The Light Between Us: Stories from Heaven, Lessons for the Living

by Laura Lynne Jackson

I didn’t use the cards all that much back then, and I still don’t, because I seem to have my own connections with the Other Side. But the cards can be valid tools for some people. They can quiet the brain and help us focus on a new language of perception in order to receive information. I believe that’s how Omi used them.

But my teenage romance was also an important life lesson: loving someone and feeling that he or she is your soul mate does not necessarily mean you are meant to be together forever.

We can love someone’s soul and at the same time understand that we are not meant to stay with that person. Sometimes the end of a relationship isn’t a failure at all, but rather a release for both people so that they can travel on their own true paths. Some relationships are only meant to teach us lessons about love.

Because I could so clearly feel his pain and hurt, I also felt a powerful urge to fix those things.

The writer Ezra Pound once said, “Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one’s hands.”

Everything that comes through from the Other Side, I would come to learn, is based in love.

My ability to read people’s energies allowed me to understand what was really going on with the students. They weren’t bad kids—they were needy kids. They craved attention and care and love. They were lost, confused, and desperate for guidance, but to protect themselves they acted mean and tough. They were used to not being seen for who they really were.

Teaching wasn’t just about preparing students for tests; it was about connecting with them and helping them see their own light and reach their full potential. It was about making them know they mattered in this world.

I wanted them to know that their insights and energy mattered in the classroom,

There was no real courtship period. Within four months of meeting, we were talking about marriage.

We are tied to all those we’ve ever loved by cords of light. Those cords can never be broken. Think of them like a fishing line of love. If you tug on one end, the other end feels the tug. And those on the Other Side are always on the lookout for openings between the worlds. They can locate the portal they need.

Our capacity to love and forgive—to accept fallibilities in another and in ourselves—is our greatest strength. The Other Side showed me that in Joann’s reading. It is a crucial lesson for us all, because love and forgiveness are constants. There will always be someone in our lives in need of forgiveness. Sometimes that person is you.

You can reach your loved ones by projecting your thoughts to them. When you project forgiveness to the Other Side, your loved one always gets the message. All you have to do to forgive a lost loved one is to grant that forgiveness, and all we have to do to be forgiven is to ask. Forgiveness—whether we need it or bestow it—is a miraculous gift.

From this reading I understood that the cords of light that tie us to those we love can never be broken, not even when we cross. They don’t even fray; in fact, they can be strengthened. In my readings with Tony and Joann I saw how relationships can grow even after death. Tony’s father understood things in a way he hadn’t been able to when he was on earth. I saw that our thoughts and our actions matter greatly to those on the Other Side—that we can help them continue to grow with our love and understanding. We have it in our power to heal the ones we love.

The choices we make—particularly every act of kindness—are greatly consequential. Our actions matter. Everything Charlie and RoseAnn have done matters. It matters to the great collective energy of all our souls. It matters because they honored the greatest gift we possess—the infinite capacity to love and heal even the smallest of creatures.

I was learning that nothing in the universe happens by accident: that every person we meet has something to teach us or to learn from us; that the Other Side looks over us with great love and purpose.

Something about Jim keeping his wife’s nail polish was incredibly touching to me. The nail polish had been hers, and now it was his, and they used it in wildly different ways, but for both of them it was indispensable. The tiny jar was a stitch in the fabric of their lives together—one that continued to bind them across the reaches of time and space.

“I see the earth as a classroom,” I said. “We are all sent here to learn lessons and help each other. But the real world is the spirit world. And that world is a world of light and love.”

The brilliant cords of love that connect us to someone in this life endure into the afterlife. And when we feel unbearable pain at the loss of a loved one, it is like we are tugging on that cord of love. The pain is real because the cord is real. Our love doesn’t end—it goes on.

The universe is designed for us to be there for each other—we are not meant to retreat into our pain and grief alone. We are meant to honor the vibrant cords of light and love that bind us, because the love of others is the most healing force of all. Why would we shut ourselves off from this powerful force? We are meant to be part of a vast, endless cycle of love, through which we receive the love of others and then pass that love on to someone else. Sharing our pain, and giving and receiving love, is how we heal our grief.

Why are we here? To learn. To give and receive love. To be the agents of positive change in the world. What happens when we die? We shed our bodies but our consciousness endures. What is our true purpose on this earth? To grow in love—and to help others do the same.

What I see is that we comprise the massive field of light—it cannot exist without us. But neither can we individually exist outside this field. Our existence is primarily defined by our place in this grand constellation of energy, not by who we are individually. We may appear to exist separately from anyone else, and we may perceive the boundaries that describe us and feel we are autonomous. But our energy, our consciousness, is inexorably entangled with the energy of others.

“She’s the one who told me I must write it down. I used to think just projecting your thoughts was enough, but she said no, there is a power in writing that matters. And she’s right.”

My wish is that we realize and celebrate the gift we have inside us, and that we come to understand how opening our minds and hearts to it can fundamentally transform our lives. There won’t be any bolts of lightning or claps of thunder. All that will happen is that we’ll start to look at our lives differently. But that tiny shift can change your life. It can change the world. It can rattle the universe.