Embracing the Spirit

At one point during our conversation, to my amazement and then horror, he began singing an old hymn to me. I have never heard a voice more beautiful, more powerful or more compelling. He sang so loudly it was as if he were singing to some unknown audience, transforming his voice into an instrument that would travel the farthest of distances. I sat frozen and dumbstruck. No one had ever sung in my office before! I was particularly concerned about the obvious disruption this must be causing my partner Kathy, as at the time our offices were directly adjoining. I knew I should stop him, and yet how could I reject the one and only gift he had ever sent my way without destroying our already precarious relationship? I opted with great anxiety to allow him to finish his song, knowing full well that Kathy would be unable to continue her session until he stopped singing. When the song was over, I breathed a sigh of relief and then genuinely expressed my admiration of his powerful voice. I then inquired as to what had moved him to begin singing. He offered me no explanation. He, himself, did not know why.

When I bumped into Kathy later, I immediately apologized for disrupting her session. She gave me a meaningful smile and replied, "believe me, it was meant to be." I wondered what she could have meant by that, and whole-heartedly agreed with her when I discovered the significance of her response.

While I was meeting with Andy, Kathy was working with the bereaved child. Kathy asked her to read the letter that she had requested the young girl write to her father. The child had agreed to do so, after informing Kathy that she did not see what good it would do because her father could not answer her. Prompted by Kathy, she began reading the letter aloud in a voice that held no emotion. It was as if she were simply performing yet another meaningless task. From the other side of the wall, an unseen voice abruptly entered the room. It was so loud that she was forced to quit reading and she and Kathy decided to simply wait the interruption out. The words were very clear in the silence of the office, and left with nothing else to do, they listened. To Kathy's astonishment, the voice sang on about keeping faith and about going forward in spite of difficulty and pain. Kathy recognized it as a hymn that she had always loved, and as it continued to communicate in as powerful a way as she had ever heard it delivered, she looked at the young girl who gazed back at her in wonder, and said softly, "I think you have your answer." The song ended with the following refrain filling the room, "You'll never walk alone." The girl nodded her head in agreement. She fully accepted this song as a message from the father she couldn't see, hear, or feel, delivered by an unseen and untouchable voice which reached out to her from the other side (of the wall).

The final two experiences that I wish to share involve the invisible connections that link many of us to important people in our lives. My own experiences with this remarkable communication system are many, and while I do not understand exactly how it comes to be, I am as certain of its existence as I am of the pond that I see when I look out my living room window.

A few years before leaving Maine, my husband and I went to South Carolina on vacation. We had a wonderful time, and I was able to relax and not worry for the most part about my clients. The one thing that was somewhat strange, however, was a song that kept running through my head over and over. It was a song I had not heard, I suspected, since I was 13 or 14 years old. The tune was by Bobby Sherman entitled, simply, "July 17." It left me slightly uneasy, although I could not imagine why.

Upon returning from vacation, I met with a young woman to whom I had grown very close. She had struggled for years with depression and anxiety and was often fighting thoughts of suicide. She shared with me that she hadn't planned to see me again after our last visit. She'd determined a date upon which she'd finally surrender to her suicidal impulses. I found myself experiencing hot flashes, and waves of dizziness swept over me as she spoke. The date she had decided to end her life was July 17th.

The date had passed, and I breathed a sigh of relief as she explained that she had made a major decision as the date approached. She decided that she would not surrender her life because of the abuse she had suffered as a child. She would be a survivor. She also resolved that she would never again consider suicide an option. "I've decided to be a survivor and to live no matter what" she promised. While her pain at times is still excruciating, she has remained exactly that, a survivor.

When I was in graduate school, I was going through a very difficult time in my life. One night I was unable to sleep. I had a particularly stressful day before me, and I became increasingly anxious as the early hours of the morning approached. My anxiety eventually gave way to desperation and a feeling akin to terror. I decided to take a shower, sobbing uncontrollably by then. As the water washed over me, I felt my control slipping further away. I began to fear that perhaps I was sliding into some terrible place I would never be able to come out of. Once I was out of the shower, I began to write a letter to my family and husband (who was away on a business trip). While I have no memory of considering taking my life, I recall that what I was writing was a good-bye letter. Once the letter was completed, I began to shake violently. Just then the phone rang. I glanced at the clock. It was 5:30 a.m. Now I was absolutely terrified. I answered it with an overpowering sense of dread. It was my mother calling from over 200 miles away. "Tam?" she said. "Ma, why are you calling? It's 5:30 in the morning," I blurted. Her response was simply, "Tam, I heard you cry."

I began weeping, only this time it was in recognition of some tremendous magic. It was as if I had fallen only to be caught by some mysterious grace, my mother's grace... My mother explained that she'd been sound asleep when she was awakened to hear me sobbing. She knew something was terribly wrong and got up and immediately dialed my number. She soothed me and spoke gently as if I was a small child. I began to feel calmer and safe once again. My mother had never before nor since called me at an unusual hour in response to an intuition that I was in trouble. Also, at no other time in my life have I experienced anything similar to what I experienced that long and lonely winter night. While I'm not sure what led me to such a frightening and desperate state, I do know that my mother heard my cry from over 200 miles away, and that we are eternally joined in some profound way. It is as if I had uttered a plea to the heavens, and my mother answered my prayer.

There are many more stories I have considered relating. However, I trust that I have made my point. It feels tremendously risky to share these experiences, and I'm not certain I would find them entirely believable had I not been a direct participant. I can rest assured at the very least however that those who have shared them with me are as convinced as I of their validity, though we might differ as to how we interpret them.