"Death - the last sleep? No, it is the final awakening."

‘Death – the last sleep? No, it is the final awakening.’ —Sir Walter Scott

Six months after her grandmother died of a heart attack, Karen Davis woke to see her standing at the end of her bed, looking alive and as beautifully groomed as she’d always been, in a pressed skirt and blouse, with her hair blow-waved and set and her face perfectly made up.

‘I opened my eyes and I sat up and she was still there. I remember thinking, Am I awake? Am I awake? ’ says Karen, 45, a novelist and former police officer from Sydney’s Sutherland Shire. ‘She smiled and said nothing, but without speaking, I knew she was telling me she was okay.’

‘I’m okay’ – two tiny words at the heart of so many of the stories told to me by the people I’ve met. Only two words, yet they can mean the universe to the person left behind, agonising over where their loved one is following a traumatic or sudden death, if they’ve had a safe crossing, if they’re accompanied, if they’re finally free from illness and suffering. For the bereaved, they are two tiny words laden with the promise of a more peaceful tomorrow.

For Karen, who’d been extremely close to her ‘Nanna’, the experience was also the fulfilment of a pact they’d made just days before her grandmother’s death. Then 22 and still on a high from a recent Hawaiian holiday, Karen was feeling a little guilty about how her schedule was keeping her from spending time with her nan, so she popped over one Saturday.

At the kitchen table the pair spoke for hours about career, romance and the possibility of life after death. Karen recalls: ‘I said, “You come back and tell me what happens.

And she said, “Don’t worry. If there’s any way I can do it, I will.” It was in a joking way and that was that. She passed away about ten days later.’ And six months after that, Karen’s grandmother kept her promise.

Six months also happens to be the time elapsed between the death of Karen’s mum, author Lynne Wilding, in 2007, and her robust return in a dream visitation that was more like an alternative truth, or an untravelled path.

After battling ovarian cancer for three years, Lynne, 65, had looked frail at the end, but in Karen’s dream, ‘she just looked normal and really healthy’.

Lynne was leaning against the kitchen counter to chat as she’d often done in the evening after helping Karen with her two daughters while she and her husband worked. Karen recalls her mother said, ‘I don’t feel sick anymore. I’m really good.’ Then, keen to demonstrate her recovered health, she said, ‘Look what I can do,’ before walking through the wall and standing out in the backyard. She walked back into the kitchen through the wall and said to Karen, ‘How clever am I?’ Then she repeated,‘I’m not sick anymore, I feel really good.’

Karen woke up sobbing with happiness and relief and was drawn to go downstairs, where, inexplicably, a delicious aroma filled the rooms. ‘The house smelt like cookies!’ marvels Karen, whose Mum had never been a keen baker. ‘It didn’t make sense to me at the time but it was a really strong smell.’ Was Lynne speaking in the language of scents, letting her grieving daughter know that everything is sweet – that she’s home? One thing is certain: ‘I felt a lot lighter after that,’ says Karen. ‘I thought that was probably her way of telling me that she’s good, that she’s okay.’

Rachel Larkins, a 42-year-old writer and mother of two from Melbourne’s East, also had the gift of seeing a parent restored to health and happiness after a drawn-out death: her father, Bob, who was 61 when pancreatic cancer claimed him in 1999. A week after the memorial service, Rachel was housesitting for a friend in a beautiful home at the base of Mount Wellington in Tasmania.

Embraced by trees, rocks and river, it was the ideal setting for Rachel to walk in nature, to dwell in treas- ured memories and grieve the loss of her dad, a radio announcer and actor whose ‘wonderful’ voice echoes in Rachel’s heart and mind. On the second night, ‘I was asleep and I woke up and Dad was sitting on the end of my bed,’ says Rachel. ‘He looked healthy, he looked like how I always thought of my dad. He wasn’t emaciated, he had his usual chubby cheeks. I could see through him, he wasn’t solid. He was different to the rest of the room. I can’t say there was a light around him but there was light that was a part of him. I thought, “Oh, it’s Dad!”’

There was no fear, Rachel says, only a sense of guardianship.

‘I saw him completely clearly, he was turned so that he was looking over me, he didn’t do anything, but I had a really strong sense that he was just watching over me, that he was there, that he was close by. I didn’t try to talk to him or anything, it was just this feeling of, “Oh, that’s alright then, I can let things go,” and I just went back to sleep. The next morning, I thought, “Wow, that was just what I needed.”’

His return was ‘in keeping with what he would do’, says Rachel. ‘He always thought of my sister and I as his little girls, he always wanted to protect us and look after us and that was some of the stuff we’d talked about at the end.

It just felt like Dad came back to say, “It’s okay,” and let me know he was still watching over me.’

Naomi Kalogiros’s mother-in-law found a novel way to let her family know she was well and happy in spirit following a long illness. ‘Only my husband witnessed this 3 am apparition in early 2012,’ tells Naomi, whose plentiful contacts with the spirit world I first related in Spirit Sisters. ‘Our new dog, Midori, sleeps in the hallway opposite our bedroom door. One night my husband awoke to find the dog sitting up as if someone was feeding her.

As his vision focused a little more, he noticed his mother standing there feeding the dog what he describes as “invisible food”. Midori seemed happy and was actually eating the food being given to her. After this he saw his mother stand straight, turn and look at him with a loving smile. The dog let out a huge burp (which is something she does after eating her dinner each night!) and with this, his mother vanished.’

Naomi’s home is a hub for visits from spirit loved ones, as all of her immediate family members share the increased aware- ness (commonly known as psychic ability) that makes such an encounter all the more likely. ‘We don’t feel awkward talking about what we see, feel, sense or smell,’ says Naomi, who’s 42 and the mother of two sons, Alex and Thomas. ‘We feel honoured to
be able to see the deceased and to feel their presence.’

When she was eight years old, Bridgett Bassett, who lives in the US, was also honoured by a visit from a loved one – her grandmother, who died after being sick with cancer for many months. ‘When she passed it was a sad time,’ recalls Bridgett, now aged 36. ‘Every day after school I would be dropped off at her house to spend the afternoon with my grandfather until my parents were done with work. After Grandma died the house was silent and lost its glow. I could still smell her there, but could no longer see her.

‘I didn’t go upstairs very often, but for some reason, on this particular day, I chose to take a nap in one of the rooms at the top of the stairs. I waited for sleep to find me. When it did, I slept rather well, and found it difficult to open my eyes because I was so comfortable, but I heard my grandmother call out my name. When I opened my eyes, she was standing beside me. I could see her smile, and feel her hand brush my cheek. She was in full form. I couldn’t see through her or anything like that. It was as if she really was there with me in the physical sense.

‘I smiled back up at her, and then she was gone. I don’t recall her walking out the door, or away from me, she just disappeared,’ says Bridgett, who felt comforted, not afraid. ‘I stayed there in bed for a while, trying to comprehend what just happened. I never told anyone afterwards. I just felt special, and was glad for the chance to see her again. I no longer felt so sad and alone, like I knew somehow she would always be watching over me.’

Sharon Tierney also had firsthand experience of a spirit who cared. The 44-year-old author from Newcastle, New South Wales, has a lifetime’s worth of spiritual experiences to relate, including one magical moment more than a decade ago when she was given the chance to offer closure to her then-boyfriend, who’d long mourned the death of his sister in a car accident. Arriving at his parents’ home for a weekend away, she was shown three spare rooms and invited to pick one for the night. Sharon made her choice and tucked herself in, her boyfriend settled into the room across the hall. Suddenly she was awoken unapologetically from a deep slumber. ‘There was this tremen- dous energy,’ says Sharon, who opened her eyes to see a woman ‘lying right on top of me, like her face was right above my face’.

She had seen enough photos of her boyfriend’s late sister to recognise her. ‘I could only see the top half of her body; she was just floating, translucent. I could see the details of her face and the dark hair but the bottom half was like a fog. She was just floating above me. Obviously, I was taken aback! She just said to me, “Let my brother know I’m okay.”’

Once the young woman had ‘faded away’, Sharon, still trembling with the shock and awe of the midnight meeting, rushed to wake her boyfriend and ask him whose bedroom she’d picked. When he confirmed it had been his sister’s, she told him she knew, because she’d just seen her. His eyes grew round. ‘She came to me,’ said Sharon. ‘She just wanted to let you know that she’s okay.’ They hugged and even now Sharon recalls, ‘I could feel his relief.’

Sharon felt privileged to have been the conduit for what proved to be a life-changing gift from beyond. ‘He was really comforted by that. He was changed from that day on, just to know she was okay. Just to hear those two words . . .’

It wasn’t the only time Sharon would be woken in the night by a spirit visitor. She and her husband, Mike, spent three years living in the UK where Mike’s mum, in the grip of illness, hadn’t left her house for a decade. The couple decided to move back to Australia, reconciled to the sad reality that they would be unlikely to ever see her again. Three weeks later, Mike’s mother passed away.

The next night, Sharon and Mike were asleep when an all-encompassing wave of ecstatic joy washed over them. ‘I was straight up in bed like a bolt of lightning had hit me and Mike woke up at exactly the same time. He was like, “My God, this bolt of energy!” It just hit us,’ says Sharon.

But for Sharon the experience went a step further: ‘I saw his mum at the end of the bed and she was doing a little dance! Just jumping up and down. She was so happy. She was out of the house! Mike felt the energy, whereas I saw her at the end of the bed doing this little jig. Just happiness, absolute happi- ness! I grabbed the phone and rang his dad straightaway and described the little dance, because I’d never seen her active, and he said, “That is her. That is what she would do if she was happy – she’d do that little jig.” Now we knew that she was fine, out of the house and not trapped in this illness anymore. She’s free.’

Nic Hume knows that the same is true of her sister-in-law, Fiona, who was 32 and mum to three young children when she died of bowel cancer in 2009 after a year-long struggle with the disease. ‘We sat with her during her final days and, as she waded in and out of consciousness, listened to her talk with people we could not see and have what appeared to be conver- sations with her children in the future,’ remembers Nic. The 38-year-old candidly states that she and her sister-in-law hadn’t been the best of friends, but their relationship progressed as the severity of Fiona’s illness became clear. As the end neared, Nic reassured Fiona that she’d always be there for her family.

A founder of the Australian Paranormal Phenomenon Investigators, Nic’s search for ‘concrete evidence that the other side exists’ was sparked in childhood, when she watched the full-bodied apparition of a butler stride across the hall of a historic home in Nowra, on the New South Wales south coast. During one of her vigils at her sister-in-law’s bedside, she asked Fiona if she could give her a sign when she reached the other side.

Nic recalls, ‘She gave me this weird look and said, “Oh well, I can’t make any promises.”’

Three days after Fiona passed away, Nic was parking her car in her garage. ‘All the windows were up and the fan and air-conditioner were off,’ she explains. ‘The car came to a stop and I turned to take off my seatbelt and as I glanced towards the passenger seat, there was a thick mist that dissipated before my eyes. I had to do a double-take to understand what I was seeing. Then it hit me – it was Fiona, giving me the sign we spoke of. I thanked her.’

Perhaps Fiona would have done so anyway, even without being asked – much in the same way you’d phone a parent, partner or friend to let them know you’ve arrived safe and well at the end of a long journey. To let them know you’re okay.

This extract has been published here with full permission from PanMacMillan publishing. To read the full book - click here.