ght. When it happened the second time I was puzzled ... and on the third occasion my husband (an atheist resolute in his belief that everything ends on death), to whom I had said nothing, went to investigateHave you ever wondered whether life carries on beyond death? It always seemed to me that it must do ... but I wanted proof!

Then my mother died. Like me, she had believed that nothing made sense if death was an end rather than a new beginning ... and I soon had cause to question whether she was giving me the proof I needed.

On three consecutive nights between her death and cremation, at 8 pm each time, while I was sitting with my husband in a room with a glazed door, I saw a figure flit from the foot of the stairs into the hall. Assuming that one of our small daughters, recently tucked up in bed, had come downstairs to fetch something from the kitchen I investigated. But nobody was there and - the first time it occurred - I thought I must have been imagining things or that there had been a trick of the light. When it happened the second time I was puzzled ... and on the third occasion my husband (an atheist resolute in his belief that everything ends on death), to whom I had said nothing, went to investigate

ath was an end rather than a new beginning ... and I soon had cause to question whether she was giving me the proof I needed.

On three consecutive nights between her death and cremation, at 8 pm each time, while I was sitting with my husband in a room with a glazed door, I saw a figure flit from the foot of the stairs into the hall. Assuming that one of our small daughters, recently tucked up in bed, had come downstairs to fetch something from the kitchen I investigated. But nobody was there and - the first time it occurred - I thought I must have been imagining things or that there had been a trick of the light. When it happened the second time I was puzzled ... and on the third occasion my husband (an atheist resolute in his belief that everything ends on death), to whom I had said nothing, went to investigate

me, while I was sitting with my husband in a room with a glazed door, I saw a figure flit from the foot of the stairs into the hall. Assuming that one of our small daughters, recently tucked up in bed, had come downstairs to fetch something from the kitchen I investigated. But nobody was there and - the first time it occurred - I thought I must have been imagining things or that there had been a trick of the light. When it happened the second time I was puzzled ... and on the third occasion my husband (an atheist resolute in his belief that everything ends on death), to whom I had said nothing, went to investigateome downstairs to fetch something from the kitchen I investigated. But nobody was there and - the first time it occurred - I thought I must have been imagining things or that there had been a trick of the light. When it happened the second time I was puzzled ... and on the third occasion my husband (an atheist resolute in his belief that everything ends on death), to whom I had said nothing, went to investigateght. When it happened the second time I was puzzled ... and on the third occasion my husband (an atheist resolute in his belief that everything ends on death), to whom I had said nothing, went to investigate. He returned to the room saying 'The girls are both in bed; I checked.' Then he said: 'When your mother visited she always kissed them goodnight around this time, didn't she?' I agreed that she did and nothing else was said for the time being.

Mother having died on 18 December there was quite a gap before her cremation on the 27th and during this period I received and made many 'phone calls. By the telephone table was a rubber plant that stood on the floor and reached right to the ceiling. You probably know that rubber plants normally shed their leaves quite seldom and just one at a time, from the bottom, as a single leaf turns brown and eventually drops off.

Not in this instance! Virtually every time I answered the 'phone or made a call between those two dates a shiny green leaf detached itself haphaz