“So now I suffer because my son was my clone, basically. We were so much alike and so very close. He texted me every day, even though he lived with me. I try not to blame myself for his behaviors. I have been the example the past 14 years, the best way that I knew how. I took Lucas to meetings and helped him find recovery from his addiction to alcohol and pills. He had been 10 months sober, when he relapsed in May, after the doctor put him on Xanax in April for 3 months for anxiety attacks. Then, the Paxil in July, and it just spiraled downward from that point on. Substance abuse will kill people quickly. But for the grace of God, I still remain sober through the pain I am going through. I just feel like I’m to blame though…just another stage of grief I have to go through, unfortunately. I miss him deeply – my heart has a huge hole in it right now. I have been struggling with this very much!”

Lucas the Prankster!

“I was just starting to feel a little more comfortable in my house, then on Sunday night, Nov 1st, exactly 3 months from the day my son died, my big screen TV decided to come on by itself at 1:15 in the morning! I was in the same room at the time this happened. I about jumped out of my skin and then, just froze. I spoke to my son, Lucas, and told him that I knew he was there, and I slowly walked to the TV and turned it off. My son was so full of life that he was always pulling pranks on everybody!”

“The only thing I heard from the sound on the TV was a man saying, “Addicted to life.” The TV is now unplugged, needless to say! My son used to watch that TV a lot in that room!”
“The problem I have is that, once I go to a funeral, I think they are going to come back from the dead and get me. I have been like this since my best friend died when I was 14.
I know it sounds crazy and I know my son would not want to hurt me, but I don’t want to be afraid in my own home!  Please give me some insight on all of this to make me feel more at ease.”

Lillie recalls more after-death communications with Lucas that occurred slightly later than the first one:
“Some other things have happened since then, too. A couple of months ago, I lost a ring off of my finger. About 3 weeks had gone by and I was sitting in my car at work. I started crying and talking to Lucas. I told him to send me a sign if he could hear me. So a couple hours later, I went back out to my car. I looked down by my rear tire and I saw this yellow-colored stone on the ground. “What the heck is this?” Looking closer, “That’s my ring!” There were two more pieces to the ring, all in a complete circle together that I had run over in my parking spot! All I could say was, “Wow! That’s my Lucas telling me, “Here is your ring, Mom!” Strange, but true!”

Oleander Moth

“Then, I found a moth on my chair in my office, the day after my birthday in November. It was an Oleander Moth, full of mischief, they say. I took it around my office, and told everyone that Luke came to visit me for my birthday! Then, the moth started moving it’s tentacles/antennae. I left the moth on my desk and left my office. When I came back the moth was gone and I couldn’t find it anywhere. The next day when I came into work, the moth was lying on the floor dead along the baseboard, so I picked it up and put it in a picture frame in my office.”

“Also, in another episode of the TV turning on. A couple of weeks ago, my sister came over to visit. I was showing her the shelf in my china closet that I have decorated in memory of Lucas with his pictures, urn and angels. This was about an hour and a half after she had been there. All of the sudden the TV came on in Lucas’s bedroom and I just froze again! “Do you hear that?” hoping my sister heard it too. She had. “Do you want me to turn off the TV?” she asked. “Yes! Please!”

“It really does freak me out a little bit and it’s hard for me to be here by myself, once the darkness comes. I love my son very much, but I am truly afraid of the dead and as I mentioned before. I am 53 years old now and I cannot get rid of this fear. My sister said he was just letting us know that he’s here, thanking us for thinking of him and he was trying to communicate that to us through the TV. It’s just creepy to me, that’s all.”

“I have to feel some connection to my son and believe he can hear me or I may go crazy at some point in time. I was so close to him. Sometimes I feel so lost here without him. I can feel his presence in my house still. When my water dispenser gurgles, I think of him getting water from that machine. It’s just the little things that remind me of him, that I am more aware of now.”

Commentary- It’s truly a tragedy that Lucas got his hands on a deadly drug cocktail that is used by doctors to block pain during surgeries. Just to give an idea about them, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid pain-killer that is many times stronger than morphine. Procaine, is a numbing form of anesthesia. Both, have no business being in the hands of anyone who is not a medical professional, using it for the right reasons. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident in today’s world, as many harmful drugs can be purchased online.

Young Lucas and Ashlie

Anxiety and depression are strong forces to deal with. It takes time to get through the rough things in life and to adjust to medicine that may be needed. And it’s often forgotten not to mix alcohol and/or certain drugs together; prescription and/or otherwise. Our actions, however obliviously innocent in the moment, can turn out to be lethal, leaving our loved ones suffering in pain. Although there is some confusion surrounding how this happened to Lucas, it appears to have been an accidental overdose.

Note: If thoughts of death come up for anyone reading these words, and you feel you can’t go on, please talk, talk, talk to loved ones about your feelings and urges. Talk to them about wanting to escape from life. Allow yourself to be heard and helped, because YOU matter to those who know and love you, more than you can ever know at this time.

Then, there is the other side of this.
Lillie mentions feeling regretful for not being able to save Lucas. For sure… just about anyone would, especially a parent. Most people go through this phase of grief, but at some point in their rumination, realize that no matter how it’s mentally dissected, this way of continued thinking is futile. For can we really know the whole truth? Especially where other people’s choices are involved. If we are to ever properly heal, we must eventually concede that, it is what it is.

Another common thing is to blame ourselves for the mistakes we’ve made in the past. Thinking that we could have done anything differently is not only disempowering, but grossly unrealistic. At any given moment, we are all doing the best we can with the skills we’ve developed thus far in life. And, within the context of meaning and purpose, we are exactly where we need to be in our development in this Earthy school, and that’s that.

Earth life can be messy! Better learn to like the mess. But, the good news is that in the context of Earthly school, life’s events happen for us to experience, learn, grow and develop, making it impossible for us to fail, precisely because we are forced to eventually grow in ways we didn’t think possible.  

So, whether the events of our lives are, in fact, part of an Earthly school with complete meaning and purpose to them, OR whether the events of our lives happen in a completely random way, as humans, we are called upon to grow and develop the skills needed to survive our trauma and eventually heal our pain.

Words to the wise- “From the bad, you take the good and leave the rest behind you.” Actually living by this mantra will make one’s life, a whole lot easier and peaceful!

When Lillie wrote to me about the TV being turned on by her notorious prankster son, Lucas, and that she unplugged it to make him stop, I had to chuckle a little bit. First, that Lucas was a practical joker in life, (still is, apparently).  And secondly, that now, given Lucas’s new spiritual abilities… he would even want to play by the electricity rules of the physical… if he didn’t have to… especially being the prankster that he was in life.

In my email back to Lillie, I wrote, “You know, Lucas could just turn on the TV without it being plugged in, right? This happens all of the time to people.” Lillie was surprised, “NO, I DID NOT KNOW THE TV CAN COME ON WITH IT BEING UNPLUGGED – GREAT! LOL. I don’t know why I am so freaked out by all of this. I certainly know that my son loves me deeply, but I am still afraid.”

Then, I had to ask if she watched scary shows as a teenager. Her answer? “YES, I WATCHED A LOT OF SCARY MOVIES BACK IN THE DAY!  I am going to try to stay calm and seek some kind of comfort, knowing he is still with me in spirit. Maybe if the TV came on during the daytime, I might not have been so freaked out. But in the middle of the night, when I was in the same room with no one else around?  IT REALLY SCARED THE HECK OUT OF ME, BUT THAT WAS MY SON, THE PRANKSTER! LOL!”

Lucas, Mom, sister Ashlie

On the three month anniversary of his passing, Lucas waited until late at night time to get his mother’s attention. This was his personal calling card! “I’m here!” And attention getting, it sure was! Addressing her obvious fright, I even extended an invitation for her to overcome this ancient 40-year-old fear. I mean, who needs it when she could be enjoying communications with her son? But many times it happens… when we watch these horrifying movies while still in our formative years. The material is so real to our brains, that we think the content in them is real and actually happened, as far as our central nervous systems are concerned. Lillie can overcome this, but this will take some positive associations to undo these irrational, but still frightening ways of thinking. You see, in some way, living inside this grown woman is still a 14-year old girl who internalized these scary movies. It didn’t help that she was completely traumatized by losing her best friend. It’s no wonder why these fears have had such a grip.

After Lucas realized the fright of his mother, we see that Lucas has softened his approach about the TV. For instance, when Lillie’s sister was over, and while Lillie was showing her the memorial for Lucas, he at least had the decency to turn on the TV when Lillie was not alone this time! Lillie’s sister, hearing this as well, gave validation to a grieving mother that… this really did happen, and that this was indeed, her son’s handy work!

“Addicted to life” were the words Lillie heard on the television right before she unplugged it from the wall. For me, what comes to mind is how, as humans, we seek out some sort of perfection in an imperfect world. It’s like we expect that our lives should be easier than they are. That bad things shouldn’t ever happen. That we should never visit the darker parts of ourselves, mentally and emotionally, and live long enough to tell the story. And because of these human imperfections… that we should be avoiding them by medicating our lives with our addictions.

There is this tendency to think life should be different somehow. For instance, we should always be happy. Everyone should feel good all of the time. That nothing should ever go wrong… and, that there’s something wrong if it does. And even further, if something is wrong… it’s always a problem that we need to “fix”, so our life can go back on track to normal. Some even think that if there’s something bad enough that we should die, or at least, want to. The thing is… life going wrong, at times, IS normal.

We’ve become addicted to the good only; the life we think we should be having; the “perfect” life, rather than the one that is our actual life. We think that we should be more perfect. And, that others should be more perfect, too. But the latter description mentioned is more a version of heaven, than of our life on Earth.

Oh sure, the “good” is possible to some degree, but the truth is, life can be messy. We live in the duality world now, where both good and bad are possible. And, thank goodness for the good! Though, we must be prepared for both. With this knowledge, may we be better able to ride out the storms of life, until the sun comes out again. Because, at some point… it surely will.

The message Lillie heard, from the television, could have been Lucas’s latest realization at the time, but perhaps more likely… a message for his mother, since it was impressed so clearly upon her mind. My thoughts? It must have been significant in some way for her to take note.

When Lillie was wondering if her son could hear her, she found out the answer to that question, 2 hours later when she found the ring she was asking him about. Our loved ones CAN hear us, but not like we think. Since they no longer have physical ears that can eventually fail, they perceive with something else that can never die. In fact, if you want to know the truth, they can hear you even better than ever before! And you don’t even have to talk out loud for them to hear you! So pretty much… your thoughts and emotions are transparent to them.

The moth is an interesting symbol for Lucas to have chosen, and a beautiful birthday gift for his mother; even though it was a dying moth. So much of this post has to do with moth energy.

Lucas is reminding his mother of the process of metamorphosis; which has transformative properties. You see, moth energy not only has the power to transform itself throughout it’s life; Lucas, in this case, but moth energy has the power to transform those around it too. (I’m talking about his mother, Lillie, and others he left behind in the wake of this tragedy) And herein lies an invitation to transform.

The moth is a creature of the night. Perhaps that’s why Lucas manifested a visit with his mom through late night TV! Because of their nocturnal existence, moth energy operates under the cover of night; living by intuition and psychic awareness, rather than the physical perceptions used in a daylight reality. There are many things of significance for Lillie to realize in the lessons of moth energy. First, there is no reason to be afraid of the darkness. I mean… have you ever met a moth who was afraid of the dark? Not likely.

In a metaphorical sense, the darkness is representative of things generally unseen and unrevealed to us, for example, the things in our subconsciousness and the things we can not know or see. And because it is hidden in the darkness, we go crazy in our imaginations making up stories about what horrors reside therein.

As we all know, plenty of movies out there have taken advantage of the theme of darkness. But there is good in it too. For example, just as night eventually gives way to the light of day, the moth transforms itself. Moth energy calls upon illumination (spiritual sight) to light up the darkness of any situation; resulting in greater awareness as the secret unknown is finally revealed. And what is it that we will clearly see with its illumination, you ask?
That there was never anything to fear in the first place!
 No, Nothing! Not Ever!

And when we come to this truth… we will call it “good.” AND peaceful!

But this realization is something most people live their whole lives through, without ever getting there. It’s because they mostly trust in and depend on their physical senses; the illusions that can deceive, rather than their spiritual ones… that see forever. 

If we want to find peace in our struggles for answers, it is important that we cultivate the deepest awareness of our inner knowing, for there, hidden in the darkness of our consciousness, all answers lie. In fact, what is important to our soul’s development IS found in the darkness, so be not afraid. And like moth energy, let us use more of our spiritual senses to navigate the physical path we walk each day. Let us transform ourselves from the fear of darkness to… IT’S ALL LIGHT anyway! Every bit of it. It just hasn’t been revealed just yet.

Moth energy shows us how vulnerable we are; so fragile and delicate. “Life’s short, Here one day, and gone the next.” Moth teaches us to live deliberately without wasting time on things that don’t matter. Through our own metamorphosis, moth teaches us to shed all that no longer serves us. This alone is very transformative! In Lillie’s case, perhaps she could shed the guilt, blame and regret. For if we would ever find peace in this world, it is for us to accept the imperfect things, people and circumstances of this life, AS IS, with the attitude of grace and acceptance.

In the end… sometime after our own metamorphosis, like Lucas and the moth, we will fly toward the light, too. Our process on Earth complete.

And, there will be the greatest light of all.
And we will be free from life’s concerns, once again.