DREAM TREADER PRESS

'My Life After Life'

 

Behind the lives of ordinary people, extraordinary events often take place. Being alive on earth also means we will die, which seems like a fundamentally bad outcome. One way we cope with the inherent stress provoked by this fatal fact is by telling each other stories of an afterlife. But this one is not my story—it’s Galen’s, as told by him from his afterlife following his untimely death at age sixteen.

 

Galen’s passing left me shocked and puzzled. His end came quickly and cleanly when a train hit his car at an unguarded railroad crossing, pushing it 1,700 feet. I was told he looked untouched except for a broken leg and broken neck. I couldn’t comprehend how his body had been left so blessedly intact, but thankfully I didn’t have to ponder more mayhem about his final moments than necessary.

 

I didn’t find out about the accident for several hours, when I received a phone call from the state police on my way to a charity banquet with my mother. Like it was yesterday, I still remember the officer’s words, “He didn’t make it,” before I went into shock. For a nanosecond they did not ring true to me—so certain was I that my son was still alive.

 

Because the statistical odds of losing a child in a car accident are 1 in 20,000, and in a train collision far lower, it seemed impossible that this would happen to my son. I believed such things happened to strangers whose pictures appeared on the evening news.

 

I recalled the words spoken to me by a mystic soon after Galen was born, implying he would survive into adulthood: “Your son will pick up where your teaching leaves off. Your son will end up counseling you.” At the time, I took this unsolicited prophecy as reassurance that my son would follow in his father’s footsteps and one day be so wise that I would go to him for advice.

 

At first his passing seemed a clear refutation of this prediction. Then, as I was able to communicate with him, he in effect became a teacher of events and conditions on the other side by imparting his experience as he perceived it.

 

I am Galen’s father and will be Galen’s father for as long as I am a conscious being, regardless of what state or dimension we find ourselves in, as the bond I have with my son transcends time and space. Like many, becoming a parent affected me profoundly. When Galen was seven years old and his mother and I divorced, my hope was that it would be in everyone’s best interest, and I turned my life upside down to be there for Galen and to provide everything he needed. Now, even though I am a father whose son has died, at least I know where my son is, and although I will never see him again with my earthly eyes, he is not lost. There are many parents who have children they cannot find, cannot reach, or with whom they cannot communicate either because of abduction or tragic medical conditions.

 

It is often said that the death of a child is a parent’s worst nightmare, but I have found this is not completely true. It is the worst possible nightmare anyone can experience in the earthly sense, without exception. When it became my nightmare, I knew I would not be able to physically survive it, that my heart would not be able to withstand the intensity of my emotions. But then the trauma of Galen’s death became a catalyst for profound physical and spiritual transformations. Interventions from unexpected sources eventually led to my being able to compile this book. While the pages that follow contain information that will change both my credibility and reputation as a physician, I have always stood in my truth when it came to what I saw as the ethos of my profession, and I will not waver from that in helping Galen bring forth this book.

 

My emotional connection with my son has taken me down some unexpected avenues that led to communicating with him after his death and gaining insight into the nature of the other side. At every turn, my bond with Galen grew stronger. Granted, what I have done here with my son is unusual; however, countless parents whose children have passed to the other side would have done no less if the opportunity presented itself. I was prepared for the effort involved in connecting with Galen after he had passed due to my experiences studying and working with trance mediums in the early 1970s as a volunteer in the now long-disbanded parapsychology lab at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. Then in January 2007, a year before Galen’s death, I came across the first article outside of journals dealing with psychic research that seriously regarded communication with the dead through a medium. The study claims to prove certain individuals have a gift that allows them to communicate with a source of information providing accurate details about the deceased. The researchers admit that alternative explanations cannot be excluded, such as something called super-ESP or super-PSI, which is another name for telepathy. We do not know how these communications work, nor do we have a framework for understanding them with the logical mind, despite today’s scientific understanding of quantum field theory, or the holographic universe.

 

Within days of Galen’s death, I was communicating with Suzy Ward and Terri Daniel, mothers in contact with their sons who had passed. They told me that not only was communication with Galen possible but Galen had the same agreement with me that their sons had with them—to bring forward clear communication from their dimension. This new goal propelled me forward to do the very difficult inner work necessary to build a bridge to my son.

 

My Life after Life originated through the assistance of helpers both seen and unseen. I began journaling about two weeks after Galen passed, when it became clear that he was trying to communicate with me. If I was becoming delusional, I thought it best to keep a good record of it. By day I was a physician coping with the demands of my work, but at night I would write for several hours, documenting events unfolding in my inner life.

 

After two years of journaling hundreds of pages about my experiences in what I called my “training sessions,” I produced a voluminous tome no one will ever read. Then, after the second anniversary of his passing, Galen asked me how the book was coming along. I responded by saying that my ponderous journal would need a lot of work if it were ever to become a book anyone would read. Galen said he was not interested in my book, explaining, “That is your story.” Galen was interested in telling his own story and he wanted me to write it down for him.

 

Ever since, I have been as attentive as an old-time archivist dutifully hand recording the recollections of a witness to a piece of history that would otherwise have been lost. I have made every effort to keep the language as true as possible to the intention behind Galen’s words as I perceived them. Galen reviewed each chapter, and if he wanted something modified, it was. Anything I wanted to say was put it in editor’s notes, which end each chapter.

 

Galen wanted to describe his post-earth experience free of the distortions and embellishments that often filter in when humans pen communications from a higher dimensional station. There is no way of measuring how well he did in that arena, so readers are free to take or leave anything that does not resonate with them.

 

Our perception creates what we see as our reality, and we all have slightly different perceptions, if for no other reason than we all perceive from a slightly different vantage point. We assume a lot about everyone and everything around us, but many of these assumptions are illusions. Although there is general conformity in the environment at the third dimension level, Galen indicated, outside of this dimension perceptions alter quickly.

 

First and foremost Galen, during his earth life, considered himself a truth seeker, and still does. Therefore, I have done my best to keep the narrative true to his experience as it was conveyed to me. Even though what he describes is fantastical, fantasy was not an intentional part of this story, although it could be construed as just my fantasy. But if it is not fantasy, as I believe, then it is a landmark record of a journey shared by a being who wants us to know something important that will enhance our experience in our current dimension.

 

It is likely that if Galen had remained on earth, he would have become a teacher after many years of more education and experience. Due to the accelerated learning in his dimension, he is fulfilling part of that mission as an author, even though he will only be nineteen years old in earth time when this book is first published.

 

A lot of deference is generally given to a grieving parent, so much so that if I had written a novel about what I fantasized my son might be doing in some imaginary reality, it might be viewed as pathetic but would at least fall under acceptable norms and be politely tolerated without causing significant repercussions. However, suggesting that this is something other than a fictional work crosses many boundaries. While entertaining the possible existence of a continuum principle that allows sentient beings to survive the death of their physical bodies is fine for private speculation or in the context of family beliefs, it is not typically acceptable in other areas of our lives. As the saying goes, there is nothing wrong with talking to the dead, but there is a real problem when you think you are getting an answer back. I therefore ask readers to suspend their disbelief enough to consider that somehow bridges were built between our world and another to allow this book to be written.

 

At my son’s memorial service, his algebra teacher spoke about Galen’s effort to convince him that math wasn’t real. At first I thought how typical it was for Galen to make a philosophical argument to get out of doing his math work. After all, if math is just a mental construct with no basis in reality, then why bother learning all its complex structures and formulas? Pondering the same dilemma thirty years ago concerning medical school, I’d asked my mentor, “If disease is an illusion, then why bother learning about it in such detail?” My mentor said that while I was correct in understanding disease as an illusion, it was very real to those who had it. Similarly, the events recounted in this narrative were real for me—all too real.

 

Actually, my concern is not so much about reader disbelief as it is about those with poor problem-solving skills who do believe it and think suicide is a viable option for seeking a fresh start elsewhere. Regarding this misperception, Galen makes it clear that suicide provides a fresh start involving years spent in an unpleasant limbo.

 

Ultimately what matters is not whether readers believe in the veracity of this book’s contents or consider my son a fictional protagonist, but whether the story itself facilitates a broader understanding of universal laws and truths. The descriptions my son provides stand on their own, even if taken as complete fabrication, for in the end the heart recognizes wisdom, whether it arises from a fairy tale or an encyclopedia.

 

It is Galen’s intention that this book be the first of many in an anthology he calls the Death Walker series. Recognizing this series as both a chronicle of my son’s present existence and a repository of ancient wisdom, I intend to do everything possible to make it a reality.