Me: Does it feel real over there?

Erik: Does it feel real?

Jamie: He’s thinking.

Erik: I could ask you the same damn question! Does it feel real over there?

Me: Yes!

(Sometimes too real!)

Erik: It feels real here, you know, even though you can’t reach down and smack your arm or pinch yourself. It’s the same sensation of being alive and kind of in your own boots.

Me: Okay. Now tell me about—oh, do you have a girlfriend there?

Jamie (laughing): I don’t know why he should be very proud of this, but he just kind of drops his head and goes, “Well, you know, maybe.”

Jamie drops her head, hiding her face with her hair mimicking Erik as if he’s embarrassed.

I chuckle.

Jamie (to Erik): Maybe you should just answer your mom.

Erik: Jamie, if I answer my mom, then she’s going to ask me more questions about my girlfriend, so…

Me: Well, I promise I won’t. I just wanna know if you have one.

Erik: Yes.

Me: More than one?

Erik: No.

Me: No two-timing. Good.

Erik: No.

Me: Now, tell me some of the things you do there. I mean when you’re there. I know you’ve been helping the world understand the human experience, but what do you do there for fun or for whatever reason?

Erik: Oh, I like to travel, like to go to extreme places. Tops of mountains. Skiing. Traveling into other dimensions, meeting people—let’s just call them people for simplicity’s sake—Meeting other people from other dimensions.

Me: Okay.

Jamie looks intent, like she’s trying hard to figure out what Erik’s saying.

Jamie: I don’t know what he’s doing. He’s showing me this building and it’s really, really tall. It looks like it’s made of glass—clear glass. It doesn’t look like it’s reflective like a mirror. It doesn’t look like a skyscraper. It looks like a window, you know, like the whole thing is made of it. It’s interesting because you really don’t see structure support beams, you know? You don’t really see a skeleton. It just looks very see-through.

Erik: If you want to experience something new, that’s pretty much the place you can go that holds all the connections or information to other lives: future lives, past lives. That’s what I mean when I say lives.

Jamie chuckles but I don’t get the joke at all.

Erik: So that you can connect to your own or to others. But you have to have a certain amount of—

(Pause)

Jamie (to Erik): I don’t know what you just meant. Can you say that a different way?

(Long pause as Jamie shifts her eyes up and to the right trying to interpret what he’s saying.)

Jamie: He’s trying to explain to me that you can’t just go in and look at anybody’s lives. Some of it’s protected information like you have to have a pass or you have to have permission to see most of the information. But, for you, in control of your own things, all of it’s available to it.

Jamie (to Erik): So is this like Akashic Records or…

(Pause)

Jamie: Yeah, he calls it the Library of Lives.

Me (chucking): Well, I’ve never seen you go into a library, so that’s amazing!

Erik: Slapped down! I think you’d be surprised to see some of the shit I do.

Me: I bet so!

Jamie: He stopped giving me the image.

Me: Okay. Anything else that you can do there at all? Can you go snowboarding? Can you—

Erik: Can you imagine yourself snowboarding?

Me: Yeah.

Not a pretty sight, though. I can see my face carving a groove all the way down the bunny slope.

Erik: Then yeah, you can do it.

Me: But you’re not just imagining it. You feel everything, right? The snow, the…

Erik: Yeah, that’s the trick. If you’re on Earth and you use your imagination, it doesn’t really fulfill all five senses, like you don’t manifest it when you imagine it. Intuition is so strong and connected to the soul, the spirit in the higher dimensions than even you just imagining it, it manifests it.

Me: Are there people, uh, where you have to have a joint manifestation for it to, I mean there might be a road or a building—or how about a beach that you don’t just create yourself?

Erik: Yeah. You can experience other people’s manifestations. That’s pretty cool, because then you get to kind of get a slice of what their memories are or where they enjoy to be. If more than one person enjoys that place and you give it thought and attention, then it’s going to stay in place longer. Like, for me, if I imagine going snowboarding, if I imagine getting on my bike, and I imagine a track for it, when I’m done, it’s done. It doesn’t have to stay in existence. It’s the best damn recycling program ever.

Me: I bet so!

Jamie (smiling big): He said that with such joy.

Erik: But let’s say I do it and five of my buddies come and join me and all of a sudden we have people who wanna watch, then what’s been created kind of stays in existence, because one or more person is staying engaged in that concept or idea.

Me: Are there things that are there permanently because there’s constant attention to it?

Erik: Yeah. Yeah, like the library.

Me: Oh. I would say that, yeah. I mean I thought you would say that. What are some of the things your friends do for fun?

(Pause)

Me: You have friends over there, I guess.

Erik: I do. We’re not tight or anything.

He used to say “tight” all the time.

Jamie (chuckling): Tight!

Erik: I guess. I hang out with several different people. A lot of who I touch base with are people that I’ve met through the blog and through—

Me: What do you mean, their loved ones who have crossed over?

Erik: Yeah. Yeah.

Me: Okay.

Erik: And through helping them, I get to learn more about, not just their lessons and what they need help with, but what they want to do in the afterlife. It’s wild, Mom, cuz when you’re on Earth, you’re driven by your own goals. You know, like you see yourself going somewhere and you make plans for it. For me, where I am, I don’t need that kind of drive. I’ve got a passion, you know, and my passion is reaching out to people on Earth, but I don’t necessarily have these steps in place or this progress report that I have to check off. I don’t have to meet anybody else’s needs ever.

Me (chuckling): Good. You don’t have any report cards! I bet you like that.

Erik (swiping his hand from left to right): Ds on ‘em.

Jamie and I laugh.

***********************

Dear Reader,

The journey on which you’re about to embark will take you through stories that are deeply personal and involves a relationship between a mother and her son.

As a physician raised by two atheists, I had no personal belief system about life after death. In a word, I was a confirmed skeptic. As my journey progressed, my mind opened. It is my sincerest hope that yours will open as well and that you will have a greater understanding of your own life and what’s to come ahead.

Although Erik sometimes paints a rosy picture of the afterlife, time and time again he stresses that suicide is not the answer to one’s problems. If you struggle, please understand that the information in my blog and my book is no substitute for professional help. Please click here for a list of resources for help when you find yourself considering taking your own life. Know that they are readily available when you feel that hopelessness and despair that many of us feel from time to time in our lives.

I refuse all donations and ad revenue on the blog. It is my dream to one day establish a nonprofit organization that delivers a variety of spiritual services for those who have lost loved ones to suicide and cannot afford that assistance on their own. It’s a mission of love, sacrifice, and dedication.

Love and light,

Elisa