Episode 195: Growing From the Ashes

On each episode, we'll discuss the reasons we now know that our loved ones have survived physical death, and so will we Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. Most evenings, after we eat our dinner, my Mom and I watch a TV show or a movie. Mom is open to all kinds of genres, including thrillers and horrors and all that kind of thing, But for me, I stay away from the scary stuff. We just watched a movie called

The Iron Claw. Although we weren't certain of what it was, it got very high ratings and we both thought why not. It was a good film. But it's also a very, very sad one. It's a true story about a family who are involved in the early days of professional wrestling. Why do I bring this up on shades of the afterlife? Well, in one of the saddest moments, there is a quick scene that takes place in the afterlife, a reunion of those who have passed. Although it was a very short scene,

it filled me with comfort and that reassuring belief. That's what it's like when we cross over. All of our loved ones are right there to greet us in a most beautiful place. But what makes authors and screenwriters include the afterlife and their stories? Today, I have a real treat for you. We are going to meet best selling fiction and nonfiction author Sheila Lowe. Sheila is a real

life forensic handwriting expert who testifies in court cases. She is the author of nineteen books, including three Beyond the Veil mystery books, and her latest nonfiction is her personal memoir called Growing from the Ashes. A forensic handwriting expert learns about the afterlife from the murder of her daughter. Let's meet Sheila Lowe. Claudia Rose is a handwriting She does the same kind of work that I do.

me to write a book for Barnes and Noble. And it's called Handwriting of the Famous and infamousis It's kind of a small coffee table book and it has handwritings of seventy five people throughout history, the earliest one being as I recalled, Galileo, and that was in two thousands. So we had Princess Diana and a lot of political figures and music, Jimmy Hendrix and all kinds of interesting people. But I still wanted to write a mystery. You know.

The big ve say write what you know, and so I came up with this handwriting analyst character Claudia Rose, and I had the title of the book poison Pen, because you know poison pen letters. It was about a suicide note, whether the dead person had actually written it or not. So that was where I started.

and we talked about it on the phone. When I saw it, it's not my heart sank because there was such red flags for pathological behavior. Handwriting can't predict. It's not like a crystal ball, a scientific thing, but it can show potential. It shows past behavior, which shows potential for future behavior, but you don't know whether that person's ever going to act out. So looking at that handwriting of Tom, I could never say this guy is going to be a killer, that he's going to kill my daughter.

But within a year nine months, actually that's what he did. The handwriting showed I put it in the book, a little piece of it. But the problem was a lot of physiological issues show up in handwriting. And I noticed there were signs of a head injury. And I asked him, did you ever have a serious blow to the head, and he said yes. I was almost blinded. He was in law enforcement. He worked for what was then the ins the Immigration Service, now I guess it would be

Homeland Security. He said he had been hitting ahead on the job and he was having terrible headaches. He was seeing a doctor for his headaches. Plus they both drank a lot, and it was just kind of an explosion waiting to happen. And I put a note on the handwriting sample the potential for explosive behavior and also authoritarian behavior.

An authoritarian wants to make rules for you and tell you what to do's do as I say, not as I do, And that would not work with Jennifer because she never wanted to listen to me, let alone some man. At the time, she was twenty six and she never listened to me before, so she didn't listen and we

know the result. Nine months later, my husband at the time and I, you know, we met him and he was a big, handsome guy and he seemed very personable, although I didn't like the fact that I heard him talking to my husband about his weapon and how it had good stopping power. On the highway, he would pull out his gun if somebody bothered him, like road rage, fake road rage, just to scare the other person. So

that was his mentality. He started calling me to complain about her, and she would call me to complain about him. And this one particular night, my husband and I were out to dinner and she called me and wanted me to do something for her that was unrelated to tom Everything was okay right then, and so I said, you know, I'm out to dinner. Can I call you tomorrow we'll

talk about it, and she said sure. The next morning, I was getting ready to go to a forensic conference out of state, and about eleven thirty in the morning, my cell phone ring. I answered it, and I was in a hurry and I didn't really listen to the person who saying who they were. And he said, is ken Low there? And I said, ken Low? Why are you asking for my ex husband? We've been divorced for twenty years. And he said do you know Jennifer Low? And I thought, what has she gotten herself into now?

And I said that's my daughter. Why And he said, well, I'm sorry to tell you, but your daughter's been murdered. What do you There is no good way to say that to somebody. I couldn't help thinking later, what if I'd been on the freeway. I told him I was on a cell phone, and so I just called for my husband. I looked at the phone like I don't

believe it, and handed it to my husband. The fact is that I had grown up in a very fundamentalist religion, Jehovah's Witnesses, and even though I had left that, I got kicked out of it on my thirty fifth birthday, which is the best thing that ever happened to me. So this was, you know, fifteen years later. The things that I had been taught really had kind of stuck with me, you know, like the spirit world. That means

you've got the demons. If you're into spirit and trying to communicate, don't even meditate because if you clear your mind, it leaves room for the demons to come in and control you. I don't know what they supposedly are going to make you do, but that's what we were taught.

So now, Jennifer was killed. That night, one of my phones rang, the house phone, I think it was first, and I picked it up, and I heard this loud, staticky noise on the other end of the line, and I could hear at a great distance a voice, but I couldn't tell what it said. And I'm saying, oh, I can't hear you, And then it hung up. And then my cell phone rang, and the same thing happened, and I knew it was Jennifer trying to reach me. Things like that started to happen through the first week,

especially a lot of attempts to contact. So I put that religion aside. And I had already started to because Jennifer really believed in the afterlife and she had wanted to talk to me about it. So where shall we go from there? Where should we go from there? Is the guy in prison? Oh, Tom. No, he killed himself too. I think it was the next week. I went to

clear out her apartment. She lived about one hundred miles south of me in Orange County, Lake Forest, California, and so I drove down there to clean up her stuff and met her father who lived in Utah and some of his family, and then Tom's father and brother were there, and they were just kind of standing off by themselves, and I went over and you know.

the stairs. He heard her crying outside his door, and he opened the door and he brought her in. He said, are you okay? And she said, no, Tom's crazy. They had been out earlier in the evening at a bar called Cook's Corner. While they were there, they had a big fight because of some woman, and Jennifer left him in the car and he had to walk home, which is about five miles, so he wasn't very happy when

he got home. Corey said, let's call the police, and she said, I've already called nine one one, and he said, I'll stay here until they get here. And she waited a little while and she said, I'm going to go back up because I don't want him to hurt my cats. So she went back upstairs and everything was quiet for about a half an hour, still no nine to one one. This is a pretty nice neighborhood, so it's not like a lot of crime for the police to be distracted with.

So about a half an hour later, Corey said he heard a terrible scream. Then shortly afterwards he heard her on the stairs again, and he looked out his window and she was coming down the bottom of the stairs and she turned around and said something, and Tom said, I've got the keys, and then he came after her and he opened fire. She started running towards Corey's place, and Corey said I'll never forget her eyes.

It was eight times. He hit her in every vital organ. He was trained to do that kind of thing. And he started to leave, and then the police arrived the cavalry a little late. He left his car where it was idling, and he went back. She was in front of Corey's front door, and Corey said that he knelt down and kissed her, and then he put the gun in his mouth or under his chin. And that was that for Tom, which is and he had a nine year old daughter after that. I wanted to know what happened.

Tom was the name of my daughter's killer. And he said when she realized that she was dead, she was furious and she was trying to hit him, which sounds like her. He gave me a lot of real strong evidence, starting out with Tom's name, and I believe he had her name. But there were many things, not just about their situation. Oh and he said, is there a lake nearby?

So was they lived in lake Forest? There were so many things that were specific, but not just about that, but about other parts of my family, about my father, and other things that were really evidential.

a few rose behind me and she stood up. She goes, it's my son, and he said no, it's a daughter. So I'm looking around and nobody else is saying anything. So I stood up shaking. He said, I don't know in what order, but he said this happened in February. She knew who shot her, and some other stuff. He said, you have a dog that died and I said no, I've never had a dog. I'm a cat person. He said, but your sister had a dog that died, and yes,

Wally had died a year before. And he goes, well, your daughter wants your sister to know that the dog is with her. And he's okay. So that was really sweet. He said a lot of stuff. I don't think i'd mentioned that I had other children. But he said, does one of your sons have something to celebrate, like a birth or a wedding? And I said, not that I know of, and he goes yes.

daughter and wants to support her. And right at the beginning, just like you said about the woman who just died of brain cancer, who's showing me that her husband was by the water sitting on a park bench, and a man dressed in drag as little bo Peep sat and started hitting on him, and the father just burst out in tears. He never told anybody that story, and it could only have happened, obviously if the mother had witnessed.

And he went on and on and on to the daughter and more to the husband, and it just changed his life. And every place he went he got an extra seat. He'd go out to eat, and he just knew his wife was with him.

kind of amazing too. I really had some terrific experiences with some of the best mediums and some that are not well known that are just as good.

going to just, you know, attend a group. Somehow I was now the leader of this group. How does this happen to me? It's a wonderful group. It's not a class. Sometimes we'll get together and do a group short meditation and do automatic writing or see what we get and then we discuss it. But we don't do that as much anymore. So we're changing the name to automatic Writing,

et cetera. And anybody can come and we talk about all things after life and we meet on the first and third Wednesdays at five point thirty Pacific time on the zoom. We've talked about a lot of different things. We've had lots of different mediums have come as guests. That's some just super people. What is really gratifying is when new people come and they say that that was exactly what I needed. What you talked about the group

was like one of those life changing things. So that's always the best, isn't it.

heard the same thing from two other psychics. I was like, oh, okay. Well, when Jennifer was killed, I immediately started thinking, well, and I should write her story. But it was too hard, And part of that was because, yeah, it has such a sad ending. Who wants to read a story with a sad ending? And so I kept putting it off. But I knew immediately that the title was growing from the ashes. So I started hearing from several mediums that I need to write a book that's different from my

other books and more personal. And I thought, well, I could write a fiction then put into it a lot of what I've learned about the spirit world, but it would be fiction. And Jennifer helped me that's great.

didn't know what to do with it. And the editor said, why did she have those crosses? And I thought, Jennifer help me what were they for? And almost immediately I get this like download of information about what it was for, and it was perfect and it was something I would never have thought of.

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from the Ashes. Next we'll find out how Sheila gets some of the ideas and inspiration for her stories. I'd written a scene where this young woman goes into a trance or maybe it's sleep, you know, you don't know. She's tramps and she sees this hellish scene and when she wakes up on her palms, there are these two crossing.

the book. It's like he came in riding his bicycle on the promenade at the beach, like he liked to do, and I said, Okay, you want to be in the book, I'll put you in this. So I made him a scene in the book. And then much much later, near the end of the book, the same thing happened. He rides up on his bicycle. I was driving in my car and I said, Arnie, if you're going to be in the book, there has to be a reason you

can't just show up. And again, almost immediately I get this answer that was perfect, and it added a dimension to the book that it wouldn't have otherwise had. So I appreciated that, and later in one of the readings i'd had, I thought it was Robert Brown. No, it must have been. Later Arnie came through and he said he wished I'd made it more handsome in the book.

and say I'm just crazy. But in Proof of Life, she has to recognize what's going on with her and start working with Spirit. I wanted to write about her again, and so I came up with the Last Door, which I always start with a title, and I loved that title. It was funny because I was at a party and the hostess was telling people feel free to wander anywhere around the house, just don't go to the last door. That's my bedroom. And I said, there's my next title,

and so I wrote that book. I was bargaining with Spirit because they kept saying even after I'd written Proof of Life, I still in readings kept hearing you need to write something different and more autobiographical. I was like, I don't want to write about myself. So I brought out the Last Door, and I thought, you know, now

that's going to work. All didn't work, and I kept hearing the same thing, and so I thought, well, maybe if I listened to spirit and do what they want, it will open up some other areas that I wanted to help them. And so last December I decided I'm going to finally write something autobiographical. What I could write about twenty three years later was my spiritual journey and hopefully that has a happier ending and I can bring

Jennifer into it. In January, I started making a list of things that I wanted to talk about in the book, and I started reading books about memoir writing, and I learned that memoir is a little different from autobiography, which autobiography has everything in your life you start to wherever you start writing at. A memoir is about some specific aspect of your life that you want to explore. And so I got this list of scenes, you know, parts of my life, and on February first, I started writing it.

I was totally astonished to find on February twenty seven myself writing the end. Last week, my sister was here and she hadn't read it yet. She read it during a weekend while she was here, and she said, there's two hundred and nineteen pages in the book. Jennifer was killed on two nineteen. She said, it took you twenty seven days to write the book, and she was twenty seven when she was killed, which was an interesting coincidence. If that's what it was.

we're going to see them again. We will, and they're doing their best to let us know that they're alive and well and still with us. But you mentioned spiritual growth, and sometimes it is out of the ashes. You think of those beautiful pine trees out in California and other areas, the pine combes that need to be subjected to that severe heat in order to grow. Talk a little bit about this spiritual journey, maybe your thoughts on the bigger

picture and what can come out of the ashes. It's all about openness and being willing to accept what is there and asking for it. I've learned. You know, you have to ask your spirit guides to give you what you need, and it may not be what you want, like the old Rolling Stone song, Okay, always get.

everything jammed together. That's one way of seeing fear. But in a true spiritual life, not religious life, it's expansive. Everything is open, and it really is all about love. It seems very trite to say that, but it's true. You know in the Bible that love God and love your neighbor. That's the whole thing that replaced all of those laws in the Old Testament.

You know, she would attract all of these men who were not nice to nobody ever beat her up. She would not have tolerated that, but emotionally abusive. She saw me do the same thing, and that's what she learned. But now I know better. Yeah, we do the best we can. You know a lot of people experience guilt, and I always say, had your younger self known that there was a choice, maybe you would have done something else. But we do the best we can. So guilt is a waste of time. Let it go. You did the

best you could when you could. And I do believe even though no, you didn't want Jennifer to pass, and all the things that have happened in your life, the difference you're making. It's not only loving as a piece of advice, but sharing and being of service. So it may be entertaining someone in one of your books, maybe educating one and another. It may send somebody on their journey. I do know that grief is I don't want to

say relieved, because it never goes far. But there's all the neurotransmitters that really impact the loss of them when we're grieving, and to read a book, it can help raise those levels again and help try to bring our system whole. So that's a way that you are of service as well. There's so many ways I encourage anyone, whatever your self expression is, just do it, even if it's just saying hello to people or giving somebody a compliment,

whatever that is for you. If you can just be there for someone else, it's a huge, huge thing, Sheila. Do you feel Jennifer's presence ever?

and mediumship, that's how it works. So I ask everybody make a little more attention to that, because there are times, even with people that I know who have passed, I'm busy doing something and all of a sudden, like a whoosh, a memory that I have with that person comes out of the blue, nothing related to what I'm doing, and filled with the emotion and the feeling, and I'm just just a little.

our eyes as well. And some of them, I mean, just like here, we all have different talents and skills and maybe some of them are talented at manipulating electricity, and some who are really strong might actually come through with a physical manifestation. I saw Jennifer walk past the kitchen door shortly after she was killed, like within a few days.

the same area. We are lots more than one form of energy can exist in one place at the same time, So I believe we're part of their world. But for them to slow down enough, like you said, like it's being underwater trying to talk maybe and get your words out above a pool or above water, it's very difficult for them. So if we can meet them halfway and

take some time. Even though Jovah witnesses didn't want you to meditate, I really do think if we can learn to slow our mind down, even if it's just for a little while, just try to be in that present moment, whether you're out for a walk or doing whatever you're doing in that present moment. It's kind of like recharging our spiritual battery a little bit, and you just never know how much that can raise our own vibration. Do you want to call it?

without my lenses. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there.

And he made it like in a form of question mark. And I just love this cover. It's beautiful. Any closing words or anything I should have asked you that we want to share about any last things before we were labbed on long enough, so you blabbed in a perfect way. We really enjoyed it. Thank you. Thank you so much for having.

being vulnerable to share her story. If you'd like to join her on one of those automatic writing et cetera free zoom meetings that she hosts, the easiest way to find it is if you go to a website called Victor Zammit dot comic t R Z A M M Victor Zammit dot com. Victor and his wife Wendy have a wonderful website and on the left of the page you'll see zoom groups. That's what you can click on and you can see all the zoom groups that are happening.

Wendy and Victor Zammit, many many, many years ago, started what's called the Friday After Life Report. You can sign up for that and a shout out to Victor and Wendy. When I was a brand new author well over ten years ago, I contacted them because I needed some people to read the book before it got published, and they were kind enough to post it and their afterlife report

and good news came in made everybody happy. And here we are today with my book, We Don't Die, a skeptics discovery of life after death, as a number one international bestseller. If you have not yet read my book and you'd like a free PDF copy, simply go to We Don't Die dot com. At the bottom of the page, you can enter your name and your email address. It says you get the first few chapters. The secret is it is the entire book. If you are experiencing grief,

start with chapter ten. There's so much good information about what grief is, why we grieve, tools to make it an easier process, how our brain chemistry changes, and more. Also, you've heard me mention our medium classes that happen atwdotdie dot com. It dawned on me this week. Of course, not everybody wants to be a medium, but there's value in taking the classes aside from being a professional medium.

You know, it takes years and years of good study and practice to be a medium, but there is magic that happens in those meeting rooms. They're held on Zoom. Our tutors are Kerrie McLoud and Phil Diyke's longtime mediums. They're fun. You're with a community of people and you're exploring your soul and how it receives information. So when you start off in the classes, you learn about your psychic ability and you do readings on other students in class,

it empowers you. It gives you that shot in the arm of inspiration and happiness and knowing that you're never alone, that you're a divine soul with all this wisdom. And if you imagine a pie and that's your psychic nature, one little slice of that pie is your need ability as a divine soul. We all have this ability. So once you learn how your soul communicates, then instead of doing a person to person soul to soul reading, you do a soul to soul reading on someone who's no

longer walking on planet Earth. That's called mediumship. There are literally miracles that happen in each and every class. We work with other students and who comes through it's our loved ones. You know how I feel so often about high priced mediums out there, but it dawned on me. Our six week medium classes are lower in price than getting an inexpensive medium reading. So why not join us and be part of a very loving community where miracles can happen and your loved ones can speak. Please take

me up on that. It's a great experience. That's at We Don't Die dot com. Just click on our at home courses and don't miss our free Sunday gathering with medium demonstration included. It's one of the highlights of my week and always leaves me feeling so good. Have you ever felt inspired to write a book? You know the world is waiting for your words and somebody needs to hear the journey you've been on and your words of wisdom. Pretend like you're writing to one person, tell them your story.

Let loved ones and your inspirers work with you, and before long you'll realize that there's a lot of good you can share. There's some great resources at Amazon's ACX dot com. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just needs to be out in the world. My friend, it is time for us to say goodbye for just a little while, feel free and listen to one of the past episodes. Also, if you're interested, you can go to rate this podcast dot com, forward slash Shades of the

Afterlife and let me know what you think. Remember, you are a divine soul having a human experience, and in the invisible space around you, You've got a huge group of cheerleaders. You are loved, and your life matters. I'm Sandra Champlain. Thank you so much for listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast am Paranormal Podcast Network.