From Romanita:

My only brother died nine years ago after drinking too much, then passing out and falling asleep. The coroner said it was an accidental death from an alcohol overdose. He was a dyed in the wool atheist who indulged my own spiritual beliefs with humor.

Since he had no religion, his widow asked me to read a prayer for his service because my brother had said that if he believed in God he would be a Baha'i because he liked them so much. He thought we were good people, just misguided into believing in God.

One night, two years after he had passed away, I awoke suddenly at 2:00 in the morning. I don't know how to express this except to say that I immediately KNEW that my brother was present. I did not see him, but I could feel his familiar energy radiating at me very strongly from next to the bed. I also knew he was not happy. He was angry. There were several things that I felt were bothering him.

What I picked up the most was that he had been sent to me, and that he felt I was not doing my part to help him advance spiritually in the next world. I could hear his voice in my mind telling me that I had let him down by not praying more regularly for him, and indeed, as time had passed I had not prayed as often for him as I had when he had first died.

He communicated that I was the spiritual one in the family and it was MY responsibility to help him out. I woke up my husband, who had been my brother's best friend. I told him my brother was present and that we needed to help him in the spirit world.

As I was telling my husband this, the phone rang. It was my brother's widow who lived at the other end of California from us in San Diego. She said she was sorry to wake me at 2am, but that she just had to call me. Before I could say anything, she said that my brother had just awakened her, and that he was very upset. She said that he had communicated to her that he had just realized that he was dead, and he was very upset about it. According to her (and past girlfriends) my brother was particularly proud of his personal 'endowments', and he told her that he had just realized that this particular part was decomposing. This had him very, very agitated.

She said that she tried to calm him by explaining to him that he had indeed passed over, and that it was now time for him to go into the Light and on to the spiritual world. She had told him that she thought I could help him.

She said her 'conversation' with him had been so vivid that she just had to call me, 2am or not.

As she spoke, I could still feel my brother present. I told her that he was here with us now, and that he was indeed distressed. I told her that I would call some of the other Baha'is in my community in the morning and we would do a prayer circle for him. As I was telling her this, I could feel his approval and then as I hung up, his energy began fading away, with a final "make sure you do, and don't let me down."

In the morning and for many days afterwards we did indeed do prayers for him, and often his energy would be present.

The last incident of my brother's visit started a few days before his widow came to visit us for a week. The light in the guestroom kept coming on by itself. I had the feeling it was he, and I told him that his widow would not be amused. Sure enough, the first night she was there, the night came on about 2am while she was sleeping. She woke up, told him she did NOT appreciate him turning on the light while she was sleeping and that it was time for him to move on and find other ways to amuse himself. She said the light went out by itself before she had a chance to turn it off and that she felt him laughing an apology, and that was the last time we have felt him show up without our thinking about him.

Thanks for letting me share this story