Evocatively told, Maryan. I walk a path somewhere between belief and rejection when it comes to messages and contact from the beyond. I tend to feel that much of what we perceive comes from our own subconscious, and the messages it needs to convey to our conscious mind. The spirits of the departed are a powerful trigger or switch to alert us to a situation requiring our attention, perhaps. A mechanism used by the subconscious. That's the mainstay of my theory, anyway. Which says to me that those manifestations are real, but internally rather than externally so.

There are more things within our own minds - whatever a mind is - than is dreamt of in our philosophy, perhaps.