(1b) Leonard was a wealthy retired construction baron and a member of the United Methodist church I pastored in the late 1990s in western New York. We became friends and I sometimes had dinner with him and his wife Helen when I paid him a visit. He was always worried about the health problems of family members, whom I accordingly visited. One Sunday, he asked me if I'd be willing to visit his dying cousin who lived across the highway from him. His cousin was an atheist recluse, who was dying of lung cancer, but wanted no visitors. But he was so depressed that Leonard wanted me to drop by to discuss whether we should intrude on him anyway to show that we about his suffering. When I arrived at Leonard's house, he was absent due to a shopping errand in town.
As I stood, talking to Helen, this thought struck me: Leonard was a real worry wart; yet he never seemed to grieve the loss of his son Jeff, Jeff's wife Karen, and their 2 children in a small plance crash. For some reason, I mentioned this perception to Helen and was intrigued by her reply. She said that Leonard's grieving had been healed by a postmortem encounter with Jeff, adding, "But he doesn't like to talk about it." The next time I met Leonard I was overcome with curiosity and asked if he'd be willing to talk about his ADC. Leonard seemed very uncomfortable with my intrusive request because he thought Id think he was crazy. This is the story he shared with me.
After the funerals, Leonard was about to drive Jeff's old pickup truck to town to do some errands. As he approached the end of his driveway, he saw someone's figure suddenly loom out of the ditch by the highway. To Leonard's dismay, it was his late son Jeff! Jeff walked up to the pickup and asked, "Can I take my old truck for a spin for old times' sake?" A numb Leonard complied and off Jeff drove north down Cty. Rte. 40 towards Rochester, NY. Jeff's conversation with his Dad had at least 2 purposes: (a) to reassure his Dad that he, his wife, and his kids were all together and OK; (b) to give Leonard the information he needed to tie up the loose ends of Jeff's investment history. After driving a couple of miles, Jeff inexplicably turned right onto a less traveled highway. After a few minutes, he stopped the pickup, turned to his Dad, and said, "I'm sorry, Dad, but I'm not permitted to drive any further." Leonard never learned who was orchestrating this ADC. God? An Angel? Then Jeff got out of the pickup, walked towards a clump of trees, and vanished.
This ADC left Leonard in a state of shock. In retrospect, it now seemed like an odd dream and his grief was not assuaged by the experience. In fact, the next day, he was so overcome with grief that he went for a walk down the path in the woods behind his house. At some point, he sat on a log, overcome with sorrow. Suddenly, he heard the sound of a twig or branch breaking. When he looked up, there stood Jeff's wife Karen. She gently scolded him: "Didn't we tell you we are together and OK? You get back in the house with Mom and comfort her!" This second ADC healed Leonard's grief.
After sharing this experience, Leonard had a pained expression on his face as he gazed at my skeptical expression. I apologized that I was just having trouble processing such an incredible story. I felt badly because it was I who had pressed him to share a story he was reluctant to tell. I asked him if he had shared these ADCs with his daughters, and he replied, "No, they'd find it too hard to believe just like you." Leonard recently passed away, and I learned that a daughter shared this ADCs at his funeral. So coming out of the closet, as it were, with me seems to have emboldened him to tell his daughters.
Leonard's ADCs are the most supoermatural experiences I have ever heard from someone I know well. Yet this story does not inspire me as much as other paranormal experiences I have either had or encountered. I think the reason for this is that these ADCs are far more disanalogous to my ordinary life experience.
' thought.