A Hug From Heaven - Chapter 1 rev

BITTERSWEET GOOD-BYE
A long time ago I remember a promise to myself:
to love myself and my family.
I honored that promise.
I am loved to all Heavens. PMB
Within each and every one of us is the ability and power to reach across the boundaries of
time and space and to communicate with our own higher selves, our family and friends who have
passed on, and to our highest source of Love and Light. This inborn gift of communication is a
natural part of our very being, of our soul. Many say they can’t hear, see, or feel anything
outside of their own physical senses. Thoughts are a real manifestation of our existence. When
we open our minds and hearts to all thoughts of love we are then open to the incoming messages
of love, not only from the physical plane but from the spiritual plane, as well.
I grew up in a very close-knit family. We are still very close, spending holidays and
many weekends together even though my sisters have grown families of their own. My parents
instilled in my three sisters and me a lasting and meaningful foundation of family values,
creating a bond so solid that nothing has ever been able to tear it down, not even death.
And we, as a family, have been surrounded by death in the last several years, beginning
with my Uncle Glenn’s tragic, if not completely intentional, still fatal plunge from a bridge in
May 1995. Over the course of the next five years, we would lose two more uncles, an aunt, three
cousins, my sister Marlyn’s husband, three pet cats, and my own loving father.
My mother, born of Irish-Catholic descent, has always been the strong nurturing force in
our lives. She is a woman with boundless energy and a youthful enthusiasm for life and
adventure. Her own childhood is a novel in itself, and we have always loved listening to her
incredible tales of growing up during the “Great Depression” when she helped to support her

parents, brothers, and sisters with the money she earned by being the only little newspaper girl
on the East Coast.
My father, Paul Burns, taught us courage to face our fears as he did. He grounded us
with his calm, logical approach to life and religion. He had read and studied the Bible from
cover to cover but did not belong to any church. He did not believe in a man-made God sitting
on a throne and passing judgment on mortals, nor did he believe that Hell is a place below the
surface of the Earth where man is eternally damned. He was a student of Plato, Socrates, and
Aristotle, and he viewed God as an all-encompassing life force of which man is a part. Hell is
merely a creation of our own fears.
Daddy battled with crippling rheumatoid arthritis as a teenager and osteo-arthritis starting
when he was in his forties. In fact, when he married my mother at the age of twenty-seven, his
doctors gave him less than a year to live. He managed to extend their prognosis fifty-four years.
He learned to use his mind to overcome and control his pain and managed to live a normal,
healthy life for many years. An accident that occurred while he was working; however, caused
his arthritis to burst out of remission with the force of a cannon. For the next twenty-two years,
he struggled daily with horrific pain and endured multiple surgeries. Ultimately, a deadly assault
of bacterial meningitis put him back in the hospital for the last time. After a month of suffering
he passed over to the Light. It was the most heart-wrenching time in my family’s lives. Before
he died he whispered to my mom, sisters and me, “I love all my girls.”
Around ten p.m. on the last night, I was in my dad’s hospital room along with two of my
sisters and a close family friend. My sister, Marlyn, and I were on my dad’s left side. Suddenly,
Marlyn gasped, and we looked at her to see what was wrong, but she was smiling. “Did you see
that?” she asked. “See what?” we asked in unison. The rest of us had been gazing at my father’s

calm face and hadn’t looked up when she did. What she saw was an ethereal white mist
hovering over my father’s left shoulder. What she felt was an overwhelming sense of peace and
release. My father’s soul had just left his body but was still close by. He was pronounced
clinically deceased at 6:04 am the next morning, June 24th; however, my family and I feel he
chose to leave his earthly body at ten p.m. the previous night.
My parents never forced us to embrace any one religion or belief. We were encouraged
to study, learn, and accept life, God, Jesus, and Heaven in our own way. And so, we have all
grown up with an open mind to the probable existence of past lives, extra sensory perception,
psychics, mediums, extra-terrestrials, ghosts, guardian angels and God. Each of us also has
experienced, in varying degrees, psychic abilities including precognitive dreams, clairvoyance,
clairaudience and clairsentience. I must point out, though, that Daddy always kept his pragmatic
logic in check and questioned the existence of many of these very same subjects. The one thing
he never questioned was that the mind is a powerful tool that can heal or destroy and that
thoughts can travel through space and time with or without a body.
I remember when I was about six years old, Daddy and I played a particular card game.
He would hold a deck of cards in one hand and in the other, a single card from the deck. Both
my dad and I would concentrate on that card, and I would try to telepathically pick up on the
image. I honestly can’t remember just how accurate I was, although I answer some correctly. I
remember Daddy would always smile and show me the card when I got it right. The point I want
to stress here is the mental bond my dad and I established early in my life. It is a connection that
we have been able to keep going, even across the physical and spiritual worlds.
I do not consciously try to read minds but very often things pop into my head, for
example, sensing beforehand when family or friends are going to call or knowing a job I wanted

would be mine before my interview, and knowing, as well, when I wouldn’t be hired, even
though I really, really wanted that job. Anyone might say these are just coincidences. I believe
in free will and choice, but I don’t believe in coincidence. To me, saying something is a
coincidence is conveniently simplifying events in your life that you planned and placed on your
soul’s map even before you were born.
The year following my dad’s passing created a gaping black hole in my family’s and my
lives. My mother, who for years had been my father’s constant companion, confidant, friend and
nurse, and the healthiest member of our family, became ill. She had been dealing with high bllod
pressure, type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol for several years, but her grief from the loss of her
husband, friend and soul mate took its toll, and we rushed her to the emergency room more than
once that first year. My sisters and I were dealing with the loss of our father and facing the
possible loss of our mother. This was too much for me, and I fell into a deep depression – a
depression from which I couldn’t see any escape.
Several years before my father’s passing, my sister, Judy, my niece Shannon, and I had
the opportunity to see internationally known and respected medium Brian E. Hurst. We were
part of a group of about fifteen people, and it was more out of curiosity than anything else that
we attended the reading. Nevertheless, our jaws dropped in amazement when Brian said that an
elderly woman, Ada Burns of Illinois, was there in spirit. My grandmother’s name was Ada
Burns. She was my dad’s mother and yes, she was born and died in Illinois. Brian Hurst then
proceeded to tell my niece she was surrounded by Vikings and offered more names. Shannon’s
dad’s heritage is Norwegian, and although we couldn’t verify the names during the reading,
when we later asked her father, he recognized the family names Brian had mentioned.

About six months after my Uncle Glenn’s death, my sisters and I made an appointment to
have a private reading with Mr. Hurst. He accurately described my uncle’s confused state of
mind caused by a brain tumor and his subsequent suicide. Brian Hurst let us know that my
uncle’s actions would not be completely held against him on the other side because he of his
disability. This gave us great comfort, and we passed this information on to my dad about his
younger brother.
Then again, after my father’s passing, we made another appointment with Brian Hurst.
This time my mother came with us. During the reading for my father, it was my Uncle Glenn
who came through first to tell us that Daddy was all right. My dad was still healing and resting
from all his years of physical pain, but he did “make an appearance.” My mom was relieved and
thrilled. At one point, Brian said he had the taste of butterscotch on his tongue and that he had
the urge to “pop” a butterscotch candy into his mouth. We all laughed. My dad loved hard
butterscotch candy and used to toss them up into the air and catch them in his open mouth.
Marlyn’s husband, Fred, also came through with a comforting message and a symbolic
rose for his wife. In life, he would often give my sister a single rose as a token of his love for her
and he took this occasion to once again bestow this symbol of his eternal love.
Brian Hurst’s accuracy describing the circumstances of my dad’s, uncle’s and brother-inlaw’s
passing was remarkable. His gentle and compassionate manner comforted us and his
messages that they were all right and close by helped ease our grief.
Still, although I truly believed that my dad was alive and well in Heaven, I was still
despondent and teary-eyed on Earth. I missed him so much.
Then one night just about two
weeks before the first anniversary of my dad’s passing, something incredible happened. I was
home alone in my little condo, a flood of tears streaming down my cheeks. I so needed and

wanted a hug from Daddy. Choking on my words, I said, “I really need a hug, Daddy.” And
just then, the very moment the words left my mouth, a thought came into my mind -- but it
wasn’t my own thought. No, it wasn’t. It was a response to my plea.
Margien, I am all right. I am in no pain now, and I am happy. I am here whenever you
need me.
I heard and felt the words in my head clearly and distinctly, and I knew my dad was with
me. My sadness lifted as if a heavy shroud had been pulled away, and I felt hopeful. I told him
how much I loved him and missed him and that it was so hard to let him go, but that I was also
glad to know that he was out of pain and all whole again. He assured me he knew all this and
said, “I love all my girls forever.” And I knew he had just hugged me.
We talked for about an hour that first night and for the first time in a year, I felt at peace
with his passing. Maybe I couldn’t see him, but I could talk to him. This was the beginning of
the healing, not only mine but also my mother’s, sisters’, and their families.
I now use pen and paper to record our conversations. I have messages from many family
and friends who now reside in Heaven. My dear Uncle Glenn, whose sad passing is now a
learned lesson that life is a priceless gift, is a constant source of love, understanding, and humor.
With the healing help of my dad and my family, both on Earth and in Heaven, he is laughing and
joking again.
All of the words that come from the other side are filled with love, caring, inspiration,
and enlightenment. Thanks to the patient guidance of all that have and do communicate with me,
I have a much broader view of Heaven, God, and life, and I know that love is the most important
force there is. It is what we all strive towards and why we live our lives, accept our daily
challenges, and follow our dreams.

The messages they give are truly food for thought, for on Earth we may say one thing and
do another but in Heaven our thoughts and deeds are always out in the open, and so the words we
think express our true meaning. The following pages are messages of love to my family that we
now share with you. Please read them with an open mind and heart. The words are a gift from
God to us all.