To open to the sense, to become really conscious, you have to drop out of the future and the past and remain for a time in what T. S. Eliot called "the still point of the turning world" — the present. The only true reality is the present.
On this rainy and interior day, as I write letters about Mummy, I feel her presence so strongly. Just now, I can feel her sending her love to me. Suddenly, I see and feel her standing there, just a couple yards in front of me by the window, looking younger, and yet every age and no age. She's all in white, radiating light, smiling her smile, and love is pouring out of her eyes onto me, covering me. Ifeel my heart pounding, a ringing in my ears. I find it hard to breathe. It is overwhelming ... I know now she'll always be with me and, though it makes me sad to think I can't be with her in person anymore, I know I'll never not be with her again.