The youngest of 10 children from an Irish Catholic family, Joe McQuillen has had two successful careers and spent 25 years in the automobile business. In the latter half, he discussed the emotional roller coaster ride of receiving messages from his son, Chris, a college student who died in a tragic canoe accident, and the various psychics and mediums who helped him make contact. After Chris' death, he couldn't imagine a world devoid of his son, so he sought out access through mediums over the telephone, and that's where first contacts with his spirit occurred.
He then began meeting in person with the medium Anthony Anderson in the Chicago area, and others such as Thomas John. But eventually, McQuillen received messages directly from his deceased son, some of which he characterized as channeling, which he used in the writing of his book. Chris has described the afterlife as like living on a beach bungalow on Maui and that God is a loving energy that spirits recognize they are part of, much more than physical beings do on Earth. McQuillen learned that spirits maintain the same personality they had while alive, and because his son was so outgoing, this made him more likely to communicate from the Other Side.