by John Edward
“I swear that when this boy came through for this woman, her energy became that of a small, scared, sad child who had carried the trauma and guilt of this boy’s death her whole life,” Diane wrote me in an e-mail. “There was something so moving about the moment when the message came through that she should let it go. I felt like I saw her be released of something. It took my breath away.”
And I think of the note I got three years ago from one of the closest people in my life, my best friend, Mark Misiano. In my lowest moments after One Last Time came out and I was contemplating going to vet school, it was Mark who helped get me back on track. This may not sound surprising, but he might not have been able to do it just a few years ago.
In July of 1998, I gave a seminar on Long Island that Mark attended. Seeing him in the audience was a strange experience for me. Mark had been to the first seminar I ever gave, about ten years earlier on Staten Island—and none since. What impressed him the most at that first event wasn’t my psychic ability—that was nothing new to him—but the fact that I was able to stand up in front of people and talk. In fact, at that event, all I did was talk about psychic theory. I didn’t do any readings, because I wasn’t ready to do it in public, in front of a lot of people. Over the next decade, Mark had little interest in coming to events where I was appearing. He knew what I did, and he thought it was pretty interesting. But when I tried to explain to him why it was so important, he really didn’t get it.
That all changed when he came to the seminar in 1998 and saw for the first time how people are affected by communications from loved ones on the other side. We were both a lot older now, and Mark could see how I had changed and how he was ready to understand my work. He himself was moved to tears that night, and sat down to write me an e-mail about how he had been affected. “Being at the seminar, I felt the pain that these people were going through, and at the same time, I could see and feel them healing or at least becoming more at peace,” Mark wrote, crying as he typed. “No one close to me has passed away. The first person I was really close to that passed away was your mother. She treated me as if I was her son, too. But I was away at school in Buffalo when she passed, and one of the things that really bothered me was that I was coming home to see her that weekend, but I never got the opportunity. Before tonight, I never understood how what you do could help people. Now I understand.”
Mark’s message was a signpost for me. It told me that I was finally becoming the teacher that Lydia Clar said I would, and that my guides had affirmed along the way. Now, three years later, I feel as though I’ve traveled miles more. I’ve crossed over one more bridge . . . on the road to the next. I know it may be a difficult one at times, but I can finally appreciate my grandmother Mary’s favorite saying, all these years after her daughter offered it to me as we made our long way back to our ship in St. Thomas.
I can now turn and see how far I’ve come, and look forward to the distances I have left to travel.
POSTSCRIPT
September 11, 2001
It is August of 2001, the end of a summer of major anticipation. Crossing Over, the television show, is about to debut in national syndication, while Crossing Over, the book, is soon to be published in hardcover. I want both to do well, of course, and I’m anxious. So maybe that explains the uneasy feelings I’m having. My wife, Sandra, is the first to notice I’m not quite myself. She always is.
Sandra is super-busy with her own work. For the past decade, she’s been the administrator for the New York Dancesport Championships. In fact, it’s where we met, back in 1992. For the last few years, she’s booked the event at the World Trade Center Marriott. This year, it’s scheduled for the weekend of August 10. It’s an event that draws people from all over the country, and for Sandra, it means months of preparation. It’s also one of the highlights of the year for me. I love stepping into a fantasy land of dance for three or four days. But this year is different, and I don’t know why. I keep telling Sandra that I don’t want to go. She’s used to my sometimes odd decisions based on “feelings,” but in this case she’s disappointed and more than a little frustrated. The competition is something we’ve always shared, but I keep telling her I don’t want to go to the Marriott.
The only exception is one of the evening events, which I’ve agreed to go to because I’ve made a commitment to my colleagues at Crossing Over—Dana, Shirley, and Charles, who make up the Glow in the Dark production team—who are thinking about producing a show on the subject of competitive ballroom dancing. I would be their personal announcer, explaining every dance, the different heats, styles, and rules of the sport. On Friday, August 10, we drive into the city, and during the event, I feel the vibration of my cell phone, letting me know I’ve missed a call. I try to get the voicemail message, but I can’t hear anything over the blaring music. I excuse myself and step outside the main ballroom. But I still can’t hear because the next set of competitors is practicing. So I walk through a set of glass doors, into the main lobby of the World Trade Center tower. The place is nearly deserted, just a few stragglers milling around, and as I punch the keypad on my phone to retrieve my message, I’m hit by a very cold, eerie feeling. I’m near a bank, and my first thought is that maybe it’s being robbed, or is going to be. I return the call and head back inside, imagining how a conversation might go if I decide to tell someone what I’ve just felt: “Hi, Officer, uh, my name is John Edward and I’m a psychic, and I think this bank is going to be robbed.” Just then, Sandra spots me and starts berating me for leaving Dana, Shirley, and Charles, as if I’ve left a baby unattended. Instantly, I’m sucked back into the competition.
Later that night, I ask Sandra how long the contract is with the Marriott. A few years, she says. I tell her I think she should look for a new place for next year. I don’t see it happening here.
IN THE YEAR SINCE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, many people have asked me if I knew anything about the horrible events of that day before they happened. The answer is yes and no. I had no clue that it would be an attack by terrorists or that it would involve the hijacking of airplanes. But in the weeks and even hours leading up to that morning that none of us will ever forget, I did have what in retrospect were strong indications of the tragedy that was about to befall so many families and our entire country. Over the years, there have been times when I felt overwhelmed by heavy feelings that I couldn’t explain at the time. They have often turned out to be followed by a major catastrophe, especially one occurring in close proximity to where I live. One day in the winter of 1993, I remember, I had a horrible feeling while having lunch with a co-worker from the hospital. When we got back to our desks, we heard that a bomb had exploded in the parking garage of the World Trade Center. I also had severe feelings of foreboding for days before the explosion and crash of TWA Flight 800 off the south shore of Long Island.
But I have never gotten such strong and unusual feelings as those that came through around the events of 9/11. And there has never been a public tragedy that has had a greater impact on my work and how it is perceived.
The images of September 11 and the days and weeks that followed will forever be burned in our personal and collective memories. Each of us will remember where we were that day and how we reacted to what we saw. Most of us saw the pictures on television, but some had to experience the attack firsthand. They were lucky to survive. And some will have to carry their memories with them for the rest of their lives as they grieve for loved ones lost in the attacks. For me, besides taking everything in as a human being, an American, and a New Yorker, I had to decide how I would deal with this terrible event in my work, and to come to terms with that decision.
I’d like to share my experiences of those days, weeks, and months in the fall of 2001 as they happened.
First Week of September
WITH THE SHOW going into national syndication and the book being launched, the summer has been filled with meetings, long hours, and media interviews. The producers at Larry King Live have invited me on the sh
ow the second week of September. They’ve given my publicist, Jill, a choice of two dates: September 10 or September 12. The show is being done in Los Angeles that week, so in either case I have to go out there. I call Jill to see if there’s any way they’ll let me do the show via satellite, but the producers say no.
“Which date?” she asks. “I need to let them know.”
Without a thought, I say, “It has to be the 10th. If it’s the 12th, they’ll have to cancel.” Jill asks me why, but all I know is that there will be breaking news on the 12th that will force them to knock me off the show. Not that it would be unusual. That happens all the time on Larry’s show—it’s happened to me.
“Okay,” Jill says with one of her there-he-goes-again laughs. “I’ll tell them the 10th.”
While all this is going on, I’m privately mourning my friend Shelley Peck. It’s only been a few months, and even though I know she’s all right and around, I miss her physical presence in my life. I wonder if this is what’s causing me to feel down. My instinct is that it’s something else. Little things are making me come undone. I’m finding myself responding irrationally to comments. Sandra thinks I should see a counselor to figure out what’s bothering me. “Everything’s going great,” she says. “The show, the book. Why are you freaking out on me?” She even jokes about my turning into one of those celebrities who can’t handle success. She says that, knowing I hate being associated with the word celebrity.
September 9 is our friend Stacy’s birthday, and her husband, Jon, wants us to celebrate with them. He drops in at my office to discuss what we might do, when Sandra calls and immediately switches into her alter-ego, Julie McCoy, the cruise director from the Love Boat. She starts rattling off her ideas for an action-packed surprise weekend for Stacy: We’ll check into a midtown hotel, have dinner, and see The Full Monty, the Broadway musical. On Sunday, we’ll have brunch. Later on, she has an idea of where to go: Windows on the World, the famous restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center. We did that for Sandra’s birthday one year. But when she suggests Windows, I flip out.
“There’s no #$%@# way I’m going into that building again,” I snap, reminding her of the severely negative feelings I had during the Dancesport competition. “I don’t even want to go downtown. Pick another place.”
Sandra looks at me with serious aggravation, puts her left hand on my face, and says, “Fine! We can go to Tavern on the Green. But you don’t have to be so damn nasty. What is wrong with you?”
I have no answer. The only thing I can think of is . . . parking. But it’s a lame excuse, and I decide to not even say it. Feeling bad, I offer an afternoon of shopping.
We have a memorable weekend, but for me it’s all I can do to mask how lousy I feel. On Sunday, we head back to Long Island, and Sandra and I both notice that Stacy seems down, too. After we drop Stacy and Jon off, Sandra tells me that Stacy had been a little sad about not celebrating her birthday with her four kids, who range from three to eight. So when we get home, Sandra calls and invites the whole family over for a pizza and ice cream party. We make Stacy wear a princess crown, and that seems to do the trick—for Stacy, anyway. While she and Sandra are in the kitchen, Jon and I are outside on the deck. Jon has been watching me all weekend, and asks me what’s wrong.
“Between you and Stacy, I don’t know who’s in a worse mood,” he says. “Do you want to talk?”
“I just have this very heavy feeling,” I tell him. “I’m so sad, and I can’t shake it.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I really don’t know.” I start complaining about having to fly to California the next day to do Larry King Live. Larry and his producers have been great to me over the last four years, and I love doing the show. But I just don’t want to fly—more than usual.
“Oh, stop whining like a baby,” Sandra says when she overhears me. “You’re just jealous you can’t come to see Michael Jackson,” she adds jokingly. Our friend Gina is in town from Los Angeles and has tickets to see his concert at Madison Square Garden Monday night.
Jon says he’s really concerned about me, and I assure him I’ll be fine once this mood passes. “Usually when I get like this, something big happens,” I tell him. “I used to call Shelley when I got like this and ask how she was feeling—did she have the same energy I did? She used to call it the doom-and-gloom feeling. If she had it, it always meant something outside of our own lives was happening, or about to happen. Challenger, Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine. I had that feeling every time. Now I don’t have Shelley to call and ask.”
“Well, I think Stacy might be taking her place,” Jon jokes. “She’s been in the same shitty mood.”
If this is why I feel so gloomy, I think, this is going to be really bad. The other times I only felt this way for a few days. This has been a few weeks.
Monday, September 10
I TAKE A MORNING FLIGHT to Los Angeles. Sandra will join me on Tuesday. I’ve secured tickets for the Latin Grammy Awards on Tuesday night, and Ricky Martin—one of her favorite artists—will be performing. At first Sandra wanted to take the red-eye on Monday night, but I told her to take the first flight out on Tuesday morning.
Arriving at Los Angeles International, I’m picked up and taken to the CNN studio by a driver named Jennifer. Once inside, I meet the producers and associate producers, and at a few minutes before six Pacific time, I’m ready to go on with Larry. Usually when I do his show, I feel like Lucille Ball at the chocolate factory, trying to make connections for caller after caller, hoping that the person understands the information while still on the line before he cuts them off to go to the next one. But this time is different. It’s more of a discussion than the other times I’ve been on. We take some calls, but there’s more discussion about death and the other side, the process of grieving, and connecting with our loved ones after they pass. While we’re talking, I know on a visceral level that this show is actually preparing people for the process of death and grieving. At the end of the show, I tell Larry that I truly believe that this particular appearance will help a lot of people, and afterward, I chat with his wife, Shawn. I ask her to tell Larry that tonight we really helped a lot of people deal with death and dying. She promises she will.
On the ride to my hotel, I glance at the clock. It’s 7:30, 10:30 in New York. Sandra and Gina are probably dancing in the aisles at the Garden as Michael Jackson sings “Beat It” or whatever song he uses for his encore. I’ll call her on her cell phone when I get to the hotel. The show changed my whole feeling. I’m relieved, more relaxed than I’ve been in weeks. The doom-andgloom feeling is gone, which is strange because that usually happens only after the bad event. The only thing that’s happened is Larry King Live.
I walk through the lobby of the hotel, which I’ve stayed in so often over the last couple of years that it seems like home. The hotel has upgraded me to a very nice suite with a living room with a fireplace and sliding glass doors leading to the terrace. I call Sandra, who tells me that everything’s set for the Latin Grammys. We’ve been invited to the after-show party, and there’s sure to be dancing. It’ll be an awesome night. It’s a quick conversation. I’m exhausted, and I tell Sandra I’ll speak to her when she lands. By nine o’clock Pacific time, I’m out cold.
September 11, 2 a.m. Pacific Time
I’M JOLTED FROM SLEEP by the loud ring of the hotel room phone. Dazed, I answer my cell phone first. I realize I’m answering the wrong phone and pick up the room phone and grunt a hello.
“Mr. Edward, are you all right?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“The front desk, sir. I can have someone run right up there.”
The guy sounds really concerned. I’m totally baffled. Am I dreaming this? Have I slept through an earthquake? Should I stand in the doorway? It occurs to me that this must have been the bad feeling I’ve had the last two weeks.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” the desk man asks, very deliberately.
“Yes, I�
�m fine,” I tell him. “Why?”
“Well, sir, there is a 911 call originating from your room. Just now, a few moments ago, and—”
“Nine-one-one?” Now I’m alert, though still not thinking straight. Maybe I do need help and don’t know it yet. Maybe some sick nut has broken into the hotel room and is about to do whoknows-what. I ask the clerk to hold on, and I do a quick reconnaissance of the suite. All the doors are locked. Everything looks okay. “No, I’m fine. But thanks for checking in on me.” Then I go back to bed, wondering what all that was about. I did not make a 911 call. At least, I didn’t make it with conscious thought.
5:45 a.m. Pacific Time
MY CELL PHONE IS RINGING. I jump out of bed and look at the clock. Has to be someone on the East Coast. Can’t be Sandra—she’s got to be in the air a half hour by this point. Must be someone from the show.
“Hello?”
“Turn on the TV! I think we’re under attack.” It’s Paul.
“Whaat?” Paul is a real jokester. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m on the bridge stuck in traffic. I’m looking at the Twin Towers. It looks like one is on fire. Or a bomb hit it. I think a plane might have hit it. Put on the news.”
I race to the TV and turn on CNN. There’s the first tower with black smoke billowing out of it. The graphic at the bottom says a plane has crashed into the building. Paul is waiting for me to tell him what I’m seeing. He’s on the Triborough, too far uptown to see much except smoke coming from the tower. Then, I see the unthinkable, the second plane crashing into the other building. All I can say, over and over again, is “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.” How many people around the world are saying those same words at this moment?