Messages of Love from the Other side
C 2008 Dan Gordon
Freepress / Simon and Schuster
This short but eloquent book is about family who've died and the uncanny experiences that lead the author, Dan Gordon, to believe, that yes, they have let others know they are in heaven. From the appearance of a jackrabbit who uncharacteristically remained Buddha-like as a sign, or the way his son Zaki smelled sweet - and a grandparent thought of him in terms of dimming light - before a killing car accident just months out of film school, Dan Gordon presents those ah-ha moments.
Here is what The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles had to say : "Gordon hails from 13 generations of Chasidic rabbis, and while his immediate family has long shed strict, Chasidic Jewish tradition, the stories in his book illustrate, in secular terms but with the skill of a master Chasidic raconteur, the presence of God in everyday life. "The recirculation of the soul, kind of the belief in reincarnation, isn't foreign to Judaism at all or our literature," Gordon said. Orit Arfa writing.
Zaki had asthma. Page 85 "I had become aware of a sickly sweet odor that emanated from Zaki's scalp just before the onset of an asthma attack. I told his doctor this and it in fact never failed. From then on, the minute I smelled that smell on his hair, we started his medication as a prophylactic. Thus, when Debi said that he smelled like my deceased father, I immediately took a whiff. Maybe his asthma is about to come back, I thought, as if only asthma could do him harm. But the sickly sweet smell wasn't there.
"I don't smell anything," I said.
"Well I do!" Debi said defiantly. "I don't know how you can say you don't smell anything. He smells just like Uncle Abe!"
Debi seemed to be getting genuinely angry about the whole thing. I tried logic. "Debi, I said, "that's silly. I don't even remember what my father smelled like."
"We'll I do," she said, eyes flashing now in defense of the memory of my father's particular smell. "And he," she said, pointing at Zaki, "Smells just like him." ...
