01/13/2026
So, I’ll try and make this short. Last year, we lost our oldest son, Brayden (BK to his friends), unexpectedly.
He was 21 years old. My wife and I found him. Ever since then we have seen signs that he’s still around. A week after he passed we were gifted a puppy to help us with our grief from a dog breeder who has lost her child the same way. Well we were sitting at the table writing his obituary (hardest thing for a parent to do), and it took us about 15 minutes to write even the first paragraph. Suddenly the new puppy, who was lying in his bed next to us, popped his head up, looked at a space NEXT to my wife and started growling, then let out a few barks. There was nothing next to her. She was standing next to the table where I sat and wrote. Suddenly we felt a little better and was able to finish writing, like he was there with us helping us get through it. For a long time this dog would growl and bark at NOTHING. The walls, an empty doorway, one time he was caught barking at his grad photo on the wall. It was like he recognized the face in the picture.
On the day of his service, I was helping someone in the driveway before we left for the church, and I went to go back in the house. Right then, a blue butterfly, one I’d never seen in our region before, flew in front of me, landed on the railing of the steps, and jut sat there for a few seconds while I watched it before flying away.
The picture with the green bead, or “soft air gun pellet” is one that gets us still today. Years ago we left town for a few days with our youngest son on a soccer trip. We left BK home alone as he was just old enough to be left alone, with family dropping in to check on him. He asked if a few friends could come over and we agreed. That night him and his friends had a pellet gun fight around the house using these green pellets. He did a fantastic job cleaning up, but we had found a few of these which told us what he had done. We weren’t mad, but over a few months we found a few more here and there. Well years later we hadn’t seen any, and my wife is a very clean person so we were certain they had all been found and cleaned up. After he passed we started finding them again. And I mean in places we KNOW we cleaned and there was never any beads there. We would be thinking about him and getting emotional, then BAM, “is that another green bead?” We have found about 10 now and seems like we are still finding them in places around the house. The one pictured was found just last week in his room, which had been completely cleaned out and repainted before putting his stuff back in. Because it was painted the room was EMPTY and cleaned up GOOD. After it was painted we went in and checked it out when my wife saw this one on the floor. Right where we had walked dozens of times and it was never there.
I’m not a religious man, but I definitely believe in some sort of afterlife now. Not sure what to make of it, but we believe our son is here in our house with us and always will be. share your thoughts on this...!