by John Edward
“I can’t believe how many people are in love with Mikey,” she said. What they didn’t know was the latest chapter. They were anxious to hear about it, and Terri was eager to share it with them.
In the summer of 1998, Terri had called from her home in Florida, saying she really needed to see me. By now I knew this meant that she wanted to connect with Mikey, but it was becoming difficult to do this objectively because I knew him and his family so well. Still, how could I say no to Terri? I told her she was in luck—Sandra and I were going down to Florida in a few weeks. I asked her to beep me the night I was to arrive, and we would set up a time to get together. But the night I was supposed to be in Florida, I called Terri and told her I had missed my flight and would be a day late. What I didn’t tell her was the reason I had missed my flight, and why I was coming the next morning. Sandra and I had had a little, uh, disagreement, and I told her to go to Florida without me. Alone that night in my office, a picture of Mikey fell over. I heard a little voice say, “What about my grandma?” Okay, Mikey. I’ll make a deal with you. If Sandra calls me in the next half hour, I’ll go. No surprise: The phone rings and Sandra says, “John, come down.”
I flew to Florida the next morning and arranged to see Terri at her apartment that afternoon. On the drive from my hotel, I began trying to connect with Mikey. I told him that he had come through for his family many times, but I needed him to come through differently this time. I needed validation that I could trust in order for me to do right by his grandmother. When I arrived at Terri’s house, I said hello to her daughter Donna and Donna’s husband, who were visiting from up north. I looked around for Artie, Mikey’s grandfather, but figured he was out playing golf.
We chatted for nearly an hour, then I broke the formalities and attempted a reading. He did come through, but he didn’t step forward like I expected him to. Actually, he stepped back and showed me his hand holding the hand of a male figure above him. The older male was wearing a military uniform. And then I realized why I hadn’t seen Artie when I came in. Mikey was bringing his grandfather through—Terri’s husband. “Terri, this can’t be,” I said, knowing it was. “Mikey is telling me that you lost your husband, and he’s bringing him to you.”
“Yes,” she said sadly. “Artie died last month.”
“Terri, I’m so sorry.”
For a moment we weren’t in a reading. Terri told me that her husband had died on the golf course. “He fell asleep in a golf cart and never woke up,” she said. She didn’t have a chance to say goodbye, so she called me right after the funeral. Sally, Terri’s daughter and Mikey’s mom, thought that she should tell me her husband had passed.
“If you don’t, he’ll think you’re testing him,” Sally had told her mother. Terri disagreed: “I think John would prefer not to know. If I told him and Dad comes through, John is going to feel he already knew it.” I told Terri how right she was. She had given me the cleanest slate to work with. My logical mind told me Artie was out golfing. My psychic mind relied on Mikey.
Artie Kaplowitz was a Korean War veteran who was extremely proud of his military record but was very quiet about it. He had been awarded the Bronze Star but never told anyone, even his wife, exactly how he had earned it. All Terri knew was that he lost most of his company. The first time I read them, some of his army buddies came through, walking on a battlefield. Artie never wanted to talk about the details of the war, Terri later told me, but it was the most unforgettable period of his life. So it made perfect sense to her that he would show up a few weeks after his death wearing his uniform but saying nothing more about it.
The first thing Artie wanted her to know, not surprisingly, was that he was with Mikey. That, of course, was what Terri wanted to hear. She was so glad that Donna was there to hear it, and couldn’t wait to call Sally to tell her. Sally had told me years earlier that one of the things that disturbed her most was the fear that her little boy was all alone on the other side, with no one to take care of him. My feeling was always that Mikey was doing just fine, and in fact he was taking care of others. I remember that in 1995, Mikey told me during a reading with his aunt that he was going to be busy for a while, “going to school to help children cross over.” About three weeks later, the federal office building in Oklahoma City was blown up. Still, no matter how well Mikey had made the transition, the fact that he was with his grandpa would give everyone in the family some comfort about Artie’s sudden passing.
“Do you know why I sat here talking to you for an hour?” I asked Terri. “I know you always want to hear from Mikey. On the way over, I was trying to get Mikey’s energy, but I couldn’t. I kept trying, but it wasn’t happening. That’s because Artie had to come through.” I’m sure Mikey was stepping aside to let his grandpa get his messages through.
Knowing how important validation is, Artie offered Terri plenty. “He’s telling me that you said you’d be out of here if anything happened to him. But he says you should stay put.” My God, Terri said. I had just repeated word-for-word a conversation she’d had with herself—and hadn’t shared with Artie—a few days before he passed.
“You know how sometimes you get feelings, warnings?” Terri said. “The Wednesday before he died, I walked into the closet, and twice a picture flashed through my head of me taking his clothes out. I said, ‘Artie, if anything happens to you, I’m outta here.’ ”
When Terri told the story at the retreat, she talked about how happy she was that her husband and grandson were together. “He’s so happy to have his grandpa with him,” Terri said. “I always thank you, John, for keeping Mikey alive. And now they’re both with me.” When I read Terri’s group, Mikey came through to say that he would be at an upcoming celebration. Terri said her daughter and son-in-law were planning a big Sweet 16 party for Mikey’s big sister, Cara. Mikey said he was coming with his grandpa.
Mikey’s appearance on the island was the first time in a while I had heard from him. He had always come through as someone who wanted to grow and accomplish things and do his job—helping children cross over, for instance. So I wasn’t surprised when he came through during my reading with Terri’s group and said that he now wanted to be called Michael. It was his way of saying he was moving on.
“I feel like we’re losing our little boy,” I told Terri.
“John,” she said, “I absolutely feel the same way.” We both got tears in our eyes. “I think they stay with you more at your most vulnerable time,” Terri said. “I don’t know if you’re ever really the same, but I think they say, ‘They’re okay now. They’re functioning. So now I can go on and do my other jobs.’ Not that they ever come out of your life.”
No, they don’t. I heard later that Donna, Mikey’s—excuse me, Michael’s—aunt, had gone for a reading with John Holland, a well-known medium in Massachusetts. Sometime later, the medium heard the voice of a little boy saying, “Tell my mommy I love her hair.” He went to his appointment book and picked out Donna’s name and called her. “I think this message is for you,” he said. And sure enough, when Donna called her sister, Sally told her that she had gotten a new hairstyle and was upset that neither her husband nor her daughter had commented on it.
Mikey’s story was so powerful that it inspired a song. It was by Annie Haslam, the former Renaissance singer Rick Korn invited to the World Hunger Year benefit at Town Hall and coaxed onto the stage to sing about angels. After we met that night in November of 1998, Annie took home a copy of the just-released One Last Time. Annie was recovering from breast cancer at the time and brought the book to an appointment with her oncologist. In one sitting in the waiting room, she read the chapter about Mikey—and wrote a song about him, which she later recorded. “This song is about the bond between a mother and child and the proof that there really are no boundaries to love, which will always exist between them,” Annie wrote in the liner notes of her CD, The Dawn of Ananda, an album of songs about angels. “While I was singing this song I felt the presence of Mikey, which I believe you wil
l hear . . . ”
It was a beautiful, haunting song called “Precious One”:
Unfolding as the storm clears, a woman left more wise Someone standing by the door, the memory of a child It feels like many years now, the scent that will not go away It’s really not that long, though, an empty shell, nowhere to play Precious one, you cannot touch the ones you love now Precious one, you try to make them see . . .
She knows he is waiting there, will always grace her sleep. Her questions all answered now, no fear is left inside Peace of mind returns a perfect gift of life Precious one, your little hands are pure white wings now Precious one, your voice at last is heard.
I’ve always considered song lyrics a great vehicle of communication between the spirit world and the physical one. So often, spirits use them to convey thoughts and emotions more eloquently than we mediums possibly can, sometimes using them as a powerful postscript—Roger’s “Kiss and Say Goodbye” to Nicole being the most intense example I’ve experienced. It’s like the difference between Morse code and T. S. Eliot. I found it tremendously rewarding to know that the spirits that have come through me aren’t only using music; they’re inspiring it.
On the last night of the retreat, we had what I called a “healing circle.” Everyone came together and talked about their experiences during the week and what they had learned from them. We laughed and cried, a very therapeutic finale to an affecting week. And then I did something I had not intended to do. Before going to Barbados, I had thought about bringing a certain song by Celine Dion to play at the end of the retreat. But I had decided that it would be too emotional. For me, anyway.
The song is one that I associated with a friend of mine who had died eight months earlier. Clyde Corday was sixty-two when he died, and he had been with his partner, Patrick, for thirty years. Clyde was a truly compassionate person, funny, with an amazing energy. You couldn’t help but love him. Until he got sick, he was very youthful-looking—he reminded me of the actor Nathan Lane.
Sandra and I had met Clyde through a friend when we needed someone to redecorate our house. But it was Clyde’s mother who drew us together as friends. We were downstairs, talking about converting the basement into my office space, when Clyde’s mother decided to “show up.” She was very quick, very powerful—another surprise attack reading.
This is pretty much all you need to know about Clyde: At the height of my gloom in 1999, after I flew home from Dallas with my tail between my legs, I walked into my house to find Clyde and Patrick with a dinner they had prepared for Sandra and me, complete with soothing music and candlelight. When I walked in, Clyde said, “I know you’re feeling like what you’re doing is not being received well. But I needed to come and do this for you and tell you that you are loved, you’re doing the right thing, and you’re helping a lot of people. Look at me. I didn’t believe in what you did. I thought this was a bunch of malarkey. And then after that day in your basement, I had no choice but to believe in what you did. It took me a couple of weeks to recuperate from that experience, but I’m back, and anytime she wants to come through again, I’m open for it.”
A few months later, I was just home from another trip when I heard that Clyde had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. I went straight to the hospital. I hadn’t seen him in a while. He looked so old. He opened his eyes and looked at me.
“Hey, Clyde,” I said, still standing near the door
“Who are you?” he asked. My heart dropped.
“Clyde, it’s John.”
“John? John Edward?”
“Yeah, John Edward.”
“Shit.”
“What’s the matter, Clyde?”
“Did I cross over?”
“No, Clyde.”
“Good. I just figured you’d be the only person I’d still be able to talk to if I did.”
We laughed about it, and I walked over and took his hand. I asked him how he was doing. He looked at me and shook his head. He asked about Sandra, and about my assistant, Carol, and her kids. They’re all fine, I said. And how’s the Lion King? he asked. I called my friend Joanne “King of the Forest.” Clyde could never get it straight and always called her the Lion King. He wanted me to say hi for him. Then he said he was tired and wanted to rest his eyes.
“I think I’m leaving, John,” he said.
Driving home from the hospital, I put in Celine Dion’s new CD, All the Way. Near the end, there was a track called “Live,” a song about a beautiful starry night, “not a night to die,” and the feeling of wanting to live for the one you love, loving as no one has ever loved before.
I drove home in tears. Listening to these words after saying good-bye to my dying friend just destroyed me. Live your life as best you can, and love like you’ve never loved before. Clyde died soon after that. At the time, I was beginning to write a short novel called What If God Were the Sun?. There was only one purely nonfiction passage in the book. It was about Clyde’s memorial service.
Packing for the retreat eight months later, I thought of ending the healing circle with the Celine Dion song, but I didn’t think I could do it. I left the CD home. One morning I walked down to the house my Uncle Joey was renting for the week of the retreat. It was right outside the hotel complex, and I decided to lay out in the sun next to the pool. He put on a tape he had made, and the song came on. “Johnny, are you listening to this song?” Joey said. I couldn’t speak. “Johnny, are you listing to this song? Johnny! You need to play this song at the end of your thing.” He didn’t know the story behind the song—didn’t know I had contemplated bringing it down just for that reason.
“I want to end tonight in a special way,” I announced as the healing circle and the retreat drew to a close later that week. “I want to prepare you, because I think it’s going to be extremely emotional. But I can’t think of any better way for me to end what we’ve all accomplished here this week.” I dimmed the lights, and we all sat in a circle, everyone feeling a connection to the people who were strangers to them six days earlier. They understood the bonds they had lost through death, and the rejoining they felt that week was magic. I started the circle by asking each person to make an acknowledgment of those who had crossed over, and I could feel the emotion rise in the room. When it was my turn, I said, “This is in honor of my friend Clyde.” I stopped and tried to get the words out. “I know he’s watching us. And the rest of our family and friends who we all have spoken to this week are here watching us.”
I started the song, and as it echoed loudly off the walls, everyone in the room started to break down, one by one. There was a woman, a beautiful lady who was always laughing and smiling. Her son committed suicide. She trembled, and everybody around her drew close and hugged her. There were two young women, Kathy and Andrea, both from upstate New York. One had lost her husband, the other her boyfriend. In separate readings, the men they lost came through, but for the partner of the other. They didn’t know each other, but it brought them together. As the song played, Kathy started to cry hard, and Andrea ran across the circle and threw her arms around her.
When it was over, I knew I would make retreats both in the United States and abroad part of my life in the coming years. But I knew that this first experience was so perfect that it would forever be special to all of us, both on this side and the other.
The Talent
TWO LAST-MINUTE GUESTS had dropped in on the retreat midway through the week. Dana Calderwood came down with Paul Shavelson, the producer he and his partners in Glow in the Dark Productions were trying to bring on to Crossing Over. Bonnie Hammer wanted us to be shooting our first shows in six weeks—basically a barn-raising—and Dana was hoping that forty-eight hours in paradise would present Paul with the evidence he needed to bring him into the fold. Meanwhile, Dana brought a portable digital video camera with them to shoot some readings for the show.
Back in New York, Dana and his partner, Shirley Abraham, were well into creating the show by this time. They’d found a studio, had a set
designed, and were in the process of forming the backbone of the show’s staff, recruiting the producers who would do the day-to-day work of turning out segments that honestly reflected fifteen-minute readings in less than five minutes of tape. This wasn’t your regular TV show, so for Shirley and Dana, hiring these producers wasn’t as simple as collecting resumés or calling people they had worked with before. The people who would work on Crossing Over had to be considered not only for their TV work, but also for their cosmic attitudes. They didn’t have to be in the 20 percent who are True Believers. But they couldn’t be in the 20 percent on the other end of the scale, either. My usual standard held: Skeptics are fine; cynics need not apply.
Of course, Paul was coming to Barbados with a suitcase of skepticism that had nothing to do with a belief in a conscious afterlife. He was down for that. What he wasn’t convinced of was the viability of a television show about the subject hosted by a psychic medium. But it was just that conflict that put him on the plane. He believed in the topic. He was interested in me. And he wanted to see if there was a way to make this marriage work.
Paul found the challenge so irresistible, in fact, that he was blowing off CBS just to have a look. They wanted him for a new show called Big Brother. Someone from the network tracked Paul down in the Caribbean and asked him what he was doing there. “I told you,” he said. “I’m checking out the psychic.” Really? the guy said. “He thought I just told them that as a play for more money,” Paul told me later. “They couldn’t believe I was going to do a psychic show on Sci Fi instead of the big network spectacular. They just could not believe it.” Paul and I shared a belief in the way the universe works. When people ask me what books they should read about spirit communication and the afterlife, I always tell them to just go to a bookstore—the right books will find them. Paul felt that way about projects. The right ones had a way of finding him. And they were usually not the obvious ones.