate her eyes to help a I don't know exactly what age they were, but I do know that it is a child, that received the donation.

You know, the days after, which were just some of the worst days I've ever experienced in my life, I really didn't think there was anything past it for me. I thought, like, this is it. I had just watched her and the weirdest thing is I woke up. I hadn't slept for four days. I woke up on Monday because she passed on Sunday. I woke up on Monday morning, and the first thing that I thought about was that my mom was okay, which is a wild thing to say after you just watched her die. But I had watched her suffer for four days. I'd watched them do everything they could do. you know, her kidneys had failed or were failing were pretty much done. But it was very gruesome in the sense of like, if your kidneys are not working and there's nowhere else for things to go. And so at that point a body starts looking very different because they can't get rid of the waste. And so I was watching that and like, this is terrible. This is the worst thing I've ever seen, you know, with someone who's technically still alive but traumatic. And I waking up on the very next day and just knowing that my mom's okay is for me, like it felt very comforting in the moment. But of course, I woke up more and was like, all right, she's gone, you know, and it's set in.

And, but the things that happened the first couple weeks afterwards are just 100% a clear cut answer, that it was her. And even before she passed, I always believed in the other side and that there are ways that communicate with us and there are certain things they can and can't do, of course. But I've always believed there was something more to this. I do say I'm a very spiritual person, as it is with, you know, angel numbers and just the universe and the ways that it works.

Reading Portion: Right off the bat, Emily noticed angel numbers in the hospital. So what exactly are they? Angel numbers are numbers. Sequences that contain repetition, such as one, one 1 or 4 four, four. Or it could be pattern, such as three two 1 or 8 787. Although they may appear in the most ordinary places, these digits usually grab our attention and even for only a minute, evoke a sense of wonder.

The reason we're enchanted by these sequences, however, is an extension of their symbolism. It is believed that these numbers are messages from the spiritual universe that offer insight, wisdom, and directionality. Whether you assign them to angels, guides, ancestors, spirits, or simply a higher state of your own consciousness, angel numbers can confirm you're on the right path, shed invaluable insight on a complicated situation, or even illuminate the powerful, mystical meaning behind recurring themes you experience throughout your life.

In Emily's case, she kept seeing four, four, four. In numerology, this is associated with practicality, decision making, diligence, and strength. And this is exactly what she needed when faced with making one of the biggest decisions of her life, which is pretty incredible.

Let's find out some of the other things Emily experienced after her mother's death.

Emily: I remember talking to her one morning. This is about two days after she passed. I was talking to her and her alarm on her phone started going off. I didn't even know. She had once said I had no idea but to be in the middle of talking to her and crying to her, and her alarm starts going off. I was like, okay, like, hey, hey, mom. You know, and it just it just kept happening, like little things like that just kept happening throughout the week.

of course, you know, I told you about walking through target on my birthday and seeing the planner that said, happy birthday, Emily. because that was one of the things that I always received from her. Like, no matter what, how old I am or where I was, she would handwrite me a card and give it to me. And it was always just, I'm so proud of you. You know, you've come so far. Like, look at you now. And it just I wasn't getting a card from her in 2023, and it was the first birthday without her. And it just was a terrible day, you know? But I really felt her in that moment.

Amber: That’s not a super common name, so usually like that seems very specific that you would see a journal that said Happy Birthday Emily. Like usually on the front, I don't even know Amy or Sarah or Jennifer or something like that. But you don't see Emily very often or I haven’t anyways, so that seems very specific.

Emily: Oh yeah, definitely. Like I, I was almost taken aback. I was like, whoa, like there's no way to even, you know, because people will say like, oh, it's just a coincidence. And, and people just try to brush it off and it's like, no, there is a very clear cut answer as to she was there. She was trying to talk to me. and even so, in April of this year, her dream, you know, I talked about her loving London. her dream was to have her ashes scattered around London. So that's what we did. she had told me throughout her life, she was like, no, this is what you do when I go, here's where, here's where I want it. And so that's what we did.

And I remember telling my partner because she was a huge, just amazing support in all of it. I remember telling her, hey, I really want to go to this specific theater, and I want to take you to it because my mom took me there. I think that day the theater was closed, or they were like under construction or something. You know, we couldn't go that day. We were finding a spot to scatter her ashes in this river. And we go there and I'm, you know, getting ready to do all this stuff. And I look up and we're right across from where the theater is, where I want to take my partner. And I was like, okay. Like, so that's the thing is, it's not a coincidence.

And I know that there have been people who have seen their loved ones who have seen like embodiments of them. But I've never experienced anything like that. I've never seen her. But I have just felt this overwhelmingly insane guidance from her. I'll talk to her, and the ways that she responds is just either fixing the situation. I mean, I'm not saying she's a genie, of course, but she just the way that she took care of me in my life when she was here and protected me and just made my life so much just easy. I had a very easy life because of her. She continues to do that now. It's just beautiful. It's a beautiful thing that I feel like her and I are still connected.

I mean, she sent me songs. She loved Josh Groban, loved him, It's actually kind of a two and one thing, but I had started grief counseling after she passed the hospital reach out to me and sent me to, this church to, to go that they partnered with to go do grief counseling and the song that they were playing, The Night When I went was a song by Josh Groban in the restroom on the wall. They were talking about taking a mission trip with their group to London, and so I just right there, I was like, oh my gosh, like, I know that she's here. She's with me. There's there's things that just don't. They're not coincidental. It's the feelings that you get. and she's I've been I've even asked her to show up in my dreams. It's probably not to the extent of where it's like. All right, you know, every time I ask her to do it, she's going to do it. But it's almost in times that I needed. There's nothing that can even explain it. It's just your connection with your loved one that's passed. You feel it, you know that it's there.

I will say that some days it's a little bit less than others, but I really also believe that it dives down deep into, like, how much are you putting out? Are you writing to them? Are you talking to them? Are you making an effort? Also? I even told people, you know, that if you make it a part of your daily routine, like, all right, good morning, mom. Or in my case, I used to text her every night. Good night. All my love. It feels more powerful in a sense of like to initiate that connection already. You know, they can always send you things, but if you're, you're trying to bridge that gap, I feel like it works better. You know,

Reading Part: after death, communication, otherwise known as an ADC, can make the grieving process easier by providing comfort, reassurance and a sense of continued connection. In an article in Psychology Today, it states that roughly half of Americans have had perceptions of visits from lost loved ones.

Let's hear more from Emily and hear how the experience helped her on her healing journey, as well as learn more about what her belief system was regarding the afterlife.

Amber: Do you feel like? The grieving has helped, knowing that her spirit has made communication with you.

Emily: Yeah, it does now. It didn't. For the first year, I would say, because even though she was sending me all these things, it just it felt just there was a void there. I just started diving deep into, you know, the afterlife and reading up on the afterlife and also reading up on, like, near-death experiences, too, and in reading what other people have experienced and seen and felt to where it almost solidified my feeling of, right, something is there. She is there. It's not the end, in a sense. In a way. She's just a phone call away. Kind of, it's easy to talk to them. It's easy to talk to her and make connection. Even in those dark, dark moments.

It was very, very dark after she passed, and I still feel there were moments where I just felt calm. I was so angry at everybody. I was so angry at the world. I couldn't understand why I had lost her at 65. You know, I was supposed to watch her get older and she was supposed to watch me get older. They were just so many moments of where I just hated everything. I would sit there and then I'd automatically just kind of get this overwhelming sense of calm, and it felt like she was just kind of putting her hand on my back and saying, hey, it's okay, I'm here.

Amber: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. She is. It's hard because you, we are human. And our hearts and our little human brains. Yeah, they're they're going to have the anger and the. I don't understand why this is happening, but the more you can step back and see the bigger picture. No, that's not what anyone wanted. But at the same time, like, my sister was just saying, for instance, when she lost her son, she's like, I could have just stopped life altogether and just been an angry shell of a person, but I didn't want my son's spirit to see me like that. That would break his heart to know that I didn't get on with my life and live the best life I could while I'm still here. And so there is this a little bit of opportunity for some personal growth. And, you know, maybe you had a little bit of life that, you know, just to be able to do it on your own. And maybe she knew that was part of your life plan, but that she's still here and she's still kind of nudging you along and support, you know.

Emily: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Like I feel like she it's it's going to sound insane, but I feel like she wasn't it wouldn't have gotten to that point if she felt like I wasn't ready because she fought. She fought for the days that she was in the ICU, but I feel like she wouldn't have given up until she knew I was ready. And so that that's sitting down and feeling like the page had been turned in my life was because of her. She waited. She waited until I felt like I could let go.

Amber: Curious, did your mom believe in the afterlife? I know you had mentioned that you did. Was that something that you did on your own, or did she believe in that too? Or tell me your kind of experience as far as what you knew about the afterlife or what you were, you know, if you were more spiritual versus, you know, growing up in the church or whatever it was.

Emily: Yeah. so I grew up Baptist, and that's not really something that was talked about, but she was very big on, you know, I know, I know, Patty, who is my grandfather, I know Bodger's here, and he's talking to us, and, which is funny because of Patty is, the word for grandfather and German. My mom was born in Germany, so she kind of still had her little, traditions or, you know, ways of connecting to her, her life in Germany. But she believed in ghosts. She believed that there's there are things that happen that we necessarily don't understand. But, yeah, that was something that was very talked about. there was an instance when I was smaller, I was about six. I don't know, I still kind of struggle with the fact that I don't know if it was what I saw, but our back door opened by itself, and there was no one else in the room. And I saw a figure walking from the, you know, from outside of the back door to the inside. And I told my mom and my mom believed it, which is I was very shocked, you know, as a, as a child, to have your mom believe you when you're talking about that. But.

Reading Portion: There was just one more thing that Emily's mom did before she passed. And as a lifelong teacher, this one made perfect sense.

Emily: She was the definition of you were never too old to learn.

Amber: I love that. That's so true. Yeah. And so. And experience things and live your life to broaden your horizons, really. Which is so incredible that she instilled that in you. Because now you can carry that on in your own life.

Emily:  Oh, definitely. Yeah, definitely. And I think the craziest thing is also, like she says, she was a teacher for 34 years. the last day that she was alive, the nurse that was taking care of her had a student with her. So the student was able to kind of learn from my mom that day. And I 100% believe that that's what she would have wanted. She would have wanted someone to be able to learn from her. whether it be under terrible circumstances. But she was a teacher her entire life. And so with having that student be there that day, I think that was just something, again, that was just it was everything was planned out before any of it happened. I 100% believe, I think that, just the way that things were happening.

Amber: Yeah, it's like it came full circle with the educational component and the fact that a younger person got to see from her eye donation. It's just really heartwarming.

Emily: It definitely is. There's a lot of good in what happened, even though, you know, I had to go to therapy and really make peace with everything that happened because it did happen so quick. But I'm also it's almost like a silver lining is that I cannot imagine having that drag on for for months.

Amber: It's only been a year. How would you say you're doing in your life since your mom's passed?

Emily: I'm okay. I mean, I feel so we were able to travel more in the last year that we've we've ever been able to travel. And that's because of what she left behind. And so I'm very grateful for that. And, you know, we've been to London, of course, scatter her ashes. we've gone to Philly and just all these places that, we didn't see ourselves being able to go to. and so that was really. That's been really nice. I almost feel like it has been a distraction, though, just because I feel like we kind of took off when everything happened. So I've kind of had to navigate grief in the moments of where I wasn't doing something exciting and great and happy, you know, and we come home and then it kind of hits me like, oh, man,

we recently went to Disney World, and that was amazing and fun. And only because of her and what she left behind. And my partner actually, before we left, had obtained or had gotten these pictures of my mom and I, of when I was little or when my mom took me to Disney World. And so she surprised me with those when we got to the hotel, and she laid out all these pictures of my mom and I at Disney World and, oh, that was yeah, my partner was like, well, now she's here with us too. And that was great. but yeah, I know it's it's been very difficult because I will have days where I'm like, so sad and angry still. But in those moments, I feel like I have to try harder to either talk to her, make some kind of, you know, connection with her in that moment.

But doing the research that I have this, you know, at the beginning of the year of knowing like, all right, she is not she's not just gone, she's she's out there, she's on the other side. She's, you know, waiting for you and she's talking to you. It makes me feel a lot better.

Amber: Yeah, yeah. Any last words? I know we've had about an hour, but if there's any memories you can think of, or any last words or words of wisdom for someone who maybe has lost a parent.

Emily: Yeah, I just think it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt differently. It's going to especially I mean, honestly, no matter how old you are, whatever age you are, if whenever you lose a parent, it's it's a different type of hell. I think you just have to be grateful for either the time you had or how it happened. in my instance, I was able to say goodbye. I was very, very privileged in her death, which is something that not many people can say, I think. I think therapy is a big one. Also. I'm just eternally grateful that she was there for my first breath and I was there for her last, and I'll never be able to thank God in the universe for that.

Amber: Oh yeah, that was so well said. I love that, you know, you were there to see her out, just as she was there to see you in. And that's what families do. And I think she was just, as, you know, privileged to have you in her life as the other way around. You know, you guys were meant to be in each other's lives and you still are.

What a incredible story. A big thank you to Emily for being so vulnerable and sharing her story, as we do with all of our stories. If you were inspired in any way, it would mean the world to us. If you would like to make a small donation on behalf of Emily's mother and her passion for education, we'll provide the link in our show notes to Adopt a Classroom. Org, a national nonprofit organization that provides funding for school supplies to classrooms and needy families.

Don't forget, if you're interested in sharing your story, please send an email to Next Realm podcast at gmail.com.

Take care friends, and we'll see you in the next episode.