What is reality? Do you think you have the answer? To you, what is real is that which you perceive. Do your dreams not feel real to you whilst you are dreaming? In that moment, that is your reality. Your dreams elicit emotions just as those in what you call “real life.” Hear us now: the waking state is but one level on a very wide spectrum of reality. By broadening your beliefs, you are able to experience more of this spectrum.
Your loved ones who have passed continue to experience reality. Their reality is as real to them as your waking state and your dreams are to you. You cannot perceive their reality whilst in the waking state, just as you cannot perceive an x-ray or a micro-wave. This inability to perceive does not mean these other realities do not exist.
There will come a time when you do perceive realities beyond your present one … be it through meditation, a trance state, or the transition you call death. Fear none of these. They merely represent your continued growth and travel along the great spectrum of Life.