Embracing the Sign

This memoir braids together stories about ordinary people who had extraordinary experiences following the death of a loved one. Each recounts a confluence of events or series of coincidences that seemed to come from “out of the blue.” What makes these stories important is the profound effect of each experience. Each person felt an overwhelming sense that death is not the end, that the deceased continue to exist in some form, apart from and beyond the death of the body. Every-day objects—a letter, a belt, a book, a song—become vehicles through which reassuring messages are communicated, becoming signs representing the shared history between the living and the dead, a history known only to them. Living through and accumulating these stories led the author to a sense of awe and wonder that coexisted with skepticism, initiating research into such matters and drew her to scientists and a new breed of theologians who find science compatible with spirituality. Science and theology are both concerned with how life begins. Both ask: What happens to human consciousness when we die? This memoir follows the author’s spiritual journey from blind faith, to skepticism, to the ultimate discovery that a fragile faith can be found, and found again, in the questions.

Marion Goldstein

Marion Goldstein is a psychotherapist who lives in Montclair, New Jersey. She is a registered poetry therapist and an adjunct professor at Caldwell College, where she teaches a course on Poetry Therapy.