does anybody think there's an "afterlife", a "heaven", a "hell" , nah neither did ah!!!!
As far as my father's family are concerned (my uncle and aunts) there is irrefutable proof of there being a heaven....AT LEAST.
Throughout my life, from about the age of seven, my father, uncle and aunts, told me of an incident they witnessed (eight of them) regarding my father that they all iterated and re-iterated to me and my own sisters and brothers on over fifty different gatherings or occasions.
They told it to us as if they were reading it from a book, where their uncanny word perfect insistence, heightened even moreso a sincere and unarguable experience.
We are all Catholics with Italian parentage, where most but not all of them were regular church goers.... until that day.
This incident happened in 1938 to my father with four of his brothers and three of his sisters present and all within eye-shot of the event. This was something I took on board but was not allowed to tell anyone outside of the family until my father had passed away.
I did say to them if this experience was true, then you have a duty to tell others about it and let them know how incredible it was. My father, nor his family never at any time sought notoriety nor fame nor anything remotely public which only added to its authenticity.
I knew it to be true anyway because my father bore the 'scar' of it until he died in 1990, and with my entire family witnessing his "mark" all through our lives.
I took a picture of his mark and kept it ever since.
BUT, despite us being reliable witnesses, of his "experience" what lent even further credence of it originally being an unearthly occurrence, was when he died, and my mother had his body brought home to the house in his coffin for a couple of days to pay our final reverence to him before his burial. (This is common with many Catholics in European countries when a loved one is shortly interned).
At the time of his death, and once she had collected herself, my mother noticed almost immediately that his "mark" had completely disappeared. I was informed of this minutes later, at about three am and was at her side in minutes.
Incredible as it appeared to us all, and no amount of surgery or human help could repair this tissue in its 53 years of existence.......it was completely and totally gone, and instantly.
I was not dreaming, drunk nor hallucinating........nor was any of my siblings....but still find this utterly unfathomable today.
I took pictures of this and showed them to his doctors who knew him well then even suggested we've tried to fool them, saying the pictures are definitely not from your father!
This is an admission from them that something unbelievable and inexplicable had happened.
Luckily for over 50 of us including his family friends, in-laws and grandchildren, know that something miraculous had happened to their grand-dad and our father.
Better than that, three of his sons and daughters in law are not Catholics nor religious and are dumbfounded as they themselves knew him alive AND when he was deceased, and now freed from this mark.
There were several other occurrences that happened to him in Italy and New York and are equally baffling, and evidenced by others that I have done my homework on and neither can I give answers to.
It may be a little compliant or obsequious of me to hold back why I say that, but I have had three personal episodes in my life that are utterly unconnected to anything remotely natural nor comprehensible.
No academic or scientific explanations can get close to elucidate a satisfactory interpretation for any of them.
It is not my job, nor for me to convince others, or help them, no matter how unbelievable it appears the existence of God, Jesus or stories about him to be, I honestly don't give a damn nor have a modicum of interest towards anyone regarding my personal experiences nor beliefs.
Whether others go to a better place or not is not my problem and in a strange way don't feel I really care or even if I should help them.
I learnt through time and experience, we can only help ourselves and no-one can ever do it for us.
However, I DO think that it is unfair to be privileged with the events I have been witness to, making it much easier for me to accept the Catholic faith and a better place, than those that have never had that luxury.
When in my teens, despite seeing my father's marked hand for all my life and hearing how it happened, I said to him during a disagreement that I didn't think there's such a thing as the devil or his evil.
He turned to face me with an uncaring and cold forced smile such as I'd never seen from him before nor ever did again and then he said "his greatest trick was to convince you and everyone else that he doesn't exist".
He looked away and out through the window, then said to me "don't drive anywhere for the remainder of today" then went into his room.
I had to go out to pickup college books for the next day from a friend in Broughty Ferry, about five miles away, drove there and stayed at his place 'till eleven pm, when I left.
It was a late warm night in August 1977, Elvis had just died, Dalgleish had left for Liverpool, and I never wore a seatbelt back then....(they were not compulsory 'til Jan 31st 1983) when the traffic lights had just changed and I stopped at the Clepington Road, Forfar Road junction waiting on them going green.
The road was empty during that time, yet the lights stayed red unusually long for at least seven minutes when this lorry came behind me and hit me so hard, my car went through a wall and ended up on its roof in a garden about 22 metres away. (Police measurement). I was knocked out and came to, about 3 or four minutes later, by which time there were home owners and a few coppers trying to get my door open and get me out. My car was on fire, and the stench of petrol was all over the place, so the cops got me out the window as the door was stuck shut. It took me another 3 minutes to get back to normal and realise what had happened. I was completely unharmed, not even a scratch. I've never needed my handbrake when driving and had my foot on the footbrake when the vehicle hit me. The lorry, which was a large Comet Appliances van had also gone through a wall and hit a tree in the garden where the driver was already dead.
It felt like a real comet that had hit me. The Police said he struck me at over 50 mph, to do the damage it did. I wanted to go and see him but they wouldn't let me move and tried to keep me still, then gave me a coffee. I was kept in Ninewells overnight and was back in college for twelve the next day. ........and then, two huge black eyes like a panda suddenly appeared on my face.
My mother had put a set of Rosary beads around the car's gearstick when I bought it, when early the next morning while I was in the ward bed, a visiting Police inspector had said "here's your Rosary beads, they were wrapped around your arm when they got you out" and I had no right to be alive.
I never did get an explanation from my dad why he said that to me that night or did he know what was going to happen. All he did say was "I knew you would be all right".
Stupidly and glibly, I just accepted this from him, without reasoning with him further.
Through the years, I questioned how I could possibly have got out alive from the car, let alone without a scratch and no seatbelt on. Throughout my life my father was prophetically annoying, like no other dad my friends had. His brothers told me he was different after that first incident way back then, and knew things were going to happen long before they did.
Though I didn't take in everything he said, he did say to us to be prepared for anything that will come your way, because I know I've been taken there, and it is worth it. I never asked "where" had he been taken.
In 1965 my brother David was electrocuted while cutting the grass, when my mother said my dad knew and talked about it happening years earlier and then said to her when he himself was going to die. My mum said she always knew this and dreaded it but would never mention it to any of us.
He wrote a letter during the sixties and dated it June 30 1968, to be read to us the day after he was buried, and dated it the day it was to be read ....on the 1st August 1990...(my birthday) proof that he was telling my mother the truth about his knowing when he was going to die and be buried... as he said on his own birthday!
(He died on 24th July 1990 his birthday and was buried on the 31st July 1990, and the letter was read to us the next day 1st August...my birthday)
Thankfully, and despite having a very high IQ, I don't have his abilities to grasp these things nor have I been given a gift to know what is going to happen. But, I DO know I have been given an extended time here when others would not have had.
There have been things that have happened to me in front of my friends, on holiday, in the pub or wherever leaving them lost for words and they still bring these events up to this day. Most of them are irreligious and non-believing people but have no explanation for these things....as do I.
Everything I have said here is as it happened and can be backed up by surviving family and friends.... but as I have said, I neither care nor give an ear to whomever thinks differently........unfair maybe, but I know that two and two makes four...only because I've seen why it does........ others haven't or believe it does ONLY because they've been told so.
So when people say they don't believe in God, heaven, or a future life, I listen and smile, thinking how fortunate I have been to know different.
......and why shouldn't I.