A reader recently sent me a difficult question:
“When a child is murdered by their mother or father, how does the soul react?”
The question came up in relation to the Lindsay Clancy case. Clancy is accused of killing her three young children while reportedly suffering from severe postpartum mental illness, including postpartum psychosis.
Cases like this are almost impossible to comprehend. We instinctively put ourselves into the position of those children and imagine what they must have experienced in their final moments. And I think it’s important not to spiritualize away what happened to them.
While they were alive, those children were children. They would have experienced the situation through the minds and emotions of children. There could have been terror, bewilderment, desperation, confusion and an inability to understand why the person who was supposed to protect them was hurting them.
Nothing about spirituality makes those moments less tragic. But what happens after death is very different.
The Child Does Not Remain a Child on the Other Side
One of the things I have consistently perceived in my work connecting with people who have crossed over is that when a child dies, their soul does not remain a frightened child for eternity.
The child was the incarnation. The soul is much larger than the incarnation.
When the soul leaves the body, it reconnects with the fullness of who it really is. It regains the greater awareness and understanding that existed before it incarnated.
So imagine a five-year-old child crossing over. From our earthly perspective, we imagine a five-year-old standing on the other side asking, “Why did Mommy do that to me?” But spiritually, that isn’t how I understand it.
The personality and memories of that child still exist and matter, but the soul is no longer limited to the awareness of a five-year-old human being. It has returned to a much greater state of consciousness. It understands things the human child could not possibly have understood.
We Are More Than the Characters We Play
One metaphor that may help is to think about actors in a movie.
In the Harry Potter movies, Harry Potter and Voldemort are mortal enemies. Voldemort causes tremendous suffering. Harry fears him, fights him and desperately tries to stop him.
Within the story, their conflict is absolutely real. But Daniel Radcliffe and Ralph Fiennes are actors.
When the director calls “cut,” Daniel Radcliffe does not have to continue hating Ralph Fiennes because Ralph is not actually Voldemort. They were portraying characters inside a story.
I believe incarnation works somewhat similarly.
Here on Earth, we become deeply immersed in our identities. We are mothers, fathers, children, spouses, friends and enemies. Things happen between us that can cause tremendous love and tremendous pain. And while we are here, those experiences are very real.
But when we cross over, we step out of the character. We remember that we are souls.
From that expanded perspective, we can see not only what another person did, but everything that contributed to what happened. We can understand their state of mind, their wounds, their choices, the choices of other people around them and all the points along the way where events might have unfolded differently.
That expanded understanding makes forgiveness possible in a way that can be extremely difficult for us to comprehend while we are human.
Forgiveness Is Not the Same as Saying It Was Okay
When I say there is no judgment on the other side, I don’t mean actions have no consequences. And I certainly don’t mean murdering a child is spiritually “okay.”
Forgiveness and approval are two entirely different things.
From the spiritual perspective I have encountered, souls are interested in understanding rather than condemnation. A soul can look at a terrible human event and see it clearly without carrying hatred forever.
There is compassion, understanding and forgiveness because souls can perceive the whole picture rather than the tiny piece of it that we can see while incarnated. That doesn’t erase what happened. It changes the perspective from which it is viewed.
Did Those Children Choose to Be Murdered?
This is another area where I think spiritual teachings can sometimes become unnecessarily cruel.
I do not believe we should look at murdered children and say, “Well, their souls chose that before they were born.” I don’t believe that is how incarnation works.
Before we incarnate, we may have intentions. We may choose certain relationships, circumstances, challenges or opportunities for growth. But we enter a world filled with free will. And free will changes things.
Those children did not need to incarnate with an intention to be murdered in order for their deaths to occur. Countless human decisions and circumstances led to that particular outcome. And those circumstances could have changed.
Imagine that somewhere along the path Lindsay had received effective intervention for her mental state. Imagine someone had recognized the severity of what was happening and removed the children from danger. Imagine treatment had worked differently. Imagine one decision, one phone call, one observation or one intervention had occurred at the right moment.
The outcome could have been entirely different.
That is free will.
We are not actors following an unchangeable script where every murder, accident, illness and tragedy has been predetermined before anyone is born. We are souls entering an environment of possibilities.
Some events may be planned or anticipated. Others emerge because millions of choices intersect with one another. Sometimes those choices lead somewhere beautiful. Sometimes they lead somewhere devastating.
What Happens When the Children Cross Over?
I believe the transition itself brings enormous relief. The fear stops. The physical suffering stops. The confusion begins to fall away.
The children are met by loving souls on the other side and are surrounded by an awareness that is far greater than what they possessed moments earlier. They understand that they are alive. They understand that they are safe. And eventually they understand what happened.
Not from the limited perspective of terrified children, but from the perspective of mature souls who can see the entire landscape of the event.
They can recognize that the person who harmed them was acting from within her own human circumstances, choices and, in a case involving severe mental illness, potentially a profoundly altered perception of reality.
That does not make the act acceptable. But it does make understanding possible. And where there is complete understanding, forgiveness becomes possible too.
What About the Parent When They Eventually Cross Over?
I believe the same expanded awareness applies to the person who caused the harm. Crossing over does not mean escaping responsibility.
When we return to the spirit world, we have the opportunity to see the consequences of our actions with extraordinary clarity. Imagine experiencing not only what you did, but understanding how your actions affected every person involved. That awareness can be profound.
But I do not believe souls are greeted by an angry God who sentences them to eternal punishment. They are met with truth. They are met with understanding. And they are met with love.
The soul reviews, understands and learns from the incarnation.
The Tragedy Is Real, But It Is Not Eternal
Perhaps this is the most important distinction.
What happened to those children was tragic. Their fear was real. Their suffering was real. The lives they might have lived were lost. Their family’s grief is real.
Spirituality should never require us to pretend otherwise.
But I also don’t believe their final moments define them for eternity. They are not forever frozen as frightened children in the worst moment of their lives.
The moment they crossed over, the experience began to look different because they were seeing it through the eyes of the soul instead of through the eyes of the child.
The human story ended. The soul did not.
And from that much greater perspective, there can be understanding where there was once bewilderment, peace where there was once terror, and forgiveness where we, from our human perspective, may find forgiveness almost impossible to imagine.
