The Boy Who Knew Too Much

by Cathy Byrd

  “Michael! The movie Pride of the Yankees was wrong, and my regression was right! Lou and his parents were never told that he was going to die.”

  Lowering my voice, I methodically explained the contents of the letter to Michael. My suspicion was confirmed: Lou Gehrig had no clue that his death was imminent when he delivered his “Luckiest Man” retirement speech at Yankee Stadium.

  The letter also gave details about a horrible fight between Eleanor and Christina Gehrig that had estranged Lou from his parents for the last three months of his life. Eleanor’s mother wrote that the fight began when the two ladies were in the kitchen while Lou was asleep in the other room. According to Lou’s mother-in-law, Eleanor exploded after Christina said to her, “Dry beans are better for vitamins. If Louie had stayed with me, this never would have happened!” Of Eleanor’s reaction, her mother wrote:

  Eleanor became incensed, and in a gush told Mom of every unhappiness Mom had caused. In a torrent of words she said everything that had been pent up so long. In closing Eleanor said, “You and your cooking, look at Pop, - he is epileptic, - look at yourself, - you have blood pressure and heart trouble, and that boy upstairs is sick, - now look at me – look at Nel – look at Bud, - we are so healthy. Maybe some day when the cause of this disease is known it might be you who will blush.

  I couldn’t help but think how sad Lou’s mother must have been when Lou died less than three months after this argument. Could this be the “yelling” that Christian had spoken of when we talked about Lou Gehrig’s wife that one night before bed? I had a strong feeling that Lou’s parents were not able to say proper good-byes to their son during the months, weeks, and days leading up to his passing, due to the rift between Christina and Eleanor.

  I waited until my last day at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Giamatti Research Center to make a trip to the photo archives to retrieve the photos of Lou Gehrig. In retrospect I think my hesitation to look at the photos was due to my fear that I might not be able to find the photo of Lou Gehrig and his baby sister from my regression that I so desperately wanted to locate.

  A friendly employee named John, who was responsible for maintaining the photo archives, treated Charlotte and me to a tour of the frigid 55-degree vault where all of the photos that had been donated to the museum over the past 75 years were stored. I was awestruck to see aisle after aisle of countless photos hanging in file folders from floor to ceiling. The sleeveless tops and shorts Charlotte and I were wearing did not adequately prepare us for the experience of walking into what felt like a refrigerator in the middle of summer.

  After gathering all the Lou Gehrig folders from the G section, we returned to the research library. I donned my white gloves and attacked the 12 file folders like a wild animal on a hunt for prey. After sorting through photos for an hour, I came to the last file in the huge stack labeled Gehrig Family. Photo one, photo two, photo three. Then, at the bottom of the pile of photos . . . there it was.

  My gloved fingers trembled as I picked it up: a photo of young Lou Gehrig and his baby sister riding in a horse-drawn carriage together. I could have cried. Lou was seated in the front seat of the carriage holding on to the reigns of the horse with a big smile on his face. Beside him was an elderly woman with her arm around Lou, and seated on the woman’s lap was a baby wearing a white bonnet. It had to be Sophie!

  My heart raced with joy as I held the black-and-white photo, which had yellowed over the years, in my hands. I was relieved to know that Christina Gehrig was able to fulfill her dream of having a photo taken of her children together prior to her daughter Sophie’s death. Of all the scenes I experienced during my past-life regressions, Christina’s short-lived time as a mother of two children appeared to be the happiest time of her life. Seeing the photo made me think about the sibling bond between Charlotte and Christian. My heart ached for Christina Gehrig.

  On the last day of baseball camp, Charlotte and I got in on the action during the parents-versus-kids scrimmage, where the kids who had participated in the camp pitched to their respective family members. Christian loved trying to strike us out, although he was unsuccessful in the attempt. On our way out of town, we made one last stop at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum, where Christian and Charlotte reveled in taking photos of all the exhibits. We then drove four hours to the Bronx to see one of Derek Jeter’s final games as a Yankee. Christian became Derek Jeter’s number one fan after I told him that Derek was the first Yankee in history to break Lou Gehrig’s all-time hitting record.

  I was a little nervous about knocking on the doors of Lou Gehrig’s old homes, so I saved that task for our last full day in New York. As we drove up to the home at 9 Meadow Lane in New Rochelle, I had a feeling of déjà vu. The white house sat on top of a hill and looked exactly like the home I had seen and described while under hypnosis. Christian took pictures of the house and Charlotte took pictures of Christian taking pictures of the house as we made our way up the steep, grassy front yard.

  We followed Christian’s lead as he ran up the steps to the enclosed porch and knocked on the front door. We were greeted by the friendly and charismatic owner of the home, Jimmy, and with a classic New York accent he introduced us to his lovely girlfriend, Marisol. Without acknowledging my letter directly, he implied that he was aware of our plan to visit and kindly invited us inside to take a tour of the home. I’m guessing the floor plan had remained the same ever since Lou Gehrig purchased the home in 1927, because the home appeared to be untouched by the modern world, with the exception of a few new appliances. While Marisol stayed busy in the kitchen, her nine-year-old nephew and their two cats, Tiger and Sofia, followed us from room to room in the four-story home.

  Jimmy’s tour even included a peek into the basement. When I saw the basement bathroom, which was still equipped with the original bathtub and chain-pull toilet from when the home was built in 1905, I found myself daydreaming about days gone by. He told us the basement bathroom was most likely built back in the day so that the coal workers wouldn’t need to come into the main house to wash off when delivering coal. Up in the attic, Jimmy pointed out an old, cedar closet and a light fixture that was originally plumbed for gas. Jimmy was amused when I shared the story of how Christian had told us about his childhood home having “fire in the lights” when he was a kid before. I explained that this was my first time ever seeing a gas-fueled light fixture because most of the homes in our Southern California community were built after 1960.

  As we stood on the enclosed porch of the big, white house at 9 Meadow Lane where Lou Gehrig lived with his parents from 1927 to 1933, Christian looked lost in thought for a moment.

  “This is where Babe Ruth used to smoke,” he said.

  I knew from my research that Babe Ruth was a frequent visitor to the home on Meadow Lane and even lived with the Gehrig family for a year after the death of his first wife. I also knew that Babe was well known for his gregarious drinking and smoking, but these were not things Christian was ever made aware of.

  As we departed Jimmy told us a story about an elderly man who had told him he used to deliver newspapers to the Gehrig family at that address as a child. Jimmy said the man always hoped that Lou’s mother would be the one to answer the door when he arrived because she was a good tipper, unlike Lou who never gave him a tip and was known for being a spendthrift. I laughed when telling Jimmy that my son was the only child I’ve ever known who returned everything he ever bought with his own money because of regrets about spending. “Perhaps old habits die hard,” Jimmy joked, “You know, this house was one of the only big purchases Lou Gehrig ever made. It’s the only home he ever owned.”

  Before going to the airport to head home to Los Angeles, we made a stop in Valhalla, New York where the ashes of Lou Gehrig and his parents are buried. Christian’s mood was serious when he placed a flower on Lou’s tombstone. Even Charlotte, who sometimes teased him about being Lou Gehrig, respected the significance of the moment by reaching out to hold her brother’s hand
as she read the names inscribed on the tombstones to him. I found it ironic that the final resting place of Christina and Henry Gehrig was just a few feet away from that of Lou’s wife Eleanor Gehrig, given their tumultuous relationships. It was a very special and unforgettable moment for all three of us when Christian said his final good-byes to the man who had consumed his existence for the past three years.

  Soon after we got home, one of Christian’s baseball buddies challenged him to participate in the ALS Ice Bucket challenge that was sweeping the nation in July and August of 2014. Charlotte was delighted by the opportunity to dump a big bucket of icy water on her little brother’s head, and Christian, who was well aware by now that ALS had taken Lou Gehrig’s life, loved every last drop.

  Christian’s stories about his life as Lou Gehrig dwindled drastically after our visit to the cemetery that day. Our trip to New York, originally planned as an expedition to reignite Christian’s past-life memories, turned out to provide the closure I had been hoping for since Dr. Tucker’s visit four months earlier—closure for Christian and for our entire family.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  FAMILY HEIRLOOMS

  “For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had

  happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that

  very few things indeed were really impossible.”

  LEWIS CARROLL, ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

  In the fall of 2014, Christian’s past-life recollections appeared to be taking a backseat to regular six-year-old activities, such as playing AYSO soccer and riding his bike with the neighborhood kids. Much to my delight, he was suddenly no longer interested in talking about his life as Lou Gehrig before bedtime. Instead he begged me to read him books like Froggy Plays T-Ball and Casey at the Bat. I think the nail in the coffin for his past-life memories was when the neighborhood kids made fun of him for saying that he was Lou Gehrig. When I heard Christian come through the front door sobbing, I rushed out of my home office to see if he was injured. I found him collapsed on the floor with his head in his hands and his back up against the closed door. When I asked him what had happened, he gasped for breath and said through his tears, “Nobody believes I was Lou Gehrig.”

  My heart sank when I realized that Christian had shared his very intimate secret with his playmates, some of whom were five or six years older than him. I never wanted him to be ashamed of talking about his past-life memories, however I probably would have warned him that other people might not understand—if I had ever imagined him making a public declaration that he was Lou Gehrig. As heartbreaking as it was to see my son completely disillusioned, this incident served its purpose by propelling Christian out of the past and into the present. He was finally ready to be Christian Haupt.

  I thought I was also done exploring my personal connection to Christina Gehrig that had surfaced through my past-life regressions until I went to see Jeroen for a third time and inadvertently slipped back down into the rabbit hole. Jeroen had offered me a complimentary past-life regression in return for a workshop I had treated him to and I decided to take him up on his generous offer in November 2014.

  Without any prompting from Jeroen, which is his standard practice, I once again ended up right back in the life of Christina Gehrig. The scene did not come into focus immediately, but as he questioned me about my surroundings, the images began to materialize. The first thing I saw was a small dog that I described as “a boy dog.” I said he was sitting beside me on a “stiff couch” with a “low back,” and under my feet was what I described as “a woven rug.” When Jeroen asked me to describe what I looked like, I said I was female with white skin and blue eyes, a “bigger” body type, and a round face with glasses. I could feel aching pain in my hands telling him: “I am knitting or something . . . My hands are a little tired and sore. A little old, I think. They are arthritic, I think.”

  “What are you wearing?” Jeroen asked.

  With my eyes closed, I glanced down at my body. “A big dress, almost like a robe . . . house shoes, not really slippers, but enclosed shoes.” Each time Jeroen directed my attention to something new in my environment, the details came to life in my mind. He asked if I was wearing a hat, and I replied, “No, but I have my hair up, though, up on the back of my head, like a bun. My hair is gray.”

  When Jeroen asked what I was feeling, I said with a heavy heart, “A little sadness.”

  He quickly changed the topic to a lighter subject.

  “What is the weather like?”

  “It is kind of cool outside. There is a window to my left. It’s chilly. Everything looks a bit frozen.”

  Jeroen followed up by asking, “Is the place heated?” I said there was a stove heater in the corner of the room, a wooden coffee table with newspapers on it, and a tall lamp near the couch.

  When Jeroen asked me what the walls looked like, I replied, “Like plaster walls, and wood floor, and kind of a raised foundation. Not on the ground, up a little higher.”

  I recall looking out of the window to my left and seeing a rather large front yard with a gravel driveway to the right of the house with parked cars. I told Jeroen there were other people living in the house.

  “Are they in the same room too?”

  I described a lady cooking in the kitchen and smiled when telling Jeroen, “She’s my friend.” Jeroen then asked what it smelled like, and I said, “Some bread. I think their family is gonna come home for lunch.” I can still remember the smell of the bread baking in the oven as if I had really been there. Jeroen asked if I was living with the family.

  “Yeah, with the family.”

  Jeroen gently inquired, “What about you, do you have a family?”

  “No, I have my dog,” I said with a laugh.

  It was clear to me in that moment that this was the same good-humored woman Jeroen and I had met in my earlier past-life regressions.

  “How do you spend the majority of your time?” Jeroen asked.

  “I just keep busy reading, knitting, crossword puzzles sometimes.”

  When he asked if I do any activities outside of the house, I told him that I drive sometimes. I described my car as “grayish-black, not real shiny . . . with a big tail end . . . a Ford or Chrysler or something like that.” In response to his question about what the house looked like, I replied, “It’s got siding on the outside, like slats of wood on the outside, white.” He asked how many floors the house had, and at first I said, “One,” but immediately changed my mind and said, “No, wait. There are stairs, but I don’t go up there. The kids might be upstairs. The stairs are wood too.”

  Then Jeroen asked, “How old are the kids?”

  I felt a warm smile come to my face as I replied, “A couple of boys, like eleven and twelve, and a little girl. Maybe ten- and twelve-year-old boys. They are sweet. I like being around family . . . They were nice to take me in. I kind of ran out of money. I have a little bit left, not really enough for a house. I used to have a house here.” I told Jeroen the family I lived with was much younger than me, but we had in common that they also came over from Germany and liked baseball too.

  This is when our conversation turned to Christina Gehrig’s passion for baseball. Jeroen inquired, “You say baseball?”

  I replied, “I think the little boys play Little League. I go watch the games nearby.” My voice became almost jovial when saying, “I like to bring treats for the boys, cookies.” When Jeroen asked what kind of cookies, I said proudly, “I make ’em. Chocolate chip, oatmeal.”

  Jeroen said, “I bet they like that.”

  I nodded in agreement and giggled while saying, “Yeah. They kind of expect them now. I can’t show up empty-handed. They sometimes run around my car when I’m coming there.”

  My mood quickly became somber when Jeroen again asked me, in a serious tone, if I had any family of my own. A deep feeling of despair enveloped me as I explained that both my son and my husband had passed away.

  “How do you deal with your loss?”

 
; “People still love him and they always tell me every day. They think of him, my son. My husband kind of gave up after my son died.”

  In response to Jeroen’s question as to whether I had any other kids, I said, “He had a wife, but she’s just different.” My logical mind was telling me that Christina Gehrig couldn’t stand the lady, even though the words coming out of my mouth were fairly kind.

  When Jeroen asked if I had any brothers or sisters, I told him that my father had remarried and had two kids after my mom died, but that they lived in Germany.

  “You’ve had a lot of loss,” Jeroen said.

  The somber mood lifted when I perked up and jokingly said, “Yeah. I got my animals to keep me company.”

  “More than the dog?”

  “I’ve had a couple of birds. I have one now.”

  I told him I kept the bird in a big, iron cage near the couch and said, “I cover it at night when it sleeps. That bird I’ve had a long time.” I described sticking my hand into the cage to take it out sometimes.

  Just as our conversation was getting lighter, Jeroen asked where my husband and son were buried. I said it was a big drive to visit their graves because they were buried in New York, near where we used to live. This is when my logical mind started silently questioning if I was just reciting things I already knew; I had just visited Lou Gehrig’s graveside in New York four months earlier.

  “Do you go by yourself when you go?”

  “Yeah, I do. I’ve done that by myself before—bring flowers. There’s always a lot of people there at the grave, at my son’s grave. They leave little things there for him.”

  My cynical mind was nowhere to be found when a peaceful feeling took over my body and I said, “I still feel connected to him. I kind of have a feeling he watches me.” Then Jeroen asked if I keep any of my son’s stuff anywhere. I said, “I have like a wooden chest that I keep some things in, a few things . . . old uniforms, jewelry.”