by Lorna Byrne
Da walked in asking, 'What's happening?'
The doctor told him that Joe needed to go to the hospital and that he was just about to call an ambulance. Da offered to take Joe to the hospital, but the doctor refused and said he needed an ambulance. Da went out and moved his car out of the way and the doctor went down the road to where there was a public telephone. He was back in two minutes, saying that the ambulance was on the way. The doctor went back out to his car to write a note about Joe for the hospital and I went into the kitchen, leaving Da with Joe.
I was filling the kettle with water again when I felt the gentle hands of the angels caressing me, taking the anxiety out of my body, whispering that Joe would be all right, that he would have a tough time but he would pull through.
The doctor came back in, saying the ambulance had arrived. Da told me he would follow the ambulance in his car and be there for Joe. I, of course, had to stay with the children as I was still feeding Ruth. I gave Joe a hug.
'Don't worry,' he said, 'I'll be home in no time.'
They had gone. I walked back into the bedroom; the children were fast asleep, their guardian angels watching over them. I smiled back, knowing the angels had kept the children asleep while all the commotion was going on. I thanked them and turned around. Angel Hosus was standing in front of me.
'Lorna, go to bed now.' He said, 'we're going to put you to sleep.'
I got into bed and did not wake until ten o'clock the next morning, and the children slept too. While I was getting breakfast ready, Christopher came into the kitchen asking where his Dad was. I explained that he was in hospital and that as soon as everyone had had breakfast, we would ring the doctor to find out how he was.
I was feeding Ruth when my Da called. The children were delighted to see him. I thanked him for last night and asked him how Joe was, and how long he had stayed with him. Da had been in the hospital with Joe all night: he had been rushed into surgery, but he was now all right, although they had feared for his life for a while.
'I will take you in every evening to see Joe,' Da offered.
I protested that that was too much to ask of him, but he insisted and said that Mum would look after the children.
When I saw Joe that evening, he looked dreadful. He spent two weeks in hospital, then, a few weeks later, he was back in hospital again for about ten days with an infection. After that he was off work for almost six months.
One day, when I was approaching the checkout in the local supermarket, the guardian angel of a little girl sitting in a trolley called me over. I knew the mother by sight, but I didn't know her name.
I said hello to the little girl and her guardian angel told me that she was unwell and asked me to touch her. I touched her little hand as I greeted her mother and told her she had a beautiful child. The mother said goodbye and moved on with her daughter.
The angels told me that a connection had to be made between myself and the child so that she would get well. This is something that often happens, although I don't fully understand it. A year or so later, I bumped into the same mother and daughter, and again the child's guardian angel called me over to her. The mother told me her little girl had been unwell; she had been in hospital, but now she was better.
As the mother walked away with her little girl the angels told me 'The little girl is going to get very sick, Lorna, but, because of your touch, the strong spiritual bond that was made will give her the strength to pull through this illness. From now on, until she fully recovers, you will constantly see this little girl's smile directly in front of you.'
During the following months I would regularly see this little girl's smiling face in front of me, and I would feel her sickness and her tears. Each time I would say a prayer for her and I would ask God and her guardian angel to make her better. I know this little girl was critically ill. I was the child's lifeline; somehow, spiritually, I kept her alive. I was by her bedside in spirit every time I was needed and I did not let her soul leave her body. I felt the physical aspects of her sickness, as I have with many others.
Suddenly, though, I stopped seeing her face and I knew she was well. I thanked God and the angels and gave it little further thought. Years later, I saw the mother and daughter walking down the main street of Maynooth, their guardian angels walking hand-in-hand with them. The little girl was now a teenager and was healthy and strong. I smiled, thanking God and the angels.
One summer day, when Ruth was a few months old, I was out wheeling her in her pram, enjoying the sunshine, when suddenly I felt the atmosphere change. There was an incredible silence. The air grew very still and it seemed to get brighter. I knew that an angel was coming. I was walking, but my feet didn't seem to be touching the ground. I felt I was moving yet nothing around me was moving. I felt a presence behind me. I stopped and turned around but I could see no one. I walked on. No sooner had I taken a step than I felt the presence again.
'Whoever is walking behind me, please make yourself known,' I said.
There was no reply.
'Don't do this, I hate it!'
I walked on very, very slowly, and then I felt a little tap on my shoulder. I turned around and there was an angel there. He was just like a light – the same glowing and shimmering effect as if you look at a star, but many times brighter. I just said, 'Hello'. No reply. Sometimes I feel a little shy talking to the angels – and I think sometimes they feel shy talking to me. Communication is as important in the spiritual world as it is in the physical world, and sometimes just as hard, so I told him that it would be easier for me to talk to him if he made himself a bit more human-looking.
It was only when he did so that I realised it was Angel Michael. He turned himself into a very handsome man, maybe in his forties, about six feet tall or possibly a little taller, with sharp blue eyes and long, dark, flowing hair to his shoulders.
'Well, this time you've certainly made yourself handsome,' I said and we both laughed.
We started to walk along the road, with me pushing the pram with the baby asleep in it. He told me he had come to talk to me about a book, a book he said the angels needed me to write, in which they wanted me to put certain things. I replied that deep within I had known for some time that I had to write a book, but I admitted to him that I was scared to do so as I was afraid of being ridiculed.
'Lorna, the day will come when you will do it for us,' Angel Michael replied. It's now many, many years later, but the day has finally come, and this is my first book.
Since the first time I saw him in my bedroom as a little baby, Michael – that beautiful angel – has come and visited me regularly. He comes in and out of my life; sometimes he comes and walks with me, or sits down at my kitchen table, other times he sits by the fire with me, saying he needs to get himself warm. I laughingly tell him that angels don't feel the cold, but he always says that he can imagine how it feels because he has been around so many humans.
We talk as if he is a human friend. Sometimes we talk about ordinary things and sometimes we talk about very important things. Michael tells me that fewer and fewer people are asking for angels to help them, so we will talk about the extraordinary fact that there are millions of angels out there who are unemployed.
That's why this book is being written, so that people can realise that angels are walking beside us, that they are there all of the time, that we just need to reach out and let them help. It's as simple as that. I listen to Michael and he tells me what to write; he tells me to write from my heart.
God is pouring these beautiful angels out on this world for us, and yet many of us are ignoring them.We need to reach out and ask them for help. It's as simple as that.
Chapter Nineteen
'I'm here, I'm here – here I am!'
One morning, when Ruth was a few months old, I took her down to the health centre for her checkup. When I got home and was feeding her I felt the presence of a spirit, a ghost, gradually approaching the cottage. I said a little prayer but thought no more of it.
As the days passed I started to notice the presence of that spirit visiting quite frequently, getting closer; I was feeling a drag upon my body, forcefully pulling me down. It was as if he was dragging me down to the floor, sometimes with quite a lot of force. I said more prayers and asked God to take the spirit, whoever it was, to Heaven. Then one day, when I was at the kitchen sink with the cottage door open, I watched the spirit come into the hall. He was a faint presence and I couldn't see him clearly, but I had a sense that he was male and taller than me, but I had no real idea of what he looked like. I stopped doing what I was doing. Before I could physically feel him I asked, 'What is it that is wrong? How can I help you?'
The spirit clung on to me saying, 'I'm here, I'm here – here I am!' Over and over, again and again he was saying these words, but I could not understand why. I knew he meant me no harm, but that he was desperate, and so was pulling at me physically, pulling me downwards very strong. I became oblivious for a moment and when I came to, I realised I was clinging onto the side of the sink, trying to hold myself up. The spirit left suddenly and when he did, I called my angels and I prayed. Then I heard a knock on the door, even though the door was open. I turned around and there at the door were three of my angels: Michael, Hosus and Elijah. Hosus walked in doing his imitation of a clown's walk, which made me laugh. I thanked him, because I needed a laugh.
'What is wrong with that spirit?' I asked.
Angel Michael came towards me then reached out and took my hands. Angel Hosus went to my left-hand side and Angel Elijah went to my right.
'Michael, that spirit almost pulled me down to the floor!' I said.
'Lorna,' Michael replied, 'We will give you the physical and emotional strength for you and the spirit, but we cannot tell you any more, not now. Remember, we will be with you all the time; you will never be alone.'
'Michael, I hate it when you do this. Why can't you make it a little easier?'
'Sorry, Lorna. We can't tell you any more because then you would not be able to help the spirit.' As Angel Michael finished saying this, he withdrew his hands from mine.
Every day the spirit came. I never knew if it would be morning or night; each time it pulled me down, crying in a voice of desperation, 'I'm here, I'm here – here I am!'
As the months passed I became more and more exhausted. Joe was back working in the wool factory and never seemed to notice how tired I was. He was quite well during this period, but I could always see that grey deterioration.
Eventually, I was able to discern from visions that the spirit was a young man, aged between seventeen and twenty, called Peter, and that he was in water, but trapped and struggling to get out. He seemed unable to use his hands; he could not hold on to anything. At times the water seemed to be muddy and there was what seemed like a shelf of earth above him. This young man's spirit was pulling, struggling. He tried and tried. 'I'm here, I'm here – here I am!' He would say this over and over, again and again. My body somehow became intertwined with his spirit and I felt everything, physically, as he struggled for life. I also felt all his emotions: he wanted to be found; he wanted to go home; he wanted his parents and family to know where he was. I just prayed to God that he would be found, where he was.
I asked my angels if I could tell Joe, and they said yes. One evening, Joe came in from the garden and looked at me and said, 'What is wrong? You look awful! Are you sick?'
'No, Joe,' I said. 'I need to share something with you.' I still told Joe little about my spiritual life, but this time the angels told me I really needed his help.
We sat down and I continued, 'There is a ghost of a young man that comes to visit me. He needs my help. It's wearing me out physically and emotionally; I need your support, your help – just to look after me when I need it. Sometimes I need to feel your arm around me.'
Joe put his arm around me and looked at me. He didn't understand what was going on, how could he?
'I'll do my best,' he said.
On one of the visits of this spirit I was shown a vision: it appeared as if through his eyes, through water – I was being shown what had happened to him, seemingly from under the water. He was out walking along a riverbank with a path of some kind beside it. He was with two or three other people and they were pushing him around. He was very frightened. They were blaming him for something he hadn't done and he didn't know what they were talking about. He was trying to talk his way out of it: he was telling them they were making a mistake. One of them shouted back at him, 'No, we are not making any mistake.'
They beat him and kicked him to the ground and were really hurting him. He was being punished for something that someone else had done. Suddenly the vision ended, and then I saw no more.
One Sunday afternoon, when Ruth was about eight months old and all this was going on, I heard a knock on the door. It was my brother Cormac's new wife, Sally. I had never actually met her: I had been in hospital when they had married, a short time before, and Joe had gone to the wedding with the children and without me. I greeted her and told her to sit down by the fire and get warm. 'Is Cormac not with you?' I asked her.
'No,' she replied, apologising that she couldn't stay long. 'I just wanted to say hello and give you some photographs from the wedding.'
Joe made her a cup of tea and as we sat by the fire she talked, telling us how happy she was to meet us and see our new baby daughter. Then, just before Sally left, as we were walking to the door, she stopped and told us her brother was missing. She was surprised that we hadn't heard, that no one had mentioned it. She said he had been missing for some time now; that one evening he had left to meet his girlfriend but had never arrived. Sally said that her parents were very worried about him; they thought maybe he had gone to England so they were in touch with the Salvation Army and all the hostels over there. He was on the missing persons list, but no one understood why he would just leave like that.
'I'm sure he will turn up soon,' I said to her, and we said our goodbyes. 'Don't be a stranger, Sally, you're always welcome.'
I can be quite slow at times; and it was only later that I realised that, through a series of strange coincidences, I had made eye contact with that young man several years before. One afternoon, we had gone to visit my sister Aoife and her husband Alan in their new home. The house was in the city centre, with a tiny front garden with silver railings. Joe had opened the gate and lifted Christopher up so that he could reach the door knocker. Aoife opened the door and gave us a great welcome.
We went into the dining room and were introduced to Aoife's mother-in-law, a lovely, elderly lady, and she welcomed us with open arms. The house seemed very small;maybe it was because there was beautiful old furniture there which left hardly any room to move. In the corner of the dining room was a fireplace with two chairs, one to the right of and the other in front of the fire. The fire made the room very welcoming. There was a little pathway through the furniture from the hall to the fireplace and out into the tiny kitchen beyond.
I was sitting at the fireplace with Owen on my knee, feeding him but I was the only one sitting and all the rest were standing. There were seven of us in that crowded dining room and little kitchen. Then there was a knock on the door and some more people squeezed into the room. I could not see who had arrived and continued feeding Owen. It was, in fact, my brother Cormac and Sally – the girl he would later marry – but everyone was busy talking and I could not even see my brother or his girlfriend. That's how crowded the room seemed to be. I noticed a light for a brief second and tried to see where it came from. No angels made themselves visible to me, nor did I see anything special. It all happened so quickly. The laughter and chat continued and obviously I could not talk openly to the angels there, so I tried to communicate with them without words. They didn't answer me.
I looked up a second time and I saw the light again through the standing bodies, as if somebody within the group, but half blocked by the others, was giving off this light. People seemed to fade a little; everyone seemed to h
ave moved their heads slightly to the left or right, creating a little pathway through which I could see across the room. I saw the side of the face of a young man, a man I didn't know. He turned his head and looked in my direction. His face glowed like a soft light and he gave a little smile. I smiled back. His eyes sparkled and I saw him for a fraction of a second more. Then people moved and he was blocked from my sight again.
The next instant everything went back to normal. Later, I asked my sister Aoife who the young man was. She explained that it was Sally's younger brother, Peter. I never gave the incident another thought.
Joe didn't make the connection either – that the spirit was Sally's missing brother. Perhaps we weren't allowed to. It had to be God's doing that Joe didn't make the connection; he had a very inquisitive mind and, under normal circumstances, he would have said to me as soon as Sally had left, that the ghost was her brother's. But that was not God's plan. It was not time for him to be found.
The young man's spirit continued the horrific struggle beneath the water, not knowing where he was, struggling to take a breath and not knowing what was above him: that darkness, the odd, faint flicker of light. He was trying to suck in air, but instead he was sucking in water – drowning. He desperately wanted his family to know it wasn't his doing; he wanted to be found and he wanted them to know he loved them. He continued to visit me. 'I'm here, I'm here – here I am.' These were his words, over and over again. I called on the angels and God many times to give me strength. I prayed so hard, constantly, that this young man would be found; that his spirit would be free and at peace. I prayed that his family could bring his body home and grieve for his loss, and know that he had not run away and that he loved them.
I was sitting at the fire, exhausted, one evening and Joe looked at me and said, 'My God, you're so pale! The ghost of that young man has been here again. It's taking too much out of you. You look as if you're dying, just like that young man. This has to stop!' Joe was very cross and mad with God.