Through the medium, Kim O’Neill, Erik shared volumes of information about death, but I wanted to start by letting him know that, although I would like to channel him on my own, my grief makes it difficult to have the quiet mind necessary to hear him. Here’s his response:

“I’m just going to have to talk louder than your grief! Your grief is causing a lot of static. It’s like if we were at a water park, we’d have to talk louder to hear each other.”

‘Can you do that, Erik?’ I ask.

“Oh, sure.”

‘But how will I know it’s you and not a conversation I just make up in my mind?’

“Because you know me, Mom. You know the way I talk. You know my sense of humor. I’m gonna say, ‘Mom it’s me,’ and you’ll know it’s me. You’re going to be able to feel the difference between your grief, your head talk and me. And I’ll talk louder than your head talk so you’re probably gonna have to tell me to keep it down a notch CUZ I’M GOING TO BE TALKING REALLY LOUDLY! Here’s my plan for now. I’m going to be coming to you in dreams, lucid dreams. So I’m coming to you first. In the morning, you’re going to have total recall about what we talk about, usually. If you don’t, when you go to the computer and start typing. It’ll just come out.”

I ask, ‘How often can you come to me?’

“Any time I damn well please!” he says jokingly.

‘Well then, how often do you think that can be?’ I ask this because I want so desperately to have him with me all the time. It’s funny; when a person is around, you feel okay about seeing them only sporadically. It’s no big deal if they go away on a trip for a week or two and hang out with friends more than home, but when they die, they become the center of your every thought and emotion. You want them to be around you, communicating constantly.

Erik goes on to say, “Well, I’d like to come every night the day before you wanna write something the next day.”

That, of course, means I will be determined to write daily. Communicating in dreams, however, is one thing, but feeling their touch is another. So I ask, ‘How can I better feel your presence?’

Erik assures me by saying, “I’ve been working on building my ability to manipulate physical matter on the earthly plane. Every time we pass away and our soul goes to heaven, we’ve gotta work on our ability to expand our electrical energy so that, if we want to, we can move material objects; we can really make our presence known in the most tangible way possible—to materialize, to touch others, and to have them feel it. That’s what I’ve been working on. So, what I’m going to do is this: I’ll come up and hug you; I’ll touch your arm and you’ll know it’s me; I’ll come up and give you a kiss on the cheek, and I’m going to rub your hair. I’m going to put my hand on top of your head and rub your hair back and forth just like I used to do. Remember how it used to piss you off when I messed up your hair like that?” (He laughs really hard for several seconds. Of course, now, I’d give anything for him to have my hair in a rat’s nest all the time.) “And when you drive you’ll hear me saying ‘Mom, go faster’ or ‘it’s yellow, you can make it; you can make it; go through the light.’”

‘Yeah, I remember what a backseat driver you were, Erik!’ I respond with a chuckle.

He laughs and says, “Yeah, it was easier to be a backseat driver with you than with Pappa, huh? You took it better than he did! And Mom, this is what you’re going to write about in a book: How parents can rise above the grief to actually be able to feel and hear and be aware of their kid around them. You’re also going to be smelling me, Mom. It’ll be the smell like I’ve been working outside, kinda like a sweaty guy smell.” Ah, how well I remember that scent. It wasn’t objectionable to me a all; it was just a sign of how much he loved working outside on cars, bikes, and his welding.

Erik continues with, “Mom, you did everything you could. The problem was I didn’t listen to you. I thought all that stuff was a bunch of bullshit, but now I know! Oh my God, if only, if only, if only. I created something that was much more stressful than it was supposed to be. Even when I had the gun in my hand, it was like should I, shouldn’t I, should I, shouldn’t I? It happened so fast that my guardian angels couldn’t do anything to stop it. They tried to get other people to call or come over, but there wasn’t enough time.”

Just before his death, his older sister, Kristina, experienced something that gives Erik’s statement credence. She says, ”I had been reading about learning disabilities and suicidality in children/teens for my behavioral science course, and I of course was thinking about him the whole time that morning. I got a strong urge to pick up my cell phone and text him ‘I love you’ for no apparent reason at all. But it was in my purse in the other room and I didn’t go get it. I feel remorseful about that.”

On the day of his death, Erik’s younger sister, Annika, and his Aunt Teri recall passing by his room as they walked down the hall to go to the lunch we had planned. In fact, their encounters occurred within ten minutes of his death. They both claimed they saw him sitting at his desk, staring ahead solemnly. Oh, how they wished they had recognized his sadness and stopped to comfort him! In retrospect, these three incidents were most assuredly his guides’ attempts to muster our help and intervention.

Yet Erik reassures us as he continues, “I know you knew it was a possibility this would eventually happen, Mom, but there was nothing you could have done beside worry and do all the stuff you did to help me. Did you know a third of parents around the world have kids who are suicidal? I know that now. You need to let other parents know that too.”

‘Could you tell me more about what it’s like to die, Erik?’  I ask.

“I literally felt no pain. I felt no pain. Mom, it’s really important to put that down because a lot of kids die in accidents like car accidents or motorcycle wrecks. Some have been murdered; some have drowned. Even if a child has died of a heart attack or cancer, the parent is always going to worry about the pain and suffering they might have had during death. But tell everyone there is no pain. My soul popped out of the body at the moment of my death. I truly felt nothing. You know, Mom, I’m going to be totally honest with you about everything. I felt this shocking, this immediate sense of peacefulness, happiness, euphoria. It was stunning. I felt like I was floating, like I was levitating. After my soul popped out of the body, at that moment, I heard a shot. I can’t gauge the time.

“I was feeling this awesome euphoria and enjoying it and it then it was as if this invisible hand was telling me ‘look there, look down.’ So I looked down and I thought, ‘holy shit’ and I realized it was me. For a couple of seconds I wondered, ‘how can I be there and be here too?’ And then I realized, ‘Ooooh, it’s my soul! This is my soul! Then I came into this overwhelming knowing about who I really am, all of my past lives. At that moment I could understand what you were trying to help me heal from in those past lives. I got this immediate knowing and I was like, ‘Oh, oh, that’s what Mom was trying to help me with. Wow, she knew!’ I could see you for who you really are, I could see Pappa for who he really is, and Lukas, Kristina, Michelle and Annika, everybody, everybody—family, friends, everyone on the earthly plane. I could see them for who they really are. This knowing was rapturous. I know that’s a word I wouldn’t use on the earthly plane so I’ll say this so you’ll know it’s really me, ‘It was fucking rapturous!’ I all of a sudden had all this wisdom and I thought, ‘Aaawww, why didn’t I have all this when I was there?’ Then I realized I could have. I could have.

“Mom, that’s where you’re headed. You are going to feel this knowingness, this peace in this lifetime, and then you’re going to teach everybody else in the family. You’re going to feel neutral, objective about the choices other people make. It’s a lot easier being in spirit because you can see someone else’s destiny even when they make choices that change that destiny. Spirits can immediately be neutral and not judge themselves or others.”

“So of course I already told you what happened when I saw all the mess I made. I knew you were going to find me and that was not my goal. I didn’t think. Once I pulled the trigger I couldn’t change my mind. I felt this horrible sense of loss knowing what you guys were gonna feel and I had my own sense of loss, scared, real scared that you guys weren’t going to be able to pick up on me. I was real frightened about it. Then I had this tragic feeling of grief knowing you were gonna find it, Mom. I knew it. I felt this impossible to describe sense of remorse. Maybe it was even more grief than you feel, Mom, because I did it. I did it. I have no one to blame but myself. I knew I would have to have therapy because of it. So you know I went to Norway right away to see Bestefar (his grandfather), but my guide made me come back and watch when you found me. It was the most horrible thing I have ever experienced, seeing you break down in my lap, sobbing. My guide made me look at what pain I caused for you. It was unbearable.” (Here, Kim, again describes him kneeling, hands together as if begging, tears streaming down his face asking for forgiveness.)

“Then I felt this pulling, this pulling like a gravitational pull and I heard this “zinnnggg” and all of a sudden I was standing there in front of a whole bunch of other spirits and I recognized them all! There were hundreds of them. I was like ‘Oh, there’s Aunt Sophie; there’s my brother from the Middle Ages,’ I could recognize everybody from all my past lives and my brother from this lifetime.” (I had lost a baby during my 24th week of pregnancy. It was a boy. We named him, Seth. It happened around 16 years ago, so Kim could not have known Erik had a brother on the other side.)

“There was this big table where everybody was going to sit down…like a family dinner. There was a lot of music, there was a lot of laughing. Oh, and, Mom, I asked four souls from your soul group who aren’t part of your life now if they could help you through all this. I want to do something to help the family. I want to be able to do something for you guys. If there is anything at all I can do to help anyone in the family, please let me know, and I’ll do everything I can. I want to feel like I’m still part of the family. Ask me to do stuff. I can’t exactly take out the garbage but… Spiritual being can move physical objects just as well as you guys.”

‘Okay,’ I joke, ‘I’ll get a chore list together for you!’

Erik laughs, then continues, “Mom, you’re going to notice things have been done, and you’ll ask other people ‘Did you do that?’ ‘Did you do this?’ and they’ll say ‘no’ and you’ll know it was me!” I found that so comforting. Proof of his presence is crucial. I don’t want to feel like I’ve really lost my little boy forever. That would be too much to bear.

“Okay, let’s get back to what happened next,” I prod. Erik was always easily distracted, just like his mom.

“Oh yeah, right, Well, I was at this big long table, and I felt dazed. I was still euphoric, but I was dazed. It’s like one minute I was in my physical body and the next minute I was a free spirit without physical limitations, and I kept asking, ‘I’m really a spirit, right? I mean, I don’t get to go back to that lifetime; I’ve let that lifetime go?’ Then I started “the review.” Nobody did the review but me. I was sitting at the table. Uh, I was sitting there and everyone was talking about how happy they were that I’m back. No matter how we pass, we’re always welcomed back with open arms. Everyone is always thrilled to see us again. Anyway, so I’m sitting at the table, and I’ve got my elbows on the table. I’ve got my head in my hands and I’m reviewing my life. I started sobbing when I remembered being a little boy and you calling me your ‘little man’ and doing things with me and telling me what a big man I’m gonna be. I’ve taken all of that away. Those were the worst moments of the review. I want to thank Pappa for treating me like an adult. Pappa, you treated me like an adult for as long as I can remember. Thanks, Pappa; that meant a lot to me.”

“So I finished my review and I considered what I could have done that I didn’t; what I did do that I shouldn’t have. I don’t know how long the review took. I didn’t mark time. No one here marks time. But it didn’t take long, because the candles were still burning on my cake, my “welcome home” cake. Then I felt this heaviness, this real emotional heaviness. I was approached by this female soul who offered to counsel me; she offered me therapy. So I’ve been going to therapy. She’s not only helping me understand why I did it, why I took my life, but how I can go back to the earthly plane with this heaviness added to the healing I was supposed to do this lifetime without doing the same thing again. Wow, Mom, if I could have seen what I was healing from (in past lives,) no wonder I was so fucking depressed and angry. No wonder, Mom!”

“I want you to let other people know that we have lots of company here. A lot of parents who have lost kids worry that their kid is all alone, but it’s not that way. We imagine what we want to eat, and it’s right there. We live where we want; we live how we want; we don’t feel hot or cold. Thought creates reality much faster here. It happens in an instant.”

I only booked an hour with Kim, so, sadly, it was time to wrap things up. I ask him, ‘Okay, I’m running out of time, but do you have anything else you want to say about what it’s like to die?’

“Shit yeah, tons but don’t worry, I’ve written it all down. We can cover it later.”

Erik writing things down? Could it be? That might just be the biggest transformation of all! I can hear him laughing in agreement.