Joan Boney ... apostle/prophet
In the early 1980's, my favorite aunt broke her hip. I called her hospital room and spoke with her.
She asked: What do you think should happen to someone like me? I replied: "I think you should receive mercy.
Then she asked: What do you think happens to us when we die? I replied: Death is simply a falling asleep. She replied: That's what I thought.
Jesus explained death to his disciples:
Jn. 11 ... These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. 12Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. 13Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. 14Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.
Being dead is like being asleep. When you are asleep you are not watching over your children. When you are dead you are not watching over your children or over anyone else.
When you are asleep, you don't know where the times goes. You fall asleep. You awaken and often several hours have passed. You were unaware of the time while you slept. This is the way death will be. There will be a vacuum of time between being dead and then being raised from the dead.
When we die, we fall asleep. When we awaken, if we belong to God, it will happen when Jesus returns to gather His elect as described in the following scripture.
I Thess. 4 ... But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep (concerning those that die), that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 15For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent (precede) them which are asleep. 16For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 18Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Not all will die. Some will be alive at the time Jesus returns. Those people will never see death. They will simply be changed. These present bodies will not go up into the air to meet Jesus. Those alive will be changed in the blink of an eye into another form which is an incorruptible body. They will no longer have these bodies of flesh.
I Cor. 15 ... Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep (die), but we shall all be changed, 52In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
If you are thinking some dead relative is watching over you, you need to correct your thinking by the Bible. If we belong to God, it is God who watches over us. To think a dead human is watching over us is to make that human into God and this is a very wrong thing to do and must be corrected.