Because we all could use a letter from Heaven- special delivery, overnight mail: You’re in bed trying desperately to fall asleep and thoughts always come back to me. Hi, from Heaven. I’m still here. I know it’s hard to believe sometimes or understand in the way I try to show you but I’m still me. I hear you talk to me several times a day. When you hear nothing back or you say I don’t answer, that doesn’t mean I’m not right there next to you smiling. I smile because I know things you won’t know until the day I reach my hands out to you and we’re together again in a more familiar way. In the meantime, I will keep trying to show you I’m okay and still around. Damn, if love could ignite my physical being again, I'd be ringing the doorbell right now, or dialing you direct because I know how much you miss my phone calls. Love has lit the fire in my soul and is allowing me to contact you in another way~a way that seems so unclear at times. If a friend or relative calls to tell you they got a sign or had a dream of me, please know that I tried to reach you first but the line was busy or full of pain. When you quiet your mind and learn to clear the clutter, I can get through better. Tell my brothers and sisters, my children and all relatives, to live for me and do things to make me proud. If they don’t want to talk about me, it’s just that the pain is too much to bear so they bury it to survive. Let everyone in the family grieve in their own way. Try to laugh again and get out of the house. When you can do that, it sends waves of love through my being. Let go of unwanted and useless feelings like guilt, anger and fear. I can’t break through those. I know you did the best you could for me. I am no longer in pain. I feel nothing but love from you all. Here’s how I let you know I’m not dead; just different: I’m the butterfly that dances around you as you walk. I make rainbows appear even when there is no rain; a shooting star caught your eye just in time; I made that red dragonfly land on you as you thought of me. The hawk sat perched outside your kitchen window and then swooped down as you stood on the deck or in the car. I keep making my song come on the radio and you know it’s me. I stand beside your bed and brush my hand against your face. I sent a text or phone message after I passed-yup, I’m amazing. I can do things you can’t wrap your brain around. You saw my face in someone else-it’s called transfiguration. I was the old guy who smiled at you or the strange woman who asked you a poignant question. The woman in the mall called out to her son…it was my name. I saw you all get tattoos, Mom, Dad, my brother and sister! Mom always hated tattoos…now she has one. Dad, you taught me so much. I didn’t get the chance to thank you so I’m doing it now. It’s never too late to say I love you. Forgive, be grateful, and live every day like it's the last one presented to you. The best gift you can give me is that you will promise to live for me and I will live through you…you will see me again one day but until then, LIVE, LAUGH, and Celebrate my memory. We are so much more than this physical vehicle that drives us around for awhile. Lift your head up and run around the bases, sliding into home, into my arms. I paved the way, I'm clearing off the base...I’m not dead; I’m just different.