If You Could Talk to the Deceased...

[OhGodHelpMe]

Howdy folks, I’m gathering some more insight and inspiration for the Book of Phantoms. I have kind of a sensitive question to ask you if you have deceased loved ones. If, one day, you saw your deceased loved ones, what would you say to them? What do you hope they would say to you? And if you see them, would you believe that it was actually them, or would you think they’re merely a fragment of your own heart trying to soothe you? That’s a lot more than one question, but I’m interested in hearing what you have to say. Hell, if it’s any help, I’ll gladly go first.

The first one that comes to mind is my middle school friend Ashton. Ashton always got terrible grades. He just wasn’t very book smart. However. What he lacked in academic smarts, he had in knowledge gained through his own life experiences. We didn’t start off too well, as the first few weeks of us knowing each other was mostly comprised of him softly bullying me, since he was tougher and taller than most of the other students. But that ended up being how we bonded, and a sort of respect was born between us. He always dragged me and the older girls along to go play basketball or soccer, and we always played to win with all the girls in attendance, cheerleading for us in the background. Whenever I tried sitting by myself in the cafeteria, he’d crash my parade of solitude along with the girls, who had become our close friends at that point. And if I wasn’t eating anything, he’d gladly offer me money to buy lunch. He wouldn’t even ask you to pay him back.

A few years after middle school, Ashton was murdered when he was 17. He was shot multiple times and died of his wounds in the hospital. During that time, we had grown estranged and our friendship deteriorated. Really, my connection with most people in my life had strained, and I often let that happen willingly. Should I ever be able to see him again, the only thing I’d wish he’d say to me is that he isn’t mad at me, because I sure as hell am not mad at him after all this time. Perhaps we just forgot that even children and teens can die in the most vile of ways, suddenly and without warning. Your life isn’t protected just because you’re young.

Another is more recent, with a Guitar student who practiced and performed at one of my old jobs. Always energetic and lively, always eager to make music and play with the other kids. Tragically, he and his family were killed in a plane crash while they were going on vacation. 13 years old.

With him, no words are really necessary. All I’d want to do is jam one more time, come up with a cool riff, or maybe a nice chord progression. Maybe he could learn how to use 7th chords as well as open chords so he could expand his musical vocabulary.

I’m not the type to believe in spirits, so I’m sure I’d come to the realization that these visions of the dead are just whatever mournful emotions that still ache somewhere trying to resolve themselves. But I like to think that these phantoms of mine would be accurately concocted enough that I could think that our exchange is how it would really go, if I could talk to the deceased.

 

[Operative13]

Well, it depends on how you wish to approach these "apparitions," as I'll term them. I find most people tend to write the more emotional lines when dealing with deceased loved ones. Expressing their mind. Wishing one thing or another. Seeking closure. The usual things.

Personally, I tend to take the more calculated route. Realistically, the person seeing such things would question whether it is real and then wonder how is this all possible before going into deeper stuff. Establishing the grounds is what I'd call it. People die when they are killed, after all.  The last thing you'd expect is for them to not be "dead" dead. But that's just my approach, and that's typically what I write when dealing with apparitions in my world.

However, that being said, apparitions are more-so used as a sort of "self-evaluation" in the life-teaching way. You think about what you could do to avoid their fates. You think about how you could be better, and generally a more caring person for the ones still with them. You come to appreciate things, I'd say. Death after all is the total destruction of one's future. Their ability to change the world disappears, left to dust in the history books. Ultimately, the dead are a lesson, and the living would do well to learn from them. 

[MahluaandMilk]

I mean working with the ancestors is a part of most Pagan practices. It's kind of a kneejerk reaction when I see "If you could talk to the dead" to sit there like "Umm...yeah...that's a thing that happens."

I was there when a friend of mine got a random phone call from her grandmother and broke down because that number had been shut off for a solid year after she had died. This phenomena of a phone call from the dead isn't unheard of, really. I also do work with my ancestors, as do many of my friends. You could say that we're all crazy and that our experiences are anecdotal, but firstly and foremostly I do kind of have to preface my response to this with those experiences to show the progression from point A to point B.

Now, as for what you've mentioned there, I'm terribly sorry for your losses. Lives taken so young can leave some of the most strange marks on the people they leave behind. I lost my "first true love" to suicide before she saw 23, and that messed with the entire town. 300+ people at her memorial service, I think.

Thing is, with my practice, in a way, I can still ask for their help or presence. Mostly all I ask is for my family situation to improve, for my mother and uncle to stop fighting and start remembering how their father and brother would intervene and what they would direct them towards. In my dreams I have often felt my late uncle watching over the living--his son and his mother, mostly. They can teach lessons from the other side, and their sway on this plane isn't quite as "nonexistent" as you might think.

The dead are an interesting subject. I'm not sure a response from me, whose living practice is so different from your beliefs, can be helpful to your study, but hopefully something about it can bring you something worthwhile.

[Coach Fro]

Before I start, I was just wanna say that I felt for you while reading that man, for real. To lose someone close like that, especially after a deteriorating relationship, had to been tough on you. Ashton seemed like a real good friend, and it's unfortunate that he went out the way he did.

Death for me is really weird because I haven't lost someone that I would consider real close to me in my life. I've definitely lost friends and family members, but I've never had much of a personal connection with any of them, so I often end up in a weird space where I'm upset, but not devastated or emotionally distraught because of it. And more often than not, I feel kinda bad about it.

So If I had a chance to talk to the deceased, I would speak to the people related to my family that I've never got a chance to know and try to connect with them. Ask them about their past life. Ask them about their current life, the afterlife. Ask them about their regrets, the moments in their life they wish they could take back. In a way, I would interview them, but in a more personal way, and hopefully I can create a moment of understanding and potential bonding that I may never ever get a opportunity to do so again.

[Corycaly]

If I had a chance to talk to the deceived I think I'd ask sooo many things:
1. If they are ok wherever they are, if they found peace
2. to make peace with myself : to tell all the things I couldn't say, ask for forgiveness for the things I regret
3. ask about the afterlife: if they can see what we do, what they are doing etc
4. as Fronomenal said, I'd like to know more about the ancestors I never met

I think believing or nop in those things are a personnal matter: religion, legends, personnal experiences are different for everybody. It is also linked to several others questions such as "what are we?" "why are we here?" "What is our life meaning?".
 This theme was present in the video game Final Fantasy X. You could visit the afterplane and talk to your ghosts. Whether it was just an illusion or nop depended of the characters.