All Souls Day, where every year Catholics pray for those who have gone before us. Being a kid, I was unsure that I had been any help at all to anyone. I asked God to show me if I had, and show me, He did.
I was relating this account to a friend, someone who had recently converted to Catholicism. She confided in me that she was still holding on to the belief that once a person died, his/her fate was decided and nothing could be done.
Her father-in-law had passed, and unusual things were happening around their home. He had lived with them his final years, and after his death, the lamp he had used began to turn on. Naturally, the lamp needed rewiring, correct? They had it rewired. Lamp would still turn on. They moved it and put another lamp in its place. No change.
My friend went home, and when the lamp turned itself on, she asked, "Is that you? Do you want me to pray for you? The lamp responded. It turned off and then back on. So the family began praying for him, and the lamp stopped what it had been doing.
We are closer than those who have passed on than we might think we are.