Years ago, I had a friend (now deceased) who had MS and was in a wheelchair. In spite of this, she got her degree, taught school, changed her own tires and generally amazed me. Once, we pulled into a restaurant next to someone who took the last disabled spot. In a sports car no less, got out laughing (not at us) with his friend and walked without a problem, inside. I was angry beyond words, and wanted to say something to him. She said forget it, it’s not worth it. And she meant it. She just didn’t care. When I got out of the car, I noticed that the spot he was in was just next to the disabled spot we were in, but was not a disabled spot after all. I felt like an idiot. She laughed.
I share this because I have a disabled plaque now due to being unsteady on my feet. I should really be using the walker that sits in the corner of my room with clothes draped over it. But I’m needlessly too proud. I tell myself it’s too much work getting it in and out of my trunk. I seldom go anywhere anyway except the grocery store, and their shopping carts are fine. But every once in a while, I get “the look” from people who think they know me and because I look “fine” I must be taking advantage of those who REALLY need that placard. What I’d like to say to them is this:
First and foremost, I have a genetic disorder called neurofibromatosis (NF). It’s a complicated, many layered disorder that wreaks havoc on the host body, in this case, me. I have inoperable spinal tumors that leaves me in pain that you personally would not be able to withstand for five seconds, but I’ve grown accustomed to it. And my other health problems, some related to NF, some not, are too many to list.
These are the things I sometimes want to say. But I say none of these things. There are times I want to teach “them” a lesson by spewing out all the above. (It's funny because when someone realizes they made a mistake they say "Sorry I didn't know" which is of course, the point) But it isn’t worth getting worked up about them. Because I don’t know them….just like they don’t know me. I have no idea what they are up against either. I just need to remind myself of that, when I find myself boiling over from looks which I have interpreted as personal. But it can’t be personal if they don’t know me. And that is what my friend Staci knew all those years ago.
G-d, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And all that!
Often when dealing with my health
problems with neurofibromatosis, I see myself sitting on the small ledge tucked
away on the side of a mountain. Beneath me is the endless abyss of darkness and
fear so deep it takes my breath away. There is only a small branch to hang
onto, and there are days I am clutching that branch with all my life. But the
flip side of that is this: I sit very still and look all around me. I see the
most amazing vistas you can imagine; mountain views, sparkling ocean off in the
distance, rain squalls on one side, a rainbow on the other, eagles and other
birds flying above, squawking and diving....at night the stars are endless and
I am never too hot or too cold. I can almost hear Louis Armstrong or Willie
Nelson singing "What a Wonderful World"
So that's the choice. And I make it every minute of every day. Sometimes I'm so close to
the abyss it terrifies me, but when I think of my family and friends, I'm on
the other side. And that's what we ALL have to do, every single day, often many
times during the day. Whatever your vision of the choice is, that's what we
have to do in one way or another.
The
abyss is a very seductive, cunning lover. But it isn't the inner partner in
life that is good for us. The true inner partner is quieter....it needs to be
courted consciously. It speaks softly and it waits patiently
A friend sent me the following:
The most beautiful people I have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These people have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen. - Historian Roy Nichols
Pain is a great teacher, but most of us would rather learn some other way. We think that happiness comes from a perfect childhood and avoiding mistakes. We don't like that patched-up feeling that comes with each survival. We would like to be seamless, no patches, no scars. Cherish your hard-won depth and understanding. Some pain is required for the journey. The gifts you seek are often disguised as problems. Patches bring strength, whether on our knees or in our hearts.
Don't know who wrote this one....
When I am alone with my thoughts I sometimes realize how fortunate I really am….but when I start to write about living with NF, all the negative aspects of this condition come rising to the surface, like a bad vapor. Yes, there are some real life challenges with this disorder. But life is full of challenges, whether you are healthy or not.
I often tell people I am luckier than most people simply because I have a roof over my head, food in my belly, and friends and family who love and support me. When you look at the planet as a whole, that is huge, folks. Not to mention that I have access to healthcare, remiss though it can be at times. And the challenges I have with certain providers pale in comparison to not having it at all. I get that.
I know some things to be true. I know, for instance, that the body I was born into is not a reflection of who I am. How I handle having this body is. Sometimes I handle it well, other times, not so much. It’s like that with everything and everyone, no? Whatever the challenge, be it relationships, career, money, family dynamics, dieting, whatever….it’s not about the challenge per se, it’s about how we handle it.
Kind of like the difference between pain and suffering. It took me a while, but I have known for quite some time now that there is a HUGE difference between those two things. Pain, and I mean the kind of horrific neurological pain (which no one can seem to figure out how to help it) that people with NF and other neurological disorders endure, doesn’t necessarily mean suffering. I don’t even connect those two things together anymore. Suffering is a choice. The pain is just there, doing it’s thing, trying to get my attention and usually doing a pretty good job at it. But suffering? That’s different.
You know how you can tell that’s true? If you’re pain is particularly high and there is something else going on in your life; your lonely, bored, angry, etc., boy do you suffer! I mean the screaming kind of suffering. I once wrote a piece on it which I put in the post below this one. We all have those days. But if you are distracted, if you have a friend over or you’re reading a good book, or you just had your favorite meal, the pain lessens a little bit. It doesn’t go away necessarily, but it recedes to the background. At least it does for me.
I haven’t posted much lately because I’m tired of being so negative all the time. I have had so many physical challenges lately, it’s almost laughable. The NF, of course, cancer in 2005, and in 2007 I had surgery for another rare disorder involving my stomach and esophagus. Shortly after that, I fell and broke my foot. and was in a boot and have a walker. And you know what? I thank G-d everyday that I didn’t break a hip or my neck. In my condition, either or both could have easily happen. I give thanks for it every single day.
Now it's 2011 and I am dealing with more medical problems...ones I don't want to even write about here. But I will keep you posted. Yikes
For the last five years or so, I have heard, and felt, a small voice in the back of my head, pushing me forward. Behind it, there has always been a smaller voice, urging me to let go. That voice, in horse-racing terms, is coming up from behind…and loudly.
I have always acknowledged, but at the same time ignored, that smaller voice. It scares the hell out of me, because if I listen to it, I fear I will be dead very shortly. The conundrum for me is that I always say that I want to die, that I want to go Home. So why then, does this voice frighten me so?
The stronger, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” voice is the one keeping me alive and independent. It’s who, or what, I credit my ability to function at all. I hang on by my fingernails, so scared of facing letting go. Because I know what it means. It means confronting all the anger, all those feelings that I keep so bottled up inside.
People always tell me how incredibly far I’ve come in the last five years or so….how I’m not the person I was when NF struck me down, finally, 11 years or so ago. But I lost a lot when I lost that person. Anger, yeah, I got rid of a lot of my anger, and that’s what people refer to when they talk about how I’ve changed. But I also lost that part of me that can feel to the marrow. If I let myself feel that way, I will die.
Because I’ve lost so much, it takes my breath away. Yes, I have a lot too, in the way of friends and family. But any rational person will admit I’ve lost a lifetime. And anyone who thinks I’m playing a “poor me” scam can go jump off a bridge. Ask yourself if you would change places with me, or what you would do if you were in my position, and your teeth would rattle. That’s if you answer honestly. Or think about it for more than two seconds. Hell, if someone had told me many years ago that’s this is where I’d be right now, I think I would have killed myself. One can’t even imagine.
The endless, chronic, intractable pain that is so in the stratosphere of discomfort no words can describe it nor pills control it, adequately. A friend recently told me, after I said I deserved an Oscar for my performance of being okay, that she knew it, I didn’t fool her. She said I wasn’t that good of an actress. She laughed I didn’t respond, but I smiled to myself, thinking, that statement in itself told me how good I was. You see, no one can even begin to imagine, though this person thought herself capable. She thought herself capable because she is my friend, and couldn’t imagine that I was going through something awful enough for her not to know about. Because she herself went though some unspeakable things. But it’s not the same.
It’s not the same for many reasons, but mostly it’s not the same, and this is what people really can’t get, because there is no end to it. Ever. No ‘getting through’ no other side, no ‘bad period of time’ thing. Never ends. Never, ever, ever. So you don’t get to experience an end to it. Not until you die. Hopefully.
Which brings me back to the small voice that is pushing itself to front and center. The one that is so tired of pretending, so tired of hanging on, so tired of the pain, so tired of no answers, so tired being tired and so afraid to look at all that she’s lost. So lost herself. So ready to let go. So ready to go Home. So ready to die.
I’m scared to let her in, to win the race to the front of the line. To really let go would mean more than I can get my mind around. Because I would be giving up who I say I am. I would need things that I’m afraid my family wouldn’t or can’t, give. They give so much already, and no question they are there for me emotionally and financially. But if things progress for me physically, there is no question I wouldn’t be living with either of them.. They would put me away somewhere ‘for my own good’ and come visit on occasion. Don’t mean to sound angry….I just watched my mother move in a nursing home, and I’d sooner die. Hopefully, I will.
They always say that my NF is teaching them, too. Perhaps so. They are good people, they help me a lot. But we never did talk about how our mother’s constant illnesses effected the family, even after I brought it up specifically at the meeting with the social worker. They won’t look at it. They wouldn’t acknowledge the similarities. They always tell me I’m ‘nothing like that’ meaning needy. So I hang on. I pretend. I can’t be needy.
But I am sick, and dependent as well. Those are loud, desperate similarities, and best they look at them or this lesson of illness will come up again and again.
And I best let go and hope for the best.
The question “What’s wrong with this picture?” has reached new heights. We are “cutting back” on much needed social services to the point of non-existence, while a social networking site on the Internet is worth incalculable amounts of money, based on future advertising revenues. Which means the privacy this social networking site claims isn’t so private, or why would advertisers back it? My mind can’t get around it. I live on disability due to NF, and I lost my health insurance due to the price tag: $650 a month for me…one person. I don’t even want to think about what will happen to me as my health continues to deteriorate, which it promises to do. Many doctors won’t see people on Medicare; I will be able to continue to see the ones I have (so far) but I always need more. Perhaps the answer, down the line, will be to euthanize those that need medical help. We seem to be heading in that direction. Survival of the fittest.
When will we learn that the net worth of air (the Internet site) does not compare to the net worth of our “friends” that use the social networking site. Probably never. I can’t even begin to understand how air can be worth so much, even with advertising revenues. The greed just never stops. Bernie and all that he did to his investors is a fast faded memory, as new Silas’s rise to the surface. And those in need are buried under it.
I wrote this one in 1995, but things are worse now ((the world))
We all make choices everyday. Some crucial, some not, and sometimes the ones that didn’t seem significant in the moment turn out to change our lives forever. We choose based on the best information available at the time and either live with the result or try to correct the mistake. When you know you have something like neurofibromatosis, the choices are different.
Making choices about our health care may seem insignificant when we are young and healthy. We may think we don’t need the best of the best—until the worst happens. But regardless of our choice, ill health can impact us for the rest of our lives. Sickness may leave us destined to the never-ending challenge of fire quenching and racing at 100 rpm’s in neutral while attempting to procure what we need to help make us well or at least make us feel better.
Fighting health institutions that are meant to protect us would be a daunting task for anyone, but for someone sick and in pain, it is indescribable, especially if one is fighting alone. With no one to help make the calls, write the letters and do battle with the powers that be, it is always tempting to give up and withdrawal into the very private hell of pain, despair and hopelessness. One just doesn’t have the resources to spare when ill.
While the responsibility of taking care of ourselves is certainly ours, the responsibility to provide the best possible care for those that who fall ill lies squarely on the shoulders of the purveyor of health services. The people that promised to be there if the unthinkable happens: the insurer and the provider of care. Unfortunately, we have reached a new low with regard to the quality of health care. And while there is plenty of finger-pointing to go around, we must try to tease out blame from responsibility.
The inurer's responsibility is to pay what they promised to pay, in a timely manner without causing more pain to the patient. The provider’s responsibility is to deliver the best care possible, apart from whatever the surrounding politics of the facility may be. If the facility’s objectives are not in the best interest of the patient, they best re-examine their motives and mission statements or open themselves up to more and more lawsuits. Frivolous lawsuits, especially the class-action type that cause institutions to scream for tort reform year after year, have made it difficult for those with legitimate complaints of wrong-doing.
And there are plenty of legitimate complaints. Plenty of wrong-doing. Plenty of turning a blind eye to those that are ill. It is bad enough when the general public looks down it’s nose at those in need, but when the very people in charge of helping the hurting do the same, it’s disgraceful. When a healthcare provider is more interested in their politics and policies, when patients are not the first, second or even third concern of the administrators, that attitude trickles down to the doctors, nurses and other care-givers, leaving patients with no where to turn for whatever problem that brought them there in the first place.
Which brings me to the story of the frog. When dropped in boiling water, it will hop out of the pot in an effort to save it’s own life. But if the frog is in water that is room temperature and the heat is slowly increased in small increments, it won’t notice when it’s about to boil to death. Is it me, or is it getting hot in America?
This was written in 2005, just before my mastectomy. I wanted to re-post it as a tribute to the son of a friend of mine, whom I just discovered passed away in November. Steven, I never met you, but your mother bragged about you the few times we spoke over the years. She and your dad loved you very much; they knew you were hurting, and I know they wished they could have done more. And I know you know, they did the best they could. God rest your sweet soul
. They surround me always, even when I don’t know it. Especially when I don’t know it. Being unaware of them is, perhaps, when they have the most powerful hold on me, helping me through life, unasked, but knowing what to do and when to do it. I knew many of them when they were alive. Then too, I disregarded their advise many times, but unlike now, I knew when they were around, meddling, as it were. At least, that is what I called it, and in fact, that is what it was to me. Now, I see them only when I close my eyes and call upon them. Now, unlike then, I am in great desire of their services.
Lost is what I am, mostly. Ida seems the most vivid for some reason. I’m guessing it’s because she was the only one who spoke honestly, openly about death and dying. Though very ill in her last years, she was unafraid of the mystery that we all face every day of our lives, though seldom, if ever, speak of it. The same mystery that surrounded us before we ‘came to’ in this consciousness, and came into being. Is it what we go back into, after we cease to exist in our bodies, blindly groping our way to what we once knew? Why does the thought of dying, when we know we are, send so many of us into panic? Is it because it’s unknown, or because at level, we remember something awful? Ida spoke of it so sweetly, so softly and so confidently. She didn’t fear death, and told me not to either. When her husband, Phil, died four years prior to her, I was only eight years old, too young, my parernts thought, to go to the funeral. But I clearly remember gazing out my bedroom window up at the night sky, wondering what ‘eternal’ meant, wondering where my grandfather was now, unable to fathom, as I still am unable to do, what forever is.
I knew I would never again see him as he was, but could not imagine what he is now. So now, when I close my eyes and ask for help from any one of them; Ida, Rose, mom and Bunny, I see them all so clearly. Mostly, women. I once knew. The male figure isn’t anyone I ever knew. And Phil and Joe don’t appear to me, even though I was close to both of them. I shooed them all away Tuesday, after leaving my sister’s house and saying my goodbye’s to my dad, who was here for a visit. I had slipped into the deep sadness I use to visit so often, a darkness I don’t allow myself to dip into any longer, for fear of not being able to crawl out anymore.
So I asked them back on Friday. I was on one side of a chain-link fence, like one you’d see around a house. The grass was all brown and burnt and patchy, almost no yard at all. I could see Ida on the other side of the fence. She was smiling at me, her arms stretched out. The rest of ‘the gang’ was there too, and they were all respecting my earlier request, not to go near me. I was crying, upset once again that I was always on the outside looking in. That is how my life has felt; being surrounded by all the good things life has to offer, but unable to get any of them. I’ve always seem myself as the little girl on the stairway, clutching the bannister and watching the ‘adults’ as they enjoyed the party downstairs. I am always in my pajamas, having to go to bed early with the rest of the children. Never. Growing. Up.
So again, I was feeling lonely, abandoned, empty, scared and useless. Ida just smiled, and came through the gate. She held me, and I could actually smell her as I laid my head on her soft, ample breast, knowing that my breasts would soon not be. I could inhale that talc smell of her, and bring her into my body with my breath, just as I did with my mother when she took her last breath here on Earth. She asked me to look up, and when I did, I could see this bright light on the other side of the fence, the side she had been standing on before she came to me. She swept her hand in front of me, out toward the other side, and as she did, the light moved with her hand, sweeping from one horizon to the other. She then asked, “What side of the fence to you want to be on?”
At first, I thought she was asking if I wanted to live or die, but she could read my thoughts, and clarified that she meant what side do I want to live on. I understand you can live in darkeness, or you can live in light, but it’s a cognitive knowing. It comes and goes in and out of my heart. I must choose each day. They are always there for me, my helpers. What I struggle with is whether or not they are real, or just the fruit of my imagination. And even if they are only in my thoughts, is that so bad? What does it matter, if they help me? And what is imagination? Now that I know I’m having a mastectomy…not sure about whether it will be a double or not yet, I’m getting a bit freaked. I’m trying to remember that if I got this information about my breast cancer a year ago, I’d really be a mess.
But whatever shifted took place for me over the past eight or nine months that made me stronger has helped me stay focused. I see the rabbit hole and venture near the perimeter, peeking down into the darkness and feeling like I want to jump in and just surrender to it’s depth, but I haven’t yet. I saw Ida in my mind’s eye when I was with my therapaist. We were in her apartment, the one she shared with her husband Philip before he died. She was showing me something out her window, and when I looked out, it was me, as a child, playing around the bird feeder I use to play around as a child. She reminded me again, about the diamond necklace. (Before she died, she willed a diamond to me from her wedding ring. It was to be given to me on my 16th birthday, and my parents had it set into a pendant. I wore it around my neck until I was 22, and then it was stolen out of a changing room in a hospital when I went for a chest Xray.
I sobbed all night long that night, and that was the first time I “heard” her voice in my head. She told me I didn’t need the necklace to be near her. She was reminding me of that now). I know it’s my rational voice that dismisses these experiences, but I can’t help but think of all the mentally ill people who hear voices. Why am I different from them? I know I don’t actually hear a voice, but maybe they don’t either. Maybe they just can’t explain it the way I can; that it’s a thought more than an actual voice, it just has a face to go with it. My therapist says there is a saying that goes: “Mystics swim in the waters schizophrenics drown in” I’m no mystic, but maybe I’m in between.
My NF and the pain that it involves is a long and winding road, as the song goes. I have felt from the time I was 8 years old that I don’t belong here. Felt it like I’ve never felt anything else in my life. So many defining moments of knowing that coming Here on Earth was a huge mistake; maybe G-d doesn’t make mistakes, but someone was asleep at the wheel the day I came down; and all I want is to go Home. Is that such a sin? In my condition? Just a thought.
Okay, here goes. My family supports me, but like there is a teensy part of my situation they don’t believe, whether they realize it or not. I’ve known this for a very long time, but the other day, I got an email from the mother of another NF patient. I had mentioned that my pain got worse when the weather was cold and wet, and I asked if her daughter experienced that. She admitted that she did, and also wrote that she was glad I told her because she wasn’t sure (shamefully, she wrote) she believed her.
Which got me thinking about how much my family questions my level of pain and the way in which I am dealing with it. They see me occasionally, and when they do, I pull myself together the best I can. There are times it doesn’t work very well, but they don’t see the day to day struggles that leave me flattened in agony. Now that my dad is going to be living here (either temporarily or ((hopefully)) permanently), he may see more.
But beneath the “understanding’ is an undercurrent of anger so fierce it bleeds through and they just don’t know it. And I understand why.
At 57, I am a complete and total drain on the family’s resources. I contribute nothing financially, and though I have tried various things from home, my level of concentration and every other skill you need to make a buck is so degraded by drugs and inertia, it is no longer feasible to expect any money making abilities out of me. Which means further degrading of resources for an undetermined amount of time. And my dad, who is 86, is paying my rent and use to pay my insurance; and he has horrible expenses right now. I know I am only taking what would be mine after he passes, but I don’t want him to pass just yet and I certainly don’t want to keep taking money that he could surely use.
Of course, I have done everything possible to protect them the best I can. I applied for disability 12 years ago, and it took two years but I got it. I look everywhere for deals, I buy myself nothing unless I really need it (like underwear) and I almost never go out. I do have cable television. That is my big monthly splurge. But I’d be willing to get rid of that to save fifty bucks a month. I make my disability check go a long, long way. My dad asked me the other day what my expenses were. I think he thought I just have fun with my disiability check. I said "Dad, I have the same expenses everyone else has; food, gas, electric, phone, etc." I made him a list and he about flipped. He's worried sick, I know. It makes me feel like crap.
Yes, I know people with challenges make something of themselves. I know that people suffering in pain do so as well. People with Asperger’s and every other kind of mental/emotional trial do just fine. What turned for me and why? I don’t know. I’ve had over 70 jobs, no kidding. I kept trying, that should speak for something, but I guess not.
And it’s been a nightmare for the past 12 years The pain has been unmanageable; pills barely touch it.
And now, I am forced to drop my back up insurance, which I’m sure the insurance company will be leaping with joy in knowing. It is over $600 a month for ONE PERSON. So much for healthcare reform. So I’m dropping it and will be depending solely on Medicare. The truth is, the amount of benefits I received from that secondary insurance was one third of the premiums, so it will be cheaper (if nothing horrible happens) to let it go. I’ve been asking every year to drop it but my family has insisted on me keeping it….but now it’s too expensive. It HAS been too expensive.
I have been checking into cheaper supplements (during the small window of opportunity which ends in two weeks) and everyone I speak with seems helpful but NO ONE has followed through with the promised phone call or email. Not one person. So I’m thinking all I qualify for is Part D, which is pharmaceutical, and I signed up for that. Another hundred bucks out of my disability check.
Oh well. Eating is over rated! (kidding). My family tells me not to worry, but here’s the thing. It’s easy to be magnanimous when things are going well. But when the economy tanks, people tend to blame the people costing the country the most; the homeless, the sick, etc. I know my family loves me….never a doubt. But at some level, they think I could do something with my life if I just tried.
Those are dangerous and erroneous conclusions. Someone who can express herself fairly well isn’t necessarily suited for a job that requires doing certain things at certain times. I’m in so much pain most of the time I can’t think straight. And the pills don’t help. It’s shaming enough without knowing people are thinking you’re not trying hard enough.
So those of you with children with NF, remember there are non verbal learning disabilities that are often invisible. We are often invisible. I was a ghost in high school, and I'm a ghost now. Can't wait to be a real one!
This happened to me about 20 years ago, and it took me 10 years before I shared it with anyone at all. But my spiritual life is important to me, and this was such an incredible experience, it changed me completely. I think the show “Ghost Whisperer” gave me courage to go ahead and share it with more people….and now I’m ready to go public. In retrospect, it doesn’t seem like a big deal; but at the time, it was huge. I want to be clear about something since I’m posting this experienced. It all happened PRIOR to my illness becoming what it is today. In other words, I wasn’t even taking aspirin at the time….completely and totally drug free, not for medicinal reasons, and never recreationally.
1988
I had awakened at about 5 a.m., and seeing that I didn’t have to get up for another hour, I rolled over to go back to sleep. But trust me, this was no dream. Suddenly, there appeared before me three people, and they were laying down. They appeared in a kind of holographic form, on a screen that was brightly lit from behind. There was an adult woman, who was closest to me, and adult man, who was next to her, and a child, I think male. My heart was racing and I tried to make sense out of what I was seeing. I managed to sputter “Who are you” at which point the woman turned her head and looked directly into my eyes. There was also a cat in the scene, who circled around the three of them once. Then the scene dropped from view and the room went black again.
I was so scared, words cannot describe it. I was wide awake, shaking like a leaf and trying to understand what I had seen. I told no one, but of course, could not forget or understand it.
Three weeks later, I was sleeping somewhere else, (the change in venue convinced me the house I was living in had nothing to do with it) and I awoke early in the morning and saw the woman standing before me. Again, she was lit from behind. She was holding a telephone receiver, and screaming into it, though I heard nothing. She was crying and desperately trying to communicate something. This time, I was more curious then scared. Again, it appeared as a holographic image. Again, I asked “Who are you” and again, the image disappeared. When I wrote that it dropped from view, I mean it literally. Like an elevator, it simply dropped out of sight.
At that point, I was very curious and very frustrated. After the first time, I began to see images whenever I closed my eyes; disembodied heads floating by, staring at me, mouthing things I couldn’t hear. Sometimes I saw street scenes or other images I did not understand.
After that, I went to a psychic, something I had never done before. I told her the story and said I feared I had attracted something dark in my life. She did a reading and said that no, this was someone caught in the astral plane, and if I saw her again, I was to send her into the light I was seeing behind her. This was all very new to me; I had never heard of anything like it before. She said I needed to do it quickly, because time was of the essence. Of course, I had no control over whether or not I’d see her, but I promised to do just that if I did.
Three weeks after that, (why these three week intervals, I do not know) I did see her again. This time, the phone was at her side, and she was sobbing but not frantically, just in sort of a hopeless matter. I asked her to look at me. She met my eyes, and I told her to turn and go into the light. I told her her husband and son were waiting for her (I have no idea who those other people were, but those words just left my mouth before I could think about it). She looked at me for a while, and turned and walked into the light, which was fading.
I never saw her again. But I continued to see images, most of people I do not know. And it all STOPPED when I began taking pain medication. So it has nothing so ever to do with medication.
My guides are the strong women in my life who have passed. Not all of them; some are people I do not know. But most are people I do.
I wish I had taken the time to develop whatever gift I have that allowed me to do that for her. I know this was not something that I made up…it happened, it was powerful, and I know I have a connection to something I do not understand. We all do, I think, but due to my life circumstance (having a lot of time on my hands due to illness) I have been able to develop some of those skills.
Okay….well, now that I’ve become a weirdo….lolo…. I’m sure I’m not alone.
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