Louise Hamlin- WhatsApp Messages From Heaven

Brian Smith  0:00  
Close your eyes and imagine what are the things in life that causes the greatest pain, the things that bring us grief, or challenges, challenges designed to help us grow to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried. But what if, like a seed we've been planted and having been planted would grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is grief to growth. And I am your host, Brian Smith.

Announcer  0:47  
Hi there. Before we start, Brian would like to share a couple of things with you. First, did you know that Brian is a life coach, a grief guide and a mental fitness trainer? Brian would love to help you with whatever life issues are challenging you. Brian has years of experience as well as training. You can contact Brian at WWW dot grief to growth.com to learn more. Brian is the author of the best selling book grief to growth planted not buried, which you can get on Amazon or Brian's website. This is a great book if you're in grief or to give to someone you know who is dealing with grief. Lastly, Brian creates free and paid resources for your growth. Go to www dot grief to growth.com/gifts www.gr IE F to growth.com to sign up for his newsletter, choose a gift just for signing up and keep up with what Brian is offering. And now here's today's episode. Please enjoy.

Brian Smith  1:48  
Hey, everybody, this is Brian back with another episode of grief to growth. And today I've got with me Louise Hamblin and she's the author of a new book that's just out called WhatsApp from heaven. It is it's called WhatsApp from Heaven bereavement in the 21st century. And you'll see why we call it freedom in the 21st century. She was a law lecturer at Cambridge University. And she didn't really believe in the afterlife until she experienced a science after the sudden death of her husband. So she's written this book about the science she's gotten about her grief journey, and about the things that have helped her while she's been going through that journey. So with that like to welcome the grief to growth Louise Hamlin.

Louise Hamlin  2:26  
Hi, Brian, and thank you very much for having me on your podcast.

Brian Smith  2:30  
Yeah, I'm really interested to have this conversation with you today. I I know this book just came out. It sounds like a really exciting book. So before I was like to start when people have had a loved one passed, I don't like to use the word loss. I don't like to use the word death. And it's not because I don't recognize those things exist. But I believe that the people continue. But I like to start off by you telling me about your husband and his life and your relationship with him.

Louise Hamlin  2:57  
Sure. Well, I met Patrick in 2005. We started living together in 2006. And we got married in 2010. And I can remember on the day of my wedding to him, I was thinking like goodness me, this is a happily ever after. And I really do believe that. We've both been married before. We both had children. And neither of us had had great marriages. And when we met each other well, we've we certainly began to realize that we were soulmates. And I was so happy with him. He was a barrister, which is like an attorney. He was an alpha male, very, very strong, and intelligent, and determined, very generous and kind and straight as a die. And I adored him. I absolutely adored him. And what was amazing was he adored me, so it was perfect. And then in the autumn of 2018 We decided to have the holiday of a lifetime and go on safari in Africa, which we did. And it was fabulous. And we really enjoyed it. We got back and Patrick started to have a couple of odd symptoms, went to the doctors was diagnosed with stage four cancer and he was dead within three months. And it was horrendous, absolutely horrendous. He had been such a Livewire, he'd been so full of energy, and so present all the time. And I couldn't believe that he had died, I really couldn't. And I was totally numb, from shock and grief, I would gladly have died along with him, I really would. Because he'd been the center of my life. And he'd been my love. 

So to start with, as I say, I was numb with grief. And to know, I just was incapable of doing anything. And the children were wonderful, and friends were wonderful, and they'd put some food in front of me. I wasn't, I wasn't capable of getting myself a meal, I wasn't capable of doing anything. I just sort of sat like a zombie. And I look back on that time now. And you know, I can hardly remember it. I somehow must have got up, I somehow must have gone to bed. But I honestly can't remember it, the shock was so deep, it really was. I slowly slowly started to find strategies to survive. And also, though, I didn't believe in an afterlife, and nor had Patrick, I've never completely closed my mind to it. I mean, before Patrick died, we were discussing his death. And he said, I'm scared of dying. But I'm not scared of death. Because death is either nothing at all. And that's nothing to be scared of. Or he said, if our spirits do survive, well, I think I've lived a good enough life for it to be okay. And he has, he was a deeply, deeply good person, he really was. Um, so I guess you could say, if you like, we were both agnostic about it. But we both we both thought that it was unlikely that spirits survived. However, I was so desperate to have some contact with him. And I was so worried, in case his spirit had survived. And, you know, wanted to know that he was all right. And so I started going to mediums. And, and also, at the same time, friends started sort of approaching you and saying, Hey, Louise, you know, I've had a slide, which I think was from Patrick. And I thought, yeah, but on the other hand, I was very surprised by how perceptive as you like some of the mediums were. So I was very much in two minds about it. I desperately wanted to think that he still survived because he'd been such a force of nature. The feeling that he was no more was just devastating. But I didn't know. The first medium I went to, was not a success. And she ended up being sort of quite cross with me because I would say, No, no, when she was saying things, I just didn't feel that she was on the right wavelength at all. I didn't feel that she initially got through to Patrick at all. Patrick was my husband. And then about two months or so, after he had died. I thought I'll try again with a medium. And I went on to the internet. And I found a medium suitable for about one and a half hours drive away. So I rang her up. And I said, 

Hi, my name is Louise. My husband died in February. And I'd like to come and see you to see if I can make contact. So she said, Oh, hi. Yeah, that might be a bit too soon, really? Just a couple of months at. So he died in the middle of February, didn't it? I said yes. And then she said, Ah, he died on the 16th of February. And I said, Well, no, no, he lost consciousness. On the 16th, and he was in a coma from then until the 18th when he actually died. And then this medium said, note, well, he's telling me he died on the 60s. That's what I'm writing down.

Brian Smith  10:15  
That's when it's yes. Yeah.

Louise Hamlin  10:17  
Well, I thought It can't even be telepathy, not that telepathy is explicable because if she'd asked me, I'd have said, No, he died on the 18th. She somehow knew that he had died on the 16th. And, you know, I think, goodness, there are 28 days in February. That's amazing. And she knew nothing about mutual apart from the fact that my name was Louise and my husband had died. She didn't do my surname or anything. So then I went to see her next week. And again, it was quite extraordinary. I mean, I ended up thinking, Yes, yeah. She really is in touch with him, is in touch with her. You know, she described him very, very accurately. And I'll give you a couple of examples. She said, Oh, why is he showing me a cornflour? She didn't say a flower or flowers. She said a cornflour. And I thought that's incredible. Because in fact, when we'd got married, Patrick of Warner cornflour in his buttonhole, and if you'd like the cornflour has been our flower for the wedding. And I thought, that's amazing. And then she said, Oh, he's pointing at his feet. He's wearing slippers. And he's laughing. And I understood that as well. Because the funeral director had asked me to send some clothes to put on the body in the coffin. And I thought about it and I thought, What should I send? And I thought, well, actually, he was happiest when he was outside mucking around, you know. So I sent you sort of country clothes. But then I looked at his boots, and I thought that'd be very heavy for him. I thought his slippers would be more comfortable. So I said his slippers to put on his feet. So he was wearing quite a strange ensemble if you like, you know, he's outside country clothes and his slippers. And so yeah, of course, he would have laughed about it. Ah, and I thought, well, maybe he's still around. Maybe he is. And at the same time, as I said, my friends was getting in touch with me saying, hey, Louise. So this has happened that has happened. I think it's Patrick. The first friend to get in touch with me was a friend who is psychic. She's She's a healer. 

And in fact, initially, she knew Patrick and me well, and about five days after he died. She got in touch with me. And she said, Louise, I don't really know whether to tell you this or not. But this morning, I was thinking about Patrick. And I was hoping that he was okay. And I asked him to send me a sign. And I asked him to send me a flame, not in a fireplace, and not a candle, but a flame. And she said then I went about my day and I had a busy day, but sort of rather scuffle about it. And then this evening, I went to close the curtains. And out of the window. I could see in the neighbor's garden, a tall thin flame. It's very strange. If you said I rushed and took a photograph and here's the photograph when she sent me a photograph, and you could see the neighbor's fence and then behind it this tall thin flame and because the fence was in the way you couldn't quite see what was causing the flame. Anyway, she said quite soon after the flame just died away. But she said I'm sure That was Patrick saying, Yeah, I'm okay. And it was a weird flip that she did send me the photographs. I could see it. Like I said, it was a weird, unusual flame. But oh, you know, again, I didn't know. I just didn't know. And then we had the funeral. And I've got very, very clouded memories of that. Lots of people came, which was lovely and, and it was awful. And then the same friend, she contacted me the next day. 

She said, Hey, Louise. When I was driving home from the funeral, I was listening to the radio. And I thought, Oh, I love another side. And so she said, Hey, Patrick, can you get a cheap trick? I want you to want me played so I can hear it. And I personally had never heard of cheap trick. And I've never heard of this song. I want you to want me. And apparently, my friend Jenny, she, she chose it because she said she liked it. But she's never ever heard it broadcast in. In the UK. I didn't know how regularly is played in America. So she carried on driving home. And it didn't appear on the radio. And when she got home, you know, she turned off the radio and just had the evening. But the next morning, she went to collect her parents from the railway station, they begin to stay. And as she was waiting on the platform over the station, Tannoy they suddenly played. I want you to want me. Wow. And yeah, that's what she thought to. That's absolutely what she thought. So I heard this, and I thought, well, wow. But who knows. And another friend, who had been a very good friend to both of us, she contacted me. And she said, You know, I've been thinking of Patrick. And something happened to the lights. And it must have been Patrick. She had found both bedside lights on. And they had not been on. And nobody had been in the household day. She'd got back and she'd found they've both been switched on, on either side of the bed. And she said, You know, I've been thinking about them a lot. And I've been asking for signs. I'm sure that's what it was.

And I heard this and I thought, Well, okay, maybe, but then, you know, I'm not getting any signs. I haven't noticed anything odd.

Thinking about it now, I suspect that I was so deeply immersed in grief, that it would have been difficult to get through to me at all. But that's just my interpretation now. Think the first sign I got was I was going to get a train. And I thought, actually, somebody suggested to me, they said, Well, why don't you ask to see a feather on the train. So I said, Okay. So I said, Patrick, you know, if you're around, Darling, please me, I see a feather on the train. And the next day, got this train. And it's quite crowded. But I could see two vacant seats at the far end of the carriage. So I've sort of went up to them and sat down, please take your seat. And I glanced down at the seat next to me. And there was a feather on the seat. Wow. Yeah, it was wild in a brine it was well because there was absolutely nothing that could have created a feather. And in fact, another time this is a few months later, I was on a train. And I was talking to the woman who was sitting opposite. There was a table between us. I'd been reading and then we got talking and it turned She was a widow. And it then turned out that she had had some signs from her husband. And so we were talking about it. And then she said, Oh, look, and this hermetically sealed compartment suddenly produced a feather, which floated down onto my book, as we're talking. Wow. She said, Well, that's a sign, isn't it? Wow. Yeah. So there, they'd be worse. And I still sort of had cognitive dissonance, if you like, part of me thought, yes, yes. Patrick is around and part of me thought, oh, I don't know, I don't know, sort of unlikely. 

And then the WhatsApps started. Now, in the UK, sort of everybody uses WhatsApp. And I don't think it's quite so well used. In the US. It's a note. It's a sort of It's a texting app. And what you can do is you can also create groups. So you know, I've got a family group, and anybody in the family, they can post on this family group, they post photographs and messages and things. And we can all see it. So yeah, so it's, it's, it's a texting app. And so one day, I left my phone in the kitchen, and the house was empty. When I got back to the house, sort of, I don't know. Half an hour, maybe an hour later. I found on my phone. That it the text box to send a whatsapp to Maria was absolutely full of words. Words, words and words and words. And some most of them I suppose, were words I recognize, but some were not. Words. It just, it looks very garbled. It looks gobbledygook really? I thought, how did that get there? That's very perplexed. And I was about to delete it all. But I thought I didn't maybe I'll just send it to Maria. And just ask her what she thinks. And Maria, I should say, was yet another third medium. Who might been in touch with because I'd asked for reading. And in fact, very strange things. And orbs flights and stuff had occurred around her soon as I'd been in touch with her. So anyway, so I sent this to Maria and said, hey, you know, I found this in the message box ready to send to you didn't know how it got there. What do you think? She said, No idea. No idea at all. So that was that. But then the next day, she sent me a WhatsApp, and said, Hey, Louise, not what I found on my phone, in my message box reducer sent to you. And there was sort of a paragraph I suppose. Some of it was a bit gobbledygook. There were some random phrases or words, but three times it said, Darling, it's me. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I'm perfect Kobe, darling, you know that. So. So I didn't know what to think. I was thrilled. But then, you know, the little suspicious bit of me, the lawyer if you like, thought, well, I don't know how those first words arrived on my phone. But Maria could have decided just to, for some inexplicable reason. trick me somehow, she could have she could have done it and made it up. And I didn't think it was likely because Maria seemed a lovely very genuine woman. I think she is. But I was, I was suspicious, just because it also didn't seem likely that somebody who had passed was able to manipulate WhatsApp, so you would send texts. With an ex next month or so, Maria found more and more of these messages. And some of them sort of contained stuff, which she wouldn't have known, but which really, really made sense to me. So I was, I was beginning to think, goodness, Patrick could somehow send WhatsApps texts, if you like, through the ether, this is extraordinary. But it was in August, that then I knew for sure. I can tell you exactly the time. It was August 6, which happened to be the birth of his daughter. And I was out walking the dog and the phones in my pocket. And I got back and pulled the phone out of my pocket. And WhatsApp gave me two notifications, notifying me. So I had created at 11:06am to WhatsApp groups, one called Hamlins, one called Hamden family, one consisting of me and Patrick, one consisting of his daughter, Patrick, and me. And you know, what, I stared at the phone, I stared at this notification. And I knew that I had not done it. I knew that the phone had been in my pocket while I'd be walking the dog. And I thought it's Patrick. It clearly is Patrick. Patrick, saying, Hi, Hi, I've been trying to contact you. I'm still alive insert. Now, I was staying with one of my sons at the time. That son is a lawyer. And like his mother, like his father, and he's very skeptical. And he spent a long time trying to work out how these groups could have been created by somebody else, how my phone could somehow have been hacked. And he really, really worked hard, trying to find what he would have called a rational explanation. And in the end, he had to admit defeat. And he said, You know what, ma'am? That is no. rational explanation for the is WhatsApp groups. You must be right. It was Patrick. Wow. Wow. So yeah. And you know, what? That completely altered my worldview. And that gave me think that's wonderful, because he's still alive in spirit. And it does mean that when I die, I can be with him again. And that and that was so concerning. It really was. I was still deep in grief. And still was finding it very, very difficult and sad. But just just knowing that he was still alive and spirit was just so wonderful. It really was.

Brian Smith  29:34  
That is an incredible story. I just, I was covered with goosebumps, like most of the time you were telling it. It sounds like Patrick is a fantastic communicator. He's persistent. You know, and as you said, you know, you were talking about getting signs early on. The thing is, if we're not looking for signs if we're not aware, then we don't know. You might you see a flame it's just a flame. You hear a song Hunger is just a song, you see a feather, it's just a feather. It's when we have that connection with them. And we and we understand that connection that that ordinary event becomes becomes a sign. It's the timing of the things and its significance of it. So, you know, kudos to Patrick for continuing to come through to various people, it's only was able to get to you. That's, that's amazing.

Louise Hamlin  30:26  
Yes, he was. I mean, as I said, he was an alpha male, he was a very determined man. And it must have been so frustrating for him, you know, trying to get through to me and me just carrying on being skeptical and loyally if you like. But he was not the sort of man who would ever give up. And he was obviously, he was obviously on a mission.

Brian Smith  30:53  
Right. So, so and then it's interesting that you said, you went to a couple of games, and the first one didn't work out. So what made you decide to go to another one?

Louise Hamlin  31:03  
Well, because I was just desperate to try and communicate with him. And, you know, I think the thing about mediums, as I say, in my book, there are, I think there are some amazing mediums out there. And I think there are also some people who are less amazing. And, and, you know, you've got to look out for charlatans as well. I'm not saying that the first one I saw was a charlatan. But she certainly wasn't in touch with Patrick. And I just thought, Okay, this has not been a good experience. But I will I have persistent as well, I suppose.

Brian Smith  31:50  
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So there's something. You know, it's really interesting to me about people that we and it's good to be skeptical. It's, it's fine to be skeptical. And I like your loyalty approach to things. But there's something about us a thick when that when that person, that really significant person in our life crosses that it makes us really question that that thing that says, Okay, we don't go on, you know, it's, it's interesting. For me, it was my daughter, and I, I've always kind of believed in an afterlife. But when my daughter was 15, and she passed away, when you a spouse, loses a spouse or parent loses a child, then there's like, Okay, well, now I have to know, it's no longer an academic exercise. It's like I have to know.

Louise Hamlin  32:36  
Totally, totally. And I mean, what was lovely, from my point of view was that I continued to get signs from Patrick. And I guess that he was sending me signs for probably about two years. He died, what, three and a half years ago now. And I don't think I've had a sign from him for the last year, I will say. But it was lovely that he carried on sending me love and reassurance really. And I think he realized, you know, how restricted I was. Yeah. And how I just needed the love and the reassurance.

Brian Smith  33:30  
So what are some of the other things that you did besides the signs and mediums to start to cope with your grief? Because that's, that's tough. That's tough coming out of that. And what you said was completely normal that the fog that we have at the beginning of the shock, and then that it seems like a dream we think about even now.

Louise Hamlin  33:49  
Yeah, no, you'll you're quite right. Right, well, I spent a lot of time out in the garden, and I've got quite a big garden and there's, it's on the slip, there's a summer house up at the top of the garden. And, and then lovely views of the summer house. No, so you can't see any houses from the summer house. It's just countryside. It's very quiet up there. And I spent hours and hours just sitting there out in nature which really helped and nobody would, nobody could come and bother me at the summer house. I was just I was there with my dog. I found that meditation really helped. And I read a lot. I read a lot about you know whether there was an afterlife and one of the things that a lot of books said was that it was good to meditate because it raised your vibrations and so made you more open to sign some things And to be frank, I didn't really understand what that meant. But I meditated. And I found that this terrible churning inside me, could be calmed while I was meditating, which was good. So I did a lot of meditation. What I also found was, the only way I could survive was by living just in the moment. And again, you know, we all know that that's what you're meant to do for happy, successful life. And we all know that it's incredibly difficult to do that. But I found that I couldn't look back. And think that because that was just too sad to think what I'd lost. So I just couldn't let myself think that I certainly couldn't let myself think forward. Because a future without Patrick was utterly terrifying. It just seemed so bleak, so long. So the only thing I could do was just concentrate on this morning, or this afternoon. And I could just think to myself, Okay, it's morning. And in two hours time, it's lunchtime, I've just got to get through to lunchtime, just got to think I've got to get through to lunchtime. And that was, that was what I did for a long, long time. I only thought about just getting through the now. And that helped. Then what I gradually found was that it was lovely to talk to people. When they talked to me about Patrick. What I found incredibly hurtful was when I talked to people, and they didn't mention it. And I met somebody at the school gates, I was picking up a grandchild, just two or three weeks after Patrick had died. And she didn't say a word. And I was so hurt and distressed. Now I saw her again later. And she said, Oh, I didn't like to say anything in front of the children. I'm sorry about Patrick. And I thought, how ridiculous the children know he's died. And, you know, you can't sort of whitewash what has happened. And still, there are people who don't mention him. Other people do, and quite casually sort of saying the conversation. Oh, so funny to read. Patrick would have loved that. Or oh, do you remember when Patrick did this? And, and I love that. I love it when people still bring him into the conversation. And I'm still sure that he's He's present in their minds and lives as well. I think that's really, really helpful.

Brian Smith  38:29  
Yeah, I think that's a really important point that you just made. A lot of times people are uncomfortable around us people who are in grief. And they'll say things like, Well, I don't want to bring it up. Because I don't want to make you sad, or I don't want to make you think about this person, the person and it's like, don't you know, we're always thinking about them. And I every almost universally, when I talk to people that are in grief, they're like, I want you to include my loved one as part of the conversation. I'm thinking about them and mentioned their name casually. It doesn't have to be Oh, I'm so sorry about this. It's like mentioned just like they're still here mentioned them like the way that they were when they were here. I love we all want to talk about our office why? I started by asking you tell me about Patrick. I want to know about I want to know about him because I believe he's here. I believe he's here with us now. And I'm sure he you know, he's probably going gay. This is great. This is this is what you're doing is fantastic. Because you're you're sharing this story that will help so many other people, you know, we get these signs of things. They're there for us, but they're not just for us.

Louise Hamlin  39:33  
No, I I've very strong feel that he wanted me to write this book. And I just sat down one day when I thought, actually I need to write it I get to write down what has happened. And I had kept a journal. And I just sat down and wrote it and sent it off to a publisher and the publisher accepted it straightaway and And then you hear, you know, people who a take ages and ages trying to write a book and then be finding it very difficult to get it published or having to make changes and things. My publisher wanted me to make one change to my manuscript somewhere, I said, as it were, and they said, Please, would you put in? If so it says, as if it were. And that was the only change they wanted to make. And I, and I thought, This is really easy. And I thought this is this is Patrick, I thought this is Patrick, opening these doors, because he wants the book to be out there. And quite right, too, because I think that he worked really, really hard, sort of, to convince me that his spirits are still around. And I mean, I'd like other people to know.

Brian Smith  40:58  
Well, it's very generous of you to share it with people. And, you know, and it's really cool. I know, it has more credibility, I think when when these things come from people who are skeptical, who say, who needed to really be convinced, and you know, it's interesting, you, you and Patrick, both just kind of saying, and I love your rational approach to not having a fear of death. It's like, well, either I am going to exist, or if I don't exist, there's no point in fearing that because I won't be there to experience it. But so I don't even have to ask you what you believe now. Because I can just tell from talking to you that you did you truly believe that Patrick is still with you. And still the spirits arrived?

Louise Hamlin  41:41  
Yes, I do. Yeah. And I often, I often feel him. And sometimes when I'm driving, I sort of almost feel as though he's taken hold of the steering wheel. It's a funny feeling. But I do feel that it's almost his, his hands and arms, it might. And that's possibly because he didn't really rate my driving. He didn't like being by me. And he used to complain about my driving. So I think sometimes he must think, oh, golly, I think that I better take charge here. Yeah.

Brian Smith  42:14  
Well, you know, it's also interesting to talk about the signs, and you said you haven't had many signs over the last year or so. Why do you think that might be?

Louise Hamlin  42:23  
Well, I think it's because from what I can gather, it takes an awful lot of energy and determination for people from the other side to send signs. And, and he has sent some extraordinary ones. And I think probably now, he's using his images in another way. Now tell you about one. Absolutely extraordinary sign I got absolutely, yes, yes. Well, this was, I was playing a game of bridge, which is a card game. And I don't know whether you knew how to play it or not. But four people play, and you have two packs of cards. So use one pack for the first hand, the second pack for the second hand, and then you get back to the first pack that said hand. So we were playing in my pretty empty dining room. And we played with the red cards. Then we played with the blue cards. Then it was time to play the red cards again. And Jane, my friend, she was dealing. And she was a card short. Which, you know, is not a big deal. She's obviously missed out. So we counted our cards to see who's got the extra card. Nobody had. That was odd. So we thought must have somehow dropped on the floor. So we looked on the floor. No card. Very odd. So we looked on our laps we stood up, we started searching quite seriously. Because the thing is, we knew that that card had been there when we use the red card sort of firsthand. So we knew that we had started with a complete pack. But we could not find this card. We searched and searched for an offense card. And none of my friends who knew about the science everything said, Well, this must be Patrick. It must be a heart. So we looked to see what the missing card was. And it was the Knight of hearts. And so they said to me, Oh, is that special for you? Is there something special about the nine and I suppose No. In the Queen of Hearts or the ace of hearts but Neither parts No. Certainly me. Very strange. We had to get get a new pair of cards that we were. I told a friend about this a couple of days later. And this friend does Tarot. Which, you know, I knew nothing about. And nor may I say, did Patrick before he passed. And anyway, the friend said, Ah, Louise, the dial of hearts. I mean, that's the nine of cups in Ontario. And that is the very best card of all. It's the it's a card, which represents the deepest, most enduring love. Oh, wow. She said, that's absolutely the best possible card. And yeah, absolutely.

Brian Smith  45:57  
I'm assuming you never found the cards.

Louise Hamlin  45:59  
Well, over a year later, it suddenly turned up. Oh, wow. And it. We had scurred that room, searching for it to not be the year later, it suddenly appeared again. So yeah, amazing.

Brian Smith  46:21  
You know. So Patrick, not only can do I forgot the term, there's a there's a term called airports. So that's when this your life things here. So the feather coming in, in the train sounds like an airport. There's also a term where they take things away, and I forgot what that term is. But yeah, you know, it's happened around our house where like, I've been looking and looking and looking for something. And then I'll go back and look again, and then suddenly, it's there. You know, or one time my wife and I were looking for something, and I walked downstairs that was just laying on the couch. And just like, there's no reason that you've been laying on the couch.

Louise Hamlin  46:53  
Yeah, yeah, that will. I mean, when this card reappeared, it absolutely totally had not been there for a year. You know, suddenly it did. And, and I mean, a couple of times, he made books fly off a bookshelf. Yeah, the first time it happened, I was in bed, it was about two o'clock in the morning, I was sort of feeling sad and blamed and thinking about him and you know, wishing cure with me. And there was suddenly this almighty thump, just outside my bedroom door. And I Saloon in the house, I was terrified. I lay there frozen with fear. Nothing more happened. So in the end, I very briefly, sort of got out of bed and turned on the light and went out into the landing. And the book had flown up from the top of the bookshelf, to the landing, and had landed with this huge thump. Just on the floor outside my bedroom door. And there was absolutely no rational reason for it to have done that. It, it seemed inexplicable, other than it was Patrick saying, Look, don't worry, darling. I'm still around. I'm still here. And it's happened again, another time.

Brian Smith  48:26  
Yeah, so the signs are really amazing. And I was going to ask you, but you've already kind of answered it. Because I think sometimes with the science, they do tend to kind of drop off. But I think it's as we're actually making that connection with the other person's spirit. And so I was gonna ask you have you have you? Do you feel like, do you feel Patrick with you now?

Louise Hamlin  48:45  
Yes. Yes, I do. Yeah. And, and, you know, it gives me a lovely feeling. Yeah. Yeah. I often feel him sort of beside me a bit. And you know, that's lovely. It's really lovely.

Brian Smith  49:06  
Yeah, I think that I think the signs are kind of a way to, to wake us up to open our eyes to like, they're still here. But what I think what they really want is to make that connection with us. And I've noticed it's funny because I talked to a lot of mediums. I have a lot of memes that are friends because of what I do. And I've done a little bit of mediumship development myself, just casually. And I'll say to people, why don't get as many signs from Shana as I used to, and they'll say, What do you hear from her? And what I realize is like, I feel her all the time now. And I was just I feel like like, she's just like part of me. And so I don't I still get the signs are still really cool. I mean, I still get great signs, but I don't need them as much as I used to.

Louise Hamlin  49:49  
That's really interesting, because I've never thought of it like that. But yeah, that makes sense. It really does. And yeah, I feel Patrick around me all the time. Really? And yeah. Yeah. So maybe that's why he sent the sign so that then I'd be able to that feeling.

Brian Smith  50:11  
Yeah, I think sometimes people I know sometimes people get discouraged. They'll say, Well, I don't get signs. And when I talked to them, like you're getting them, you just don't recognize them, because they'll tell me about something strange has happened. And then I'll have some people say, Well, maybe they've moved on, because I'm not getting the signs as much anymore. And my experience is, that's not the case at all. It's just I think our relationship kind of moves to a different level. So with my daughter, and I was it was dimes, I'd said, when she passed, I said, I like to find dimes and found lots and lots of dimes. I don't find them as often. But I did find one like yesterday. And it was that it was feathers. And I was finding out and sometimes I'll think, and I haven't found a feather, you know, and quite a while but as you said, I think it takes a lot of energy for them to do that. We don't we don't understand how that works from the other side, you know, and, and as much as I'm an engineer, and I'm trying to figure it out, like your friend with cheap trick, you know, and there was a, there's a song that we have for Shana. And it's not played as much anymore because she passed seven years ago, but was still hear it sometimes. And it's like, you know, how does that happen? But it's like, do they put the thought in your head? Because they know the songs coming up? Or do they make the song play. But we don't know, we don't understand how that site works. But it does seem to take a lot of effort to do these ports and stuff.

Louise Hamlin  51:31  
I have no idea how any of it works. And I started reading all about quantum mechanics and physics and unit and all the books I find, trying to understand how everything works. And I can't. All I know is that somehow our spirit survives. And somehow spirit can manipulate things and move things and can communicate with us.

Brian Smith  52:12  
I'd love that you're open to that. I've found that some people, I was just talking with someone this morning about consciousness. And I'm like, there's this big debate, you know, what is consciousness? And then some people actually come to the conclusion, which I find to be crazy. Since we can't define consciousness, and so we can't understand it, it must be an illusion. So they just reject the idea that consciousness even exists. And there are people that will sign like signs, or like mediums, they'll say, well, because we don't understand how it works. Therefore, it can't be true. But

Louise Hamlin  52:49  
yeah, yeah, no. And I mean, I've read all these books about consciousness. And, you know, and what I, what I would say to people who say that sort of thing, and I knew not people say that sort of thing is, well, hang on, we can't begin to understand quantum physics. We we can't begin to understand entanglement or how these fields work. But we, we know that they do scientists that they do. So yeah, just because you don't understand something doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Brian Smith  53:26  
Yeah, that's a great point. You know, the thing is, here, we are talking you're, you're in England, I'm in Ohio, I can see your face, we're talking through wireless, everything, you know, and if you if you took this technology back 100 years and said to someone, this is going to happen, they would say that's literally impossible. There's no way that you can see someone's image from across the world, there's no way that you can communicate without wires. It would have been impossible given that level of technology. So when I say to people is there is no supernatural. That's just what we don't understand yet.

Louise Hamlin  54:03  
Yeah, no, I love that. I love that indeed. And that's, that's so true. And, and you know what, one of the reasons I wrote the book was because I wanted to validate for people the experiences they have had, because talking to a lot of bereaved people, as I have since Patrick died, I discovered that a lot of people have actually had signs but haven't dared tell anybody about them for fear of being thought crazy. And, you know, and and when I then start talking about the signs as I have had, then they'll open up and say, well, actually, yeah, I had this sign and but I've never told anybody about it. And I would like it all to be part of just general daily discourse and for people to recognize that It, it's, it happens. It's not crazy.

Brian Smith  55:07  
I, that's totally my goal. That's reason why I do what I do. And I appreciate people like yourself, because I found I've had the same experience, you know, I said, Shane has passed on share signs with people, people I've known for literally over 20 years, and will start to tell me stories about like, when they're when their father died when they were a child, or when their mother died, or experience I had in college, or you know, and it's like, but they've never shared it because they don't feel like they have permission to because our society says, Well, you must be crazy, or it's wishful thinking, you know, mediums aren't real. Psychics aren't real. So that can't be true.

Louise Hamlin  55:48  
Yeah. And actually, can I may I tell you another story about another medium? Because I found this quite extraordinary. So I saw this medium. And this was about this was actually just last year. And you know, I've, I've, I don't need to see mediums. So often now, but last year, I hadn't seen my probiotic yet. I thought, actually nice to sort of have a have a chat with Patrick. And anyway, I arrived, and the woman said, oh, there's this a woman here. I don't really want to go, but I want to catch it. I said no. And the medium said, Oh, she's she's dark. But she's very forthright. quite small, very determined. Yeah, she's a sort of woman who would want her own way. Oh, she's your mother in law? That I said, no, no. My mother in law was very gentle and was blonde and know that Sue isn't my mother. And anyway, the medium and I had a bit of a standoff, because the medium kept on saying, yeah, she's your mother in law. I kept saying no, no, no, no, no. And in the end, the medium said, Okay, well, we'll park that. And that she said that I suddenly thought, oh, actually, she could be Patrick's mother. And when the medium had been talking to read about my mother in law, I was thinking about the mother of my first husband. And I was thinking that because I'd known her and I'd be very fond of her. I've never met Patrick's mother, because she had died before I'd met Patrick. But from everything that Patrick said, This description of the woman totally fitted his mother. Wow. And what I just thought was extraordinary. Was that a? The medium knew? Even though I didn't, you know, the medium. She wasn't going to back down? She said, No, it's your mother in law. And I thought hoax told me that somebody I've never met, has come to talk to me. And in fact, the medium said, Oh, she's all dressed up as if she's going to a wedding, or a wedding in the family. And I said, Yes, there is going to be one. And so the medium said, Well, yeah, yeah, she's saying how happy she is about that. But I just thought it was extraordinary. And it just shows that, you know, that me medium was so genuine. She knew better than me who my mother in law was.

Brian Smith  59:01  
Yeah, but that's really interesting. And that's why mediums sometimes I had to stick to their guns because sometimes we don't know, you know, we don't we are interpreting one way. And it's also shows that the continuity of life and how, you know, his mother, even after she passed, after all those years, was still involved in his life. Yes, yeah. So that's, that's, it's so encouraging, you know, to think about, and it's also interesting people, you know, it's happened with me, I've had I've had lots and lots of readings, again, because of what I do, and people will come through that I've never met, you know, but they're still involved in my life for people that that may have passed a very long time ago that never met my daughters that are that are with them now with my with my daughter now who's in spirits. So it's, it's all really fascinating, you know, and I'm really so glad that you put this out into the world you said because people need that validation and I really am My My true belief is most of the problems we have in our societies because people don't know who we are. They don't understand that we are eternal beings that we, that we don't die, that we will see each other again, that our loved ones we think are gone are still with us. And I think that would change everything if this was just like normal conversation.

Louise Hamlin  1:00:22  
Yes, I think you're right. And let's hope that your podcasts and my book and other people's efforts as well can actually just bring this into the general conversation.

Brian Smith  1:00:41  
It's getting there. You know, it's, I have to tell you one quick story there. I had a friend that she was a total skeptic. And she said, Brian, send me to the best media me now because I'm going to prove once and for all, this isn't a real long story short, she went to see my friend, she used a different credit card, a different name, everything, my friend just kind of blew her away. And she goes, Okay, well, now I believe. So then I started feeding her some more evidence, you know, near death experiences and studies on mediumship, and afterlife communications, like you've had like that. She came back to me, she said, Why didn't I know any of this was out there, you know, and people will say to me, and I've had people say, there's no evidence for any of this. And I'm like, there's so much evidence. There's just so much, but we don't consider it to be mainstream at this point. And so, again, your your book, it's just one one more indication that people that people can read it and say how, okay, this makes sense. And yeah, this has been my experience, too. I thought I was crazy. I thought it was just a coincidence.

Louise Hamlin  1:01:44  
Yes, yes. And it doesn't it, it just puts everything in perspective. And I mean, Isn't it lovely to know that your daughter is sort of still with you, my husband is still with me, we will be reunited again, at some stage. And even though people all the people we've loved are still around. And it's, it's reassuring, it also means that if you sort of make some wrong choices make a bit of a mess this life. It's okay. Because it's not, it's not always got to carry on existing afterwards. So I suspect that, you know, our time in this particular life is only a very small part of our overall existence. Yeah, that's good.

Brian Smith  1:02:43  
Yeah, this life is it's fleeting, you know, when you're, and it's it's really important people understand, you said, some really profound things. And one of the things you talked about that early grief, when people are in that they feel like it's going to be like this forever. And they say, I can't go on because I can't live like this forever. And I always assure people, it will not be like this forever. If you don't want it to be, you can work your way through that, that fog and that, that I can't go on type of thing. And it's one moment at a time, you know, I was I was there too. And I would tell people, don't talk to me about the future. If someone mentioned anything more than a week away, it would just irritate me, it would just I was like, I don't want to think about that. But you get through, you know, you get through that one day at a time. And then you start to put it in perspective, and you realize nothing is permanent. So that's, that's good. And it's bad, and joy, the joy that we have here, because it's a really joyful place. But when you're going through pain, that's temporary, too.

Louise Hamlin  1:03:46  
Yes. And as I've said, it's three and a half years now, since Patrick died. And the first the first two years, were hard. They were hard. And you know, now, I enjoy life again. I feel happiness again. And I never thought in a million years that I would be able to say that after he died. I really didn't. But I do. And I don't know what the future holds for me. No idea. I feel it's a bit like an open book. But I'm especially looking forward to the rest of my life. And I don't know how long that will be. And I don't really mind because I'm not scared of death anymore. But I I know that I can enjoy what is left to me. And I think that it's incredible in a way that I'm able to say that when the person I love more than myself is Stay longer with me embody. But I can say that.

Brian Smith  1:05:05  
Yeah, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Well, Louise, we're we're running out of time here like for you to tell people where they can reach you make sure people know the name of your book that's available. Now. I want to make sure we get that in and I'll put it in the show notes as well, but like to say it on the air as well.

Louise Hamlin  1:05:21  
Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, you can buy the book from anywhere. Amazon, Barnes and Noble. If you're a local bookshop, it is called WhatsApps. From heaven, and it's by me, Louise Hamlin. And yeah, I 50s If you were to buy it.

Brian Smith  1:05:45  
Yeah, I think I think people will really enjoy it. It sounds it sounds fascinating. And thanks to you, and thanks to Patrick. For for being there too, and being persistent and being a great spirit communicator. Well, it's been a pleasure having you today. Thanks so much for doing this.

Louise Hamlin  1:06:01  
Thank you very much, Brian. I really enjoyed talking to you.

Brian Smith  1:06:04  
Alright, have a great rest of your day. And do don't forget to like, hit that big red subscribe button and click the notify Bell. Thanks for being here.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai