Jovan flew across the country to be with his ailing father. His wife remained on the east coast with their children. She loved her father-in-law and had always been close to him, but it wasn’t possible for the whole family to travel on such short notice.

Days later, while folded laundry in her children’s bedroom, Jovan’s wife felt the distinctive presence of her father-in-law. She marveled how she knew it was him without seeing him. In fact, it felt so natural she didn’t question how it was possible. Moved to tears, she asked, “Why are you here?”

“I will always be here,” he said. “This is my family.”

A few minutes later, the phone rang. Jovan shared the news of his father’s passing. Only then did it occur to his wife how her father-in-law’s visit had been possible. Twenty years later, she still insists, “I remember the feelings like it happened yesterday.”

The scientist in me embraces measurable, reproducible evidence, but the eternal part of me that has known Jovan and his wife and father for decades refuses to doubt. That science has failed to provide a testable model to explain such things, is a failure of science, not the experience. Never use the current limits in science as an excuse to dismiss the profound.

(Photo by Sarah Brown on Unsplash)