Jamie and I are Twin Flames; one soul split into two bodies. Twin Flames often have a difficult journey, and that was certainly true for us. When we met in 1998, we had an instant connection that we could never explain and never understood. It felt like we had always known each other, even though we had just met. And in meeting each other, it was like finding parts of ourselves that we never knew were missing. Right from the start, we could talk about anything and everything, and we did. We were fast friends that had a deep love and respect for each other. There was a pull to the other that can’t be described as anything other than magnetic, and while neither of us had experienced anything like that before, life had other plans for us, and we went our separate ways, always with the other one on our minds and in our hearts. It wasn’t until many years later that we learned what Twin Flames are, and everything made sense.
Jamie’s cancer diagnosis in 2017 ‘put life into perspective’ for him. It made him realize that nothing is promised, that although we think we have unlimited time, especially when we are young, that is an illusion. No one knows how long they have on this earth, but when you receive a diagnosis, it changes you on a physiological level. He told me that it woke him up, that he felt he had been ‘sleepwalking through the last 15 years’. He knew then that he needed to make some big changes to his life, and that there was no time to be anything but happy.
There are moments in our lives that are imprinted, and the day Jamie reached out to me to tell me about his diagnosis was one of those days for me. I was in my home office with the soothing green walls and oak hardwood floors when I read a message from him saying “I have been going through cancer”. All the breath went out of my lungs, and I dropped to my knees. I was working in palliative care by then, and I immediately offered to help in any way I could, with referrals, resources, anything he needed. But all he wanted was to meet an old friend for coffee.
In all the years that had passed, Jamie and I had only shared the occasional text or phone call when something exciting or difficult happened in our lives, and we never missed sending a birthday message to each other. In meeting that day after so many years, we realized that our connection was stronger than it had ever been, that being together was as electric as shock therapy and as natural as breathing, and that regardless of the outcome or what lied ahead, we needed to do it together. Life was a whirlwind for us after that, yet everything came together so effortlessly that we knew the universe was conspiring in our favour.
Jamie was very private about his cancer journey. He didn't want pity or anyone feeling sorry for him. That wasn’t who he was. Jamie was logical and practical and initially, he saw his diagnosis as something he had to deal with. So, he did. In a little over 4 years, Jamie endured radiation, several surgeries and procedures, and 29 rounds of chemotherapy in total. He never complained. He wanted, and needed, for people to be positive. He wanted to live. For himself, for his daughters and for me.
On September 20th, 2021, we went to an oncology appointment and got the news we had hoped would never come. The second line chemo had stopped working. There were no more options, and Jamie was being referred to palliative care.
Jamie had been on a spiritual journey of sorts since his diagnosis, but now, he felt a need to understand what happens when we die and so he started exploring by watching umpteen near-death experience stories on YouTube. He was in awe of how no matter where in the world the people were from, or what caused their death, how old or young they were, what language they spoke, what their religious or ethnic background was, they all had very similar experiences of where they went and what happened there when they died. Jamie found a great deal of peace knowing that when his time came, his body would die but his soul would live on.
During this process, Jamie came to be grateful for his cancer. He believed that the very disease that would eventually take his life, had saved his life in all the ways that mattered most. He spent his last few years happier than he had ever been, and he was not shy about sharing that with anyone who would listen to him.
Jamie loved our county home. He felt it very healing and referred to it as our sanctuary. It turned out that our home WAS in fact healing, not in the way that saved Jamie’s life, but in the way that saved his soul. That was where Jamie learned to how to live, and where he learned how to die. He truly believed that everyone has a ‘time’, an expiry date of sorts, and he was okay with his approaching. Perhaps most importantly, by the time Jamie died, he came to realize that the meaning of life is to LOVE and be LOVED. That LOVE is all there is. LOVE is all that matters. The quote he chose for our headstone is “Life is not eternal…Love is.”
While I am no stranger to grief, I have never known yearning until Jamie died. The pain was excruciating. I didn’t think I would survive it. I didn’t want to. All I wanted was to be with him. I prayed for that.
Twin Flames are often telepathic with each other, and we were that. We could read each others minds and talk to each other without saying anything aloud, across a room or across towns. The distance didn’t matter. What I didn’t know about Twin Flames is that they cannot be separated, not even by death.
A few weeks after Jamie died, signs started showing up. At least the ones I noticed. If I am being honest, I was nothing short of a zombie for months. In fact, I have very little recollection of the majority of the first year after he passed. But things started happening that I wasn’t looking for, that I couldn’t explain or ignore. And the more I noticed, the more it happened.
It started with a lighthouse (which is significant to us) showing up on my laptop on my first day back to work after his death. Then I started seeing hearts in the most unusual and random places (he told me would send me hearts). Then one day in August, I was walking towards the front steps to come in the house, and I heard a whisper over my right shoulder. I turned to look, and there was no one there, but a small grey feather was floating in the air. It swirled toward me, then completely around me before landing on the step in front of me. I stared at it and thought, ‘It can’t be.’ But I took a picture of the feather and tucked away possibility.
Later that week, I was making the bed, standing on Jamie’s side. I was lost in my thoughts, and clear as day I heard him say, “It is so beautiful here, Lee la. More beautiful than you could ever imagine.” I gasped because it sounded as if he was standing just behind my right side. I turned to look, half expecting him to be there, and of course he wasn’t.
But it WAS his voice. And I was covered in goosebumps, which in my spiritual practice has always meant confirmation. I dropped to my knees on the floor, buried my face in my hands, and cried hard. We had talked a lot about what the afterlife would be like, and this was his way of validating that he was there, that he was happy, and that it was every bit as beautiful as we had hoped.
Later that week, I was making the bed, standing on Jamie’s side. I was lost in my thoughts, and clear as day I heard him say, “It is so beautiful here, Lee la. More beautiful than you could ever imagine.” I gasped because it sounded as if he was standing just behind my right side. I turned to look, half expecting him to be there, and of course he wasn’t. But it WAS his voice. And I was covered in goosebumps, which in my spiritual practice has always meant confirmation. I dropped to my knees on the floor, buried my face in my hands, and cried hard. We had talked a lot about what the afterlife would be like, and this was his way of validating that he was there, that he was happy, and that it was every bit as beautiful as we had hoped.
After that, I wanted to hear more from him. In fact, I was desperate to. I asked my Angels to help me stay calm and open and show me how to hear him better, how to communicate with him. In my minds eye, I was instantly shown a deck of oracle cards. It looked familiar to me, and I was guided to a box in the top of the closet in my office. I opened it and found mediumship cards from James Van Praagh called Talking to Heaven. I got goosebumps again. I had completely forgotten about that deck, as I had never used it! When I had taken the Angel Card Reader course from Hay House in 2015, it came with 5 decks of cards, though I had only ever used two, and this deck had never been opened. As I took it out of the box, I heard my Angels say, “Start here.”
The next morning, I made a coffee and my way over to ‘our spot’ on the loveseat. I sat down, opened the cards, and started to shuffle them. I closed my eyes and said, “Jammies, what do you want me to know right now?”, then I flipped over the top card. It said, ‘We are so connected’. Again, I got goosebumps, and I immediately felt Jamie on my right side, as if he was sitting beside me. I closed my eyes again and with a shaky voice, I said, “I feel you…” and tears flowed down my cheeks. I heard him say, “I’m here, Lee la. Read the rest.”
So... I took a deep breath, opened the guidebook that accompanies the cards and read aloud, ‘‘I’ve been able to review my life here in heaven, and I’ve seen how perfectly everything we do is woven together. There are no accidents or wrong turns. Everything makes sense now! I wanted to give you the exciting news that in my life review, I saw that you and I have a strong soul connection through many lifetimes. We’ve been each other’s teachers (sometimes in unpleasant ways) several times. In this lifetime, we were magnetically drawn together, because we had mutual work to do, for ourselves personally, and for others. And now that I’m here, our connection remains strong! Just like when I was living in my body, our thoughts are in sync with one another. We often think of each other simultaneously. So, think of me and know that I am doing the same…always with love.’'
Tears were streaming down my face, but for the first time, they were tears of relief. I could still feel Jamie beside me, and I clutched the book to my chest and said, “Thank you! I needed this so badly. Thank you for still being here. I need you!” And that became our morning ritual; coffee and a card and Jamie beside me on the loveseat.
Out of the 44 cards in that deck, I pulled that card for days on end…like he was really driving the message home to me. What was also interesting was that different parts of the message would stand out to me on different days. One day it was, ‘you and I have a strong soul connection through many lifetimes’. Another day it was, ‘In this lifetime, we were magnetically drawn together’, then, ‘Just like when I was living in my body, our thoughts are in sync with one another.’, and ‘we had mutual work to do, for ourselves personally, and for others’. That was when a memory came rushing back to me. It was from a month or so before Jamie passed, and I was giving him a Reiki treatment. His eyes were closed, and he was deeply relaxed, drifting in and out of consciousness.
At one point, he made a ‘Mmmm’ sound, and said, “We are going to help a lot of people, Lee la. You and me. Together.” Unsure if he was awake or asleep at that moment, I quietly asked, “Oh ya? How so?” He frowned a little and looked up at me, and said, “I don’t know that part yet.” I had forgotten all about that, but now in my mind, I said to him, “Jammies, how we are going to work together to help people? What do I need to do? What do I have to learn? Show me.”
The very next day, I got an email from about an upcoming summit, “Beyond the Veil; Explore the Science and Mysteries of Near-Death Experiences, Mediumship and the Afterlife”. I was instantly covered in goosebumps from head to toe. Silently I said to Jamie, ‘Okay then!’ and I registered. For five days, I was steeped in stories and experiences, and I soaked it all in. For the first time, I felt some excitement and hope for the future. I still didn’t know exactly how it was all going to unfold, but I was open to wherever this path lead knowing that Jamie would be right there with me, just on the other side of the veil.
Since then, we have been on an incredible journey together. The teachers and healers that I have needed to learn from have been put in my path and continue to show up. I continue to feel and hear Jamie often, and my senses have also expanded which has allowed me to see him and smell him too. He has constantly shown me that the more I embrace our spiritual relationship, the easier it is for him to communicate with me.
Jamie has continued to send me countless signs, some of which make me burst into tears because they are so deeply meaningful, and others that make me laugh out loud because his sense of humour is as sharp as ever! I am deeply grateful for all of them, but…
Learning to live in a world that Jamie doesn’t and letting go of his physical presence and embrace the new us is the hardest thing I have ever done. Like all of life, it is a practice. It’s been nearly 3 years since Jamie left this physical plane, and while I still desperately miss the old us, I have accepted that I am still here, that I have a lot of work to do, and that together, we have a lot of people to help before I join him.