Time Heals All Wounds

I first heard the expression "Time Heals All Wounds" when my mother passed away. I was 19, and an older woman from our church said it as she tried to console my grieving father. At the time, I didn’t give much thought to her words. My mother had been in the hospital for about a week, and when she was moved from intensive care to a regular room, we assumed she was on the mend. Instead, she went home—not to our house in Dallas, but back to the Source.

In the days following her passing, people flooded our home, as they often do after a loss. My father was inconsolable, repeating "she’s gone" over and over. While I understood he was in shock, part of me saw how he absorbed the attention his grief brought. Meanwhile, the church woman kept repeating her mantra: Time heals all wounds. I barely registered it. She was simply doing what people do in times of sorrow—offering words meant to soothe, whether they truly help or not.

A decade passed, and still, not a single day went by without me thinking of my mother. The first year was surreal. I numbed myself with alcohol and Valium, avoiding grief rather than facing it. My mother’s sister, Aunt Alice, came down from New Mexico to help with the funeral arrangements. My father, my brother, and I were lost without her—she had been the matriarch, the one who handled everything, from paying the bills to making decisions. We didn’t even know how to keep the household running.

Aunt Alice insisted on seeing my mother’s body at the funeral home. I went with her, reluctant but unable to refuse. My mother lay there, covered by a white sheet, her face exposed. Her expression was frozen in what looked like pain or anger. I didn’t know what to make of it. Later, back at the house, Aunt Alice claimed she had seen my mother in a dream, dressed in black and looking beautiful. I didn’t believe her. Why black? Shouldn’t she be in white? But her words planted a seed in me—I, too, wanted to see my mother again. Just to know she was okay.

That longing led me to books by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Raymond Moody, and others who explored near-death experiences and the afterlife. At the time, I knew little about these subjects, but I was searching for answers. Meanwhile, my father moved on quickly. Within months, he remarried a woman from our church. He spent most of his time at her place, leaving me alone in the house where I had grown up. At 19, then 20, I found the solitude liberating in some ways—but also a feeling of isolation.

I started meditating, hoping to connect with my mother. Every night, I sat in the living room—ironically, a room we were never allowed to use when she was alive. I would sit in the dark, quiet, waiting. For six months, nothing happened. I never saw or heard from her, though I wasn’t sure how I would have reacted if I had. Eventually, I let the practice fade, retreating back into my routine of drinking and getting high.

Then, one freezing winter night, everything changed. I was driving my father’s truck, exhausted and struggling to stay awake. The roads were slick with ice, and I kept drifting off, jolted awake only by the rumble strips on the side of the highway. I rolled down the window, letting the frigid air slap my face. It wasn’t enough. My eyes were closing, my body surrendering to sleep.

Then, clear as day, I heard my mother’s voice. She screamed my name—Barry!—so loud and urgent that it shocked me awake. I gripped the wheel, fully alert, and made it home safely. That moment convinced me: she was still with me. She had been watching over me all along.

Years later, I had a lucid dream of her—so vivid that it couldn’t have been just a dream. I’ve read that when a dream of a loved one stays with you for years, it’s likely a visitation, not just imagination. My mother has remained one of my guardian angels since the day she transitioned.

Through 40 years of research into near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, and metaphysics, I’ve come to understand that death is not an end. When we transition, we shed our physical bodies and the ego that comes with them. But our essence—our soul—remains. And in that state, we are more alive than we ever were in this physical world.

My mother was fiercely protective in life, and she has remained so in death. She has been there in my toughest moments—when I fought for custody of my children, when I faced challenges I never thought I could overcome. She doesn’t interfere with free will, but she has guided me, shielded me, and stood by my side in ways I can’t fully explain.

So, does time heal all wounds? In some ways, yes. Grief never truly disappears, but it softens. Some say losing a child is a pain that never fades, and I understand that. But our loved ones don’t want us to mourn forever. They exist in a place of peace, a place so full of love and light that they wouldn’t return even if given the chance. They want us to live, to heal, to find joy again.

Grief is a powerful barrier. In our sorrow, we can’t always sense them, hear them, feel them. But they are there, waiting for us to move forward—not to forget, but to live. If we let time do its work, it will heal us. And in that healing, we may finally feel their presence, not in the past, but in the here and now.