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This article describes the increasing focus on relationships with the deceased, after the traditional Christian master narrative of heaven and an afterlife evaporated for many. Scholars analysing our coping with death and dying point to continuing bonds in practices and experiences. These continuing bonds involve a real, reciprocal relationship. This fits well with the ancestor cult from other cultures. Both the ancestor cult and the practices to maintain and experience continuing bonds with the dead, exist by the grace of the ‘being there’ of the dead after death. This article lists some of the signs of this presence and emphasizes how these signals have both a long, often ritualistic, tradition in time, as well as being broadly rooted in cultures.