Karina Machado - Love Never Dies

Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.
EMILY DICKINSON

This is a book about the indestructibility of love. Journalist and author Karina Machado spoke to over 60 Australians who revealed their stories of sensing the spirit of a late loved one. She shares their life-shattering experiences of loss, and shows how their spiritual contact with a deceased lover, friend or family member brought healing, hope and the solace of knowing that their connection lives on.

There is the story of a teenage boy who appears in bodily form on the eve of his funeral to bring comfort to his sister. A young husband returns to his widow in time to prevent another tragedy. A grandmother arrives to lovingly care for her daughters babies. A man soothes his grief-stricken brother with an otherworldly embrace.

Written with skill, grace and compassion, Love Never Dies is as much about the power of loving relationships as it is the phenomenon of the survival of consciousness beyond death.

For my husband and children
And in memory of Nicola, whose light shines on

Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.
Emily Dickinson

Love is strong as death.
Song of Solomon 8:6

This book would not have been possible without the generosity of my interviewees, who were prepared to share their highly personal experiences of love and deepest loss. Im honoured and grateful that theyve placed their trust in me. Im hopeful that the following accounts justify their efforts. Some names and identifying features have been changed.

I used to be so scared of dying. My terror took hold in childhood, when I learned that the sun would one day consume the earth, and nothing could prevent it. Id lie in my little bunk bed at night and try to imagine this world void of life, closing my eyes tight against its unknowable breadth. Only one thing gave me comfort: stories of life after death of ghosts and wonders and mysteries all around. Buoyed by hope, I flew from fear on the wings of these stories.

All these years later, Ive arrived here, to tell hope-filled stories of my own stories of people whove sensed the spirit of a person theyve loved and lost. This is a book about the indestructibility of love.

Some readers will know that it is my third book on the subject of life after death. Yet it was writing about love after death as part of my research for previous books that paved the way for the one youre reading today. The stories I gathered for Spirit Sisters, and its sequel, Where Spirits Dwell, changed my life. Slowly, I was awakened to mysteries that abound, in suburbia as in the bush, to the extraordinary events experienced by ordinary people from every walk of life, to the mind-bending gamut of phenomena. While some stories were heart-stopping, goosebump-raising chillers, others made my pulse quicken for reasons that were the very opposite of fear.

I learned that some people are haunted by love.

And those were the stories that most haunted me.

Its always an honour and a privilege when Im gifted a tale, but it was the mothers profound stories of loss and defiant hope that would not leave me. After meeting these courageous women, I was a different person. One who held her children a little tighter, a little longer; one who found it easier to forgive trifles, to appreciate the goodness in people and to open her heart wider. These were powerful experiences, not only for the women who shared their stories and in some cases, spirit communication was the only thing that kept a mother from wanting to join her child but also for the reader, who could take away the bare truth at the heart of each encounter: love, as our late loved ones would have us know, never dies.

That radiant idea, as small as three words, as vast as the sky, inspired this book. Every page, I hope, is a testament to its miraculous power, and to the courage of the 60 or so people from all over Australia who shared their life-changing sometimes lifesaving experiences with me: strong as trees, they stand tall in the wake of deepest loss, keen to honour their cherished dead with a tale of love mightier than death. Mired in grief, they struggled to cope in a world emptied of warmth and light. For them, the earth had consumed their sun. Yet, in experiencing the presence of their loved one, each found solace and the path to healing. Children, partners, siblings, parents, friends and extended family, all reaching out to brush away the tears of those left behind with assurances of eternal love.

As youll go on to read, these assurances arrive in many ways. A teenage boy appears to his sister on the eve of his funeral, urging her to take care of their mother; in a dream more vivid than life, a young husband returns to his widow in time to prevent another tragedy; a grandmother lovingly settles her lonely daughters babies; with a cheeky grin, a son shows himself to his mother as she weeps in her kitchen; a gentle artist who fled life sends his sister exquisite green feathers wherever she goes; a man soothes his broken-hearted brother with an otherworldly embrace...

For the receivers of these gifts, these were moments to make them smile through their tears. With eyes smarting and skin tingling, I listened to their stories, marvelling time and again at the healing force of these encounters, at how often they gave way to a feeling of renewal, of darkness lifting of hope returning.

In the chapters that follow, stories are grouped by the common message or reason for the communication. For instance, in , Watching Over Us, deceased loved ones return exactly when we need them most, each story suggesting that though theyre gone from our sides, the departed whod cared for us in life still do so in death, just as they continue to want to help out during challenging times.

, Family is Forever, honours familial bonds, where love flows like a river through multiple generations. Over and over, I was astounded to hear of the vital role long-gone family members, even those weve never met, continue to play in our modern lives. Stories from my own family have always played a key part in my life since childhood, theyve fed my passion for the unknown and inspired my work. Many years ago, my mother told me of an experience that planted the seed of my fascination for the kinds of stories that fill this book. Id like to share it with you here.

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One humid and tear-streaked day in the sunset of 1973, my parents boarded a ferry from Montevideo to Buenos Aires, the first leg of their journey towards new lives in Australia. At the edge of the River Plate, my mother imprinted the city of her birth, its skyline an unfinished poem, onto her dark and solemn eyes. Armed only with one suitcase and a two-year-old me, they were on their way to a country which promised them the world.

Dizzy from the churn of the khaki waters and the mingled perfumes of the crowd who pressed kisses on her cheeks and prattled advice and blessings, my mother spotted him among the crowd, spotlit by his height. His hands were slung deep inside his pockets and a black sweater fell across his shoulders. His eyes were pinned on the turgid river, which seemed to have already begun its dirty work of separation. Excitement thrummed in the brackish air, but fear and sorrow, too. My mother will never forget my paternal grandmother squeezing me hard against her chest, howling into my hair.