The stories shared here come from readers who have experienced meaningful signs, messages, dreams, synchronicities, and other connections with loved ones who have died. It is my hope that these experiences bring comfort, encouragement, and reassurance to those who are grieving and searching for hope.
** I’d love to hear from you if you have received signs of your own from a loved one on the other side or simply an undeniable (my friend calls them No Other Explanation moments). You may send your story to me via the Contact page for possible inclusion to these Stories of Hope and Connection.
Come back to this page regularly to read more incredible stories of signs and messages from readers. You may find that I’ve included your story to provide hope and encouragement to others on this grief journey. As always, I will just include a first name and a general location.
Forever Changed: A 9/11 Story
Submitted by Melanie, Pennsylvania
My 9/11 experience: I was in a meeting all morning in Austin, Texas. I was with two other mothers at a coffee shop planning our school’s fall festival.
We heard, that morning, that one plane had accidentally hit one of the World Trade Center buildings but got to work right away as we had a lot of organizing to do. We heard people at the tables around us discussing the World Trade Center, but we had already heard that news, and we stayed concentrated on our task as the fall festival was just a few weeks away.
We started to hear people at some tables murmuring the word ‘Pentagon’ so we stopped and asked someone passing by what was going on. He said, “Where have you guys been? Both the World Trade Centers & the Pentagon are in flames. We are at war!”
I immediately looked at my two friends and said, “When we leave this table, our lives will never be the same.”
I could feel that our table was a bubble that contained the past. So instead of rushing into the scary, uncertain new world, we held on to the today & what we knew. We talked about our kids, our husbands, our normal life as we knew it. When we heard people talking about another plane crashing near Johnstown, PA, I knew I had to leave. My brother’s family lived in Johnstown. I could not hide away from reality any longer.
I immediately drove to a grocery store to get ‘hurricane’ type supplies (milk, bread, water, batteries etc). I listened with horror to the radio on the way over. I went into an internal place of continuous personal prayer asking God to help me understand what was happening.
When I went through the grocery doors, the normally bustling store was quiet. I saw a shimmering, shining dome of light moving across the back of the store. It looked like a dome of moving gold & silver sparkling spot light. When it came around the corner, I noticed that a woman was completely contained by this sparkling shimmering light. It was if she was glowing from within and was surrounded by silver & gold sparklers. It was like the glow depicted around the heads of saints in religious paintings, but this was a halo around her entire body, not just her head.
I saw this but was numb and continued shopping with my internal prayer to God. I pushed my cart past a man & looked directly into his eyes. I immediately was overwhelmed by a feeling of immense unconditional love. It was like I was looking into the eyes of my newborn children. I loved him with an ineffable unconditional love. As I glanced into his eyes, I instantly knew/felt/saw that I and the entire universe were one and were all connected. I INSTANTLY KNEW THAT WE NEVER DIE, THERE IS NO TIME, LIFE IS ETERNAL & THAT LOVE IS THE ONLY THING THERE IS.
Again, I didn’t mentally take notice but continued with deep prayer to God asking for answers while my body mindlessly continued shopping. I checked out, loaded my groceries and started to drive home. On the way home, I noticed that all the cars facing me & traveling in the opposite direction were operated by drivers who also glowed and shimmered. I started looking for them and counted them as they passed. This happened for a while before I said to myself, “Wait a minute Melanie.. people don’t glow.”
Once I thought this, my vision was instantly gone. I was no longer in deep prayer to God but had landed in the real world. I have not seen anyone glow or felt the ineffable unconditional love for a stranger since that day. I started researching & searching as to what this might have been.. what exactly did I experience?
I went to ministers & joined church prayer groups. I had my hand read and visited mediums. I got certified in past life regressions with Brian Weiss. I took tarot courses with Richard King, took mediumship classes with prior Naval commander Suzanne Geismann, joined a shamanic drumming circle and an international meditation group. I even enrolled in PhD classes. In my now 20+ years of analysis, the closest description I found to what happened to me on 9/11 is the description people give regarding Near Death Experiences (NDEs) or what some monks experience which is an MI-NDE (Meditation Induced NDE). The love & the universal oneness I experienced is indescribable & ineffable. In Japan, a moment like this is called “satori” or instant enlightenment. My experience and analysis prove to me that there is more to life than what we see. The simple meaning of life is LOVE. We don’t die, and life is eternal.
Lee and Amber: A Story of Two Mothers
Submitted by: Rosanne, New York
I was not looking for Lee on page 146.
I had glanced through the e-mag out of curiosity, maybe a little envy if I am being honest — I knew two families whose children had come through in Sonia Rinaldi’s latest images, and I had looked at their pages only. I told myself I was happy for them. And I was. But I wanted what they had. Tangible proof. A face. My boy.
I almost didn’t look at the unknown images at all.
But something nudged me forward, and there he was. Page 146. The first unknown. It hit me like a punch in the gut. There was my little red-headed boy. Lee.
He had crossed at age thirty, but in the image, he appeared to be around twelve, with the bowl cut he wore as a kid. I didn’t know why he appeared so young. I didn’t care. I knew in every fiber of my being it was him.
Lee, passed in January 2018 — an accidental carbon monoxide poisoning that also took his dog Buddy the following day. I had been listening to Sandra Champlain’s We Don’t Die radio show, and when Sandra announced a conference in Boston, set for February 2019, I decided to go.
The first presenter at the conference was Brazilian researcher Sonia Rinaldi, whose work involves receiving images and voices from those who have crossed. I was skeptical, but I was there to learn, so I kept an open mind.
The conference was better than I hoped. I left feeling full — full of knowledge, full of conviction that life continues, that Lee still existed somewhere I couldn’t yet reach.
I didn’t know then that Lee already had plans.
My next move was to contact Sonia. I posted Lee’s image from the e-magazine alongside a photo of him at twelve on her Facebook page and waited. Soon I was contacted by Lisa, Sonia’s assistant in the United States, who explained she rarely checked the Portuguese IPATI page — but she had that day, and she had seen my post.
I told Lisa about Lee. About Buddy. She promised to have Sonia compare the photos.
Sonia confirmed the image was Lee. Then Lisa asked me about the dog. And there, circled in the image next to Lee’s head, were two eyes and a snout. Lee was alive, and Buddy was with him! But Lee wasn’t finished.
Later that same evening, Lisa texted me. She had a feeling, she said, to ask about Lee’s birthday. September 7th, I told her.
She went quiet for a moment. Her daughter Amber, who had also crossed, shared that same birthday.
I didn’t know it then, but that was the moment Lee and Amber introduced their mothers to each other.
Then came the flannel shirt.
In June 2020, Lisa called to tell me she had met Lee in a trance meditation. Amber had introduced them. She described him — red-haired, wearing work boots and a flannel shirt, and she said that he and Amber and a group of friends sometimes lived in the country.
The flannel shirt stopped me. I had never seen Lee wear one. I accepted what Lisa said because I wanted to, but I was doubtful. I loved the idea of Lee and Amber together, laughing somewhere green and wide open. But the flannel shirt stayed with me.
On their shared birthday, September 7th 2020, I saw them both in meditation. Lee was wearing a goofy birthday hat. Amber grabbed it off his head and put it on her own. They were laughing and running and free. It was one of the greatest gifts I have ever received.
Then, in 2021, I had a reading with medium Ann Van Orsdel on Lee’s birthday. Lee came through immediately. Ann described him — work boots, muddy from walking in the woods. And then she said it.
A flannel shirt.
My jaw dropped.
Ann continued. Lee said we sometimes live in the country. The exact words Lisa had used. And then Ann asked if I had ever owned a Labrador, because there was one with Lee.
I hadn’t. But later that day I thought to call Lisa.
Did you ever own a Labrador retriever?
Not a lab but Golden retrievers.
I sat with that for a long time.
In the fall of 2019, I met Lisa in person in Arizona. We had been brought together by our children before we ever stood in the same room.
Lisa has taught me more than I can say. I adore her. And I believe with everything I have that Lee and Amber intended exactly that.
I cannot explain how an image of my twelve-year-old son appeared on page 146 of a Brazilian researcher’s e-mag, or how two mothers were brought together by their children, who share a birthday and “sometimes live in the country.”
What I can tell you is this. This is real, and Lee and Amber exist.
Pay attention. Trust. And beLEEve.
❤❤❤
George: Decades of Synchronicities
Submitted by: Tony, London England
Here are some of the most evidential communications from my life partner George. We were together 21 years, and he died in 1991 from pneumonia.
Let the skeptics explain this one, which happened in response to a posthumous letter I was writing to George. I had written that maybe it was time I stopped writing these letters so we could both move on.
Next morning, I got the urge to go and listen to a Rod Stewart track ‘The Killing of Georgie’. which was in my life-partner’s large LP collection (though he would hate to be called Georgie himself). However the name made me think of my George, and it was a way to get me to his record collection. He was into pop music from all the decades and also classical music by Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Sibelius, etc… My tastes in music were quite different, only 1950s rock’n’roll and traditional Country Music.
So, I had to look to find a Rod Stewart album with this track on it. Having found it and listened to it, I then got the urge to just pull out an LP at random from George’s record collection. I had no idea which album I was pulling out, and I didn’t even look at the sleeve to see what it was. I took the LP out without looking at the label. I felt this was important. I then stuck the stylus down randomly on some track in the middle having no idea whatsoever what song it would be. As soon as the stylus came into contact with the vinyl, my question of the nite before in that letter was answered.
“Should I stop writing these letters so we can both move on?” Dorothy Squires’ voice came out immediately answering this question: “Love letters straight from your heart keep us so near while apart.”
There was no way I could influence this, and I don’t believe in such a remarkable coincidence.
Communication has continued, though not usually in such a dramatic way. But George did communicate to me directly some time later describing exactly what happened when he transitioned and who met him. He heard wonderful music but didn’t go thru a tunnel as I would have imagined, but rather thru some red mist.
Another close friend, Brian, felt George’s presence as he walked near his home in Hastings. Then, when staying with me in London and I was out, he did something he’d never do at home and always let his partner Noel do – wash up. As he was doing this, he heard George say: “What are you doing Rose?” Rose was Brian’s ‘camp name’. Brian replied: “Washing up” before realizing George had died some time earlier! He turned around to see a shadow.
Tom, another old friend, felt George tug his jacket when visiting our home.
Marion got a message direct saying: ‘Give Tony my love’.
My mother saw George’s face just before going to sleep. This was, of course, after he died.
I “DOVE” YOU!
Kathleen, USA
Daddy Waves…
Jeanie, Florida, USA
My story… I’m now 73 … an only Daughter and very close to my Daddy … a “Daddy’s Girl “ for real.
My older Brother (64) died just a few days before my Daddy … it’s been 13 years ago … Daddy was 85 and I still miss him and talk to him almost daily.
My Daddy had cancer that had metastasized once discovered and was put on home hospice and I was with him on his journey. He loved nature so I had bought him a solar powered butterfly to watch outside his window and he loved it.
I was at his bedside all the time as he was dying … we talked about lots of memories and he was from the generation that men didn’t show emotion as much so he never verbalized his love but always showed it. He was very animated a few hours before and was non verbal by then but he sat up wide eyed and kept gesturing to the wall as if he saw something or someone and wanted me to see … but I couldn’t see anything but I believe it was someone who had died coming to greet him. Just before he left us we held hands and I said “I love you” and he mouthed “I love you too”
I was devastated… several weeks later I was in my garden and crying 
and a little orange butterfly kept fluttering around me… very close … I put my finger out and it landed on my finger! It stayed there very peacefully and I was amazed. My husband got a picture of it.
A few days later I had just returned from very early morning feeding of my horse and was doing artwork in my studio for several hours. When I took a bathroom break I was amazed to see that same color butterfly ON MY HEAD! It was peacefully sitting there and slowly moving its wings … I put my finger there and it went on my finger and I took it outside where it fluttered away. I took this as a sign from Daddy that he was ok 
and still around. What do you think ?
A Wedding Day to Remember
Lynn, Florida, USA