There was the 87-year-old woman who told me a remarkable story of the spiritual experiences and signs she receives from her mother after she passed. The woman leaned in close to me and whispered, “I’ve never told anybody about this in all my life because I’m afraid people will think I’m crazy.” . . .

My boy Hugh had been “gone” two years when I started writing Never Really Left. Four years when I finished writing the book. And five years when it got published. Right after he passed, I dared not wonder what five years in would look like—that was unfathomable to me . . .