This memoir braids together stories about ordinary people who had extraordinary experiences following the death of a loved one. Each recounts a confluence of events or series of coincidences that seemed to come from “out of the blue.” What makes these stories important is the profound effect of each experience. Each person felt an overwhelming sense that death is not the end, that the deceased continue to exist in some form, apart from and beyond the death of the body. Every-day objects—a letter, a belt, a book, a song—become vehicles through which reassuring messages are communicated, becoming signs representing the shared history between the living and the dead, a history known only to them. Living through and accumulating these stories led the author to a sense of awe and wonder that coexisted with skepticism, initiating research into such matters and drew her to scientists and a new breed of theologians who find science compatible with spirituality. Science and theology are both concerned with how life begins. Both ask: What happens to human consciousness when we die? This memoir follows the author’s spiritual journey from blind faith, to skepticism, to the ultimate discovery that a fragile faith can be found, and found again, in the questions.
E. Lee-Miller on Amazon wrote:Are there signs which loved ones send us after their death? If so, what are they? Marion Goldstein, a clinical psychotherapist, shares her own personal journey of faith, science, and experience in her memoir Embracing the Sign. As I read the stories she gathered from others who had extraordinary experiences following the death of a loved one, I couldn't help but think about my own. The perfume my aunt wore that I smelled in a Dunkin Donuts shop after her memorial mass, the step tracker watch my father wore every day for his early morning walks which went on ticking a month after his death, and the letter I found from a good friend who passed too soon which encouraged me during my depression and put a smile on my face. Those of us who have had such experiences, and I believe there are many who do, often feel shy about mentioning them, but this book brings hope and insight. I thoroughly enjoy learning how ordinary objects like balloons, letters, a dress, and a song communicate messages from the dead to the living to provide comfort and help and a reminder that there is more to our existence. While retaining a healthy skepticism, Marion Goldstein manages to go from the blind faith of her childhood to a fragile faith of adulthood. Well-researched, interesting, and uplifting for anyone seeking answers to the age old question and hope.
The Introduction to this book includes “personal stories about ordinary people who had extraordinary experiences following the death of a loved one.” When I read that, I knew I’d get this book. That’s happened to me. After “odd” things happened following the death of my mother, my brother-in-law, and thinking back decades, with the death of my first husband, I found it impossible to categorize them as coincidences and push them into the file marked “To Do Later- maybe Never.”
Faith, science and experience are included in the sub-title of Ms. Goldstein’s book and I admit the combination of the three was what attracted me most to reading Embracing the Sign.
Ms. Goldstein’s experiences and other personal stories affirmed I was not alone in such experiences–a small circle pin of my deceased mother’s suddenly appearing after being lost for two years, and appearing the day before her birthday; the emotional cry that burst out of me when I first saw the Grand Canyon; hearing my first husband’s voice so clearly that I turned to greet him, decades after and thousands of miles away from where he died.
The incredible amount of research and quotations by scientists and theologians, Einstein, Jung, William James, Thomas Aquinas, and others, in this book is astounding and enlightening. They filled in some gaps I had in being more comfortable with my experiences and my own brand of faith. Reading helped me blend my ideas of science and faith into something easier to fit into my everyday life. Just as some of the storytellers couldn’t put the final result of their experience into words, neither can I. But I feel less burdened by trying to explain to myself and anyone else what my beliefs are. I feel easier in knowing “the veil” between the physically living and dead is often thin.