“Kristy? Can you tell me what you did to make your son this way?”
“Excuse me?”
“Drugs, alcohol … you caused this cleft,” the doctor stated with a smirk on his face.
I caused the cleft? Thinking that I did anything that would’ve hurt my baby made me want to vomit. Had I really caused the cleft? Immediately I fell into a depression, contemplating each and every thing I had put into my system. Was it the ibuprofen after I miscarried? Or the cough medicine I was told would be safe when I had a cold? I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life. I never did any drugs and I hated alcohol. I had even quit all caffeine during the pregnancy, but somehow I caused the cleft?
After being stunned at the accusation, appalled, I ordered the doctor out of the room. The next doctor who came in informed me that Connor would have to be transferred to a children’s hospital. My response was “over my dead body,” so they brought the team from the children’s hospital to us.
Because of the botched spinal anesthesia, the following morning when I got up to take a shower, I noticed that I couldn’t feel my right leg and mentioned it to my nurse and the doctor who came to check up on me, but everybody was so concerned with Connor, and rightfully so, that my concerns went unnoticed. So, I did exactly what I needed to do—I put all of my attention on Connor.
I was now twenty-five years old with two kids under the age of two, and living with a husband who resented me, not only because we now had two children, but because I had also put on a lot of weight. He had threatened previously that if I gained weight, he would divorce me. It was said in fun, but there was an undertone of seriousness. At that point, even though I wasn’t happy within myself, I didn’t care. All I cared about were the words of that resident, which reverberated through every step of my morning, afternoon, and night: “You caused the cleft.” It didn’t help when my husband repeatedly told me that the baby must’ve gotten the problems from my side of the family because, after all, his was perfect. There was no compassion, only criticism. I became so depressed that I lost my dreams in both daytime and night, unless they had something to do with the kids. I was angry with the world for giving me such a rotten life. Why me? It was a constant question I asked because it was a constant statement I heard growing up with my family. If it wasn’t “Why me?” it was “What’s next?” I anticipated something bad was about to happen because that was all I was taught to expect.
The next year flew by, filled with surgeries for Connor to repair not only the cleft but also hearing loss that resulted from it. Then there were doctor appointments and physical therapy for my back and leg, as it turned out that the numerous spinal anesthesia procedures caused severe nerve damage. I began researching anything and everything to do with cleft palates and came upon several foundations. I had been reassured by the team at University of Michigan that I had not caused the cleft, and since the genetic testing came back clear, we would probably never know for certain why it had happened. Speculation was that when I lost the other baby, it affected the blood flow to Connor, causing the mouth to not properly grow. In layman’s terms, it was a fluke. Connor’s surgeries were all successful, even though the emotional ordeal of handing my son over, time and again, and having to trust a medical team to hand him back to me healthy was trying. The demon named “Why Me?” began to fade, and I decided to reopen my intuition and use the lessons I had learned in helping others.
My marriage continued to deteriorate, with my husband’s temper becoming even more volatile as his unhappiness escalated. My depression didn’t help create a good foundation, but his insensitivity also wasn’t healing the relationship. I begged him to go to couples counseling, but his therapy was punching the walls anytime he was upset with me or aggravated at my accusations.
As a child, I always had a pen and notebook in hand, writing either poetry or short stories. As I grew older, I continued my writing and sold several stories to magazines and research papers and educational publications. It was my escape from the world.
At the end of 1997, I came upon the Professional Association of Santa’s Elves (PASE) and began Sent by Santa, writing personalized Santa letters. Soon afterward, I was elected to the Board of Elves. My letters were different because each letter was written using my intuition and psychic gift. Obviously, those who were ordering the letters didn’t have a clue. I based my letters on information that the parent or grandparent gave me, but I always included extra information. I wrote every letter in a positive tone without blackmailing children to eat all their peas in exchange for a visit from Santa. Instead, it was a pat on the back, reassuring them that they were loved and watched over. My business grew from just a few to thousands a season. I didn’t start the project as a “get rich quick” scheme; it was merely my way of sharing my gift and helping out some of the cleft charities.
The writing business helped to reclaim my independence while reopening my intuition, which had felt so evil and wrong before. Although I had always worked outside of the home and had a college education, I knew in the back of my head that one day I would be on my own with the kids, and I had to be prepared. It was just a matter of the timing. The knuckle marks in the drywall were beginning to happen all too frequently.
[contents]
eleven
Letting the Light In
He was leaving us, and I was devastated. Months before the confession I knew something was going on, but I only had strange signs as evidence. The man who I had vowed to be with forever, my high school sweetheart, the man with whom I shared two children, was leaving me for another woman—a married woman who was close to the family. I should’ve trusted the signs that spirit was offering. My guides provided plenty of signs and signals to prepare me about my crumbling marriage, but I not only ignored them, I hid from them. One sign came in the form of a rash around my wedding ring. The infection became so bad that I had to remove my ring. I joked, asking if it was perhaps someone telling me something, but my husband thought I was being overly dramatic again. An excuse was offered that I was probably becoming allergic to jewelry. Oddly, though, I could wear jewelry on any other part of my body. It wouldn’t be until the last clue that I finally asked. And he told.
We had made it a tradition to have a pool party every Fourth of July weekend. Our friends would come in from all over. During the daytime we would barbecue, swim, and play volleyball and bocce ball. At night, we would have a huge bonfire and just talk. Most of our friends would stay the night, and we would have a pancake breakfast in the morning. However, at the end of June 1997, the year Connor was born, our home was ravaged by a tornado. Although the foundation of the home stood solid, we lost most of our roof, the chimney, and several trees. We also were without power for over a week. I contemplated just canceling the party, but my husband didn’t think it would be a problem—after all, we were going to be barbecuing and outside. As our friends showed up, the workers came to restore the power, which I felt relieved for, but I still had a sense of uneasiness that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
I could see the way that he looked at her that day and knew then why he didn’t want to cancel the festivities. When in the middle of the night Alto told me that I needed to see something, I got up and followed him into the basement, where I saw my husband of eight years and a family friend locked in an embrace. They didn’t know that I had caught them, so I merely backed up to the stairway and cleared my throat before walking back into the room. Their faces said it all, but I didn’t let on that I knew. The timing wasn’t quite right.
Every single time we got together with a group of friends, not only did I break out with the rash around my wedding band, but storms would brew. Not small storms—awful storms that held tornadoes. It became a joke that I controlled the weather with my anger; however, I knew it was symbolism, running much deeper than a dark cloud in the sky, that said storms were brewing in my own marriage.
An October evening, three months after our par
ty, several of our friends met for dinner at a local restaurant. I carefully watched the interaction between my husband and our friends and saw that look again; it was much more than just a friendly glance. As we went to our separate cars, I looked up at the harvest moon lighting my world with clarity and the need for uncovered secrets. Hours later, my world would come crashing down around me. I thought that the confession would break me, and it almost did. My soul, spirit, heart, and faith were ripped into millions of pieces as my naïve happily-ever-after wishes were like fine dust drifting in the wind. Begging, pleading, crying, and begging more only made him more certain that leaving was the right thing. Heck, I wouldn’t have wanted to stay with me either.
My initial reaction to the infidelity was to run, and I ran to a friend’s home. We were neighbors and our daughters were also friends. As I cried to her about how dumb I was and how sad I was, she told me that she, too, had an affair—an affair with my husband! I raced back home, feeling as if I had been slapped twice. I just wanted the truth and my intuition was so numb that I couldn’t tell what the truth was.
“Did you have an affair with Jayme, too?” I screamed.
“Absolutely not! She’s nuts!”
I didn’t know what to believe. All I knew was that he was leaving. I wish that I could say that the signs and my intuition helped prepare me for the divorce, but they didn’t. It still hurt just as badly, and if anything, it made me feel stupid. Stupid that I didn’t follow through when the first red flag appeared rather than opting to ignore it and hope that it was all my imagination.
The challenge of being a single mom, looking for a job that would help me pay the bills, and taking care of a large, old house overwhelmed me. On top of that, the spirits decided to continuously pester me like a two-year-old pulling on my apron strings. But what really got me was that one of the spirits was none other than my soon-to-be-ex’s grandmother. Night after night I would wake up to what I thought was one of the kids crying, but when I checked I would find them peacefully asleep. However, I’d also see the empty rocking chair rocking away in the living room. I could make out the shadow of an older lady, head bowed and mourning. Several weeks later, exhausted from lack of sleep and stress, I finally yelled that she had to stop haunting me and go and bother her grandson instead. Suddenly, the stereo came on, blasting “Angry Man” by Styx. At that moment I felt I was going crazy and perhaps needed to talk to a minister.
Even though I was afraid the minister of our church would throw holy water on me or call someone to put me in a straitjacket, I made an appointment for early afternoon, dropped Micaela off at preschool, and asked a friend to watch Connor. I waited in the church office, afraid that perhaps someone who knew me would see me. Church, although it teaches that gossip is a sin, tends to be hypocritical and filled with parishioners talking about who missed church, who has who in church with them, and who is cheating on whom. It’s just human nature, I suppose, but disheartening all the same. The distinguished-looking minister with warm eyes came out of his office, grabbed my hand, and gently guided me to a seat.
His office was packed with books and paperwork, and adorned with hundreds of cards and gifts from grateful parishioners. This was the man we had sought out when getting married, so I was embarrassed to be talking to him about the end of our union. As I sat down across from him, the minister’s eyes looked into mine with wonder. In high school, I was the good girl: an A/B student, active in youth group, the choir, the band, drama, varsity sports—an all-American girl. The reason I was sitting across from him wringing my hands profoundly confused him.
I was raw, yet deeply numb, and I told him everything. I elaborated on my husband’s infidelity, and then blurted out, “I see ghosts. I see angels. I see spirits. And they talk to me!” My minister looked at me blankly and asked me to further explain the degree of communication. At that moment, a family member of his came through. A son I never knew he even had. Tears shone in his eyes and he hugged me, giving me his blessing to pursue the work he believed I was given by God. It sounds so simple, but a theology debate with me playing the devil’s advocate took place over a matter of a few hours, with questions like “How do you know I am not talking to something evil and dark?” “How can I tell the difference?” and “If I am of the light, why does the church call this wrong?” Some questions couldn’t be answered or had to be mulled over by both of us.
I continued to consult with him for several months and he counseled me. I told him what heaven, the Other Side, was like according to those who had crossed over. He told me that it couldn’t be easy being who I was, but that if it were easy, everybody would do it. He also cautioned me about the types of people who would try to play theology Jeopardy and ridicule me.
“Maybe you should see a medium,” he suggested to me one afternoon.
I was stunned that he could even offer such a thing. I simply shook my head and told him that I would think about it. I did, but after looking at advertisements and searching the Internet for area mediums, most looked like the stereotypical types: cape, wand, mystical, and magical, which, to me, equated to a joke.
Despite the stirring of positive changes within me, keeping my marriage intact was hopeless. My husband decided that he was not going to give up his significant other, so I could either deal with that or file for divorce. I did the latter. It was one of my most painful moments ever. While looking over the papers at my attorney’s office, I sobbed shamelessly. I was about to sign my marriage away when my attorney pulled the paperwork away. “Make sure that you are ready, Kristy,” he said. “Are you really ready?” I knew that there was no other alternative. There could be no more begging and no more sacrificing. I felt my grandfather’s presence standing next to me, his hand on my shoulder, in comfort. I looked up at his spirit. He looked melancholy, and I worried that maybe he thought I hadn’t tried enough. Maybe if I had lost weight. Maybe … there were just so many maybes. My grandpa whispered, “I will always stand by your side, Kristy. You do what you know you have to do.” And I signed the papers with tears still streaming down my face.
[contents]
twelve
The Magnolia Tree
It was a mild March afternoon when I decided some fresh air would do us all good. It had been a rough few months since the awful divorce, and the fog around my soul was still slowly lifting. Stretching, I sat down on the whitewashed wooden lawn chair near my garden and admired the magnolia tree in full bloom. A butterfly fluttered into my daughter Micaela’s hair. She let out a delighted squeal. Connor, only a month shy of his third birthday, grabbed his bug net in a gallant attempt to catch it. The butterfly’s wings glimmered in the sunlight, giving the illusion of a fairy. With a sprite’s mischief, the butterfly danced around both kids, teasing. Flying back over to the garden, the butterfly took a final taste of my bright yellow yarrow and flew away. How symbolic that simple moment would later become.
The divorce had been long and painful, and I admit that I sank into a deep depression. My friends and family helped out with the kids as I brooded in self-pity. I had equated my marriage to life itself; it had been my everything. I couldn’t imagine going on without him because, without him, we weren’t a family. Or so I thought at the time. My heart stung from sorrow, and I felt as if my soul had quickly been replaced with darkness.
Micaela glanced up at me with her soft blue eyes, bent down in the grass to pick up something, and ran over to me. She gently placed a soft pink magnolia flower on my lap, offered me a kiss on the cheek, and ran back to look for butterflies.
Planted several decades ago by the kids’ great-grandparents, the old magnolia tree was something magical. Just the sight of the tree made me smile—even on my darkest days. I waited through many long winters for the first bloom to appear and told the kids that the blooms on the crooked old magnolia tree were sure signs that spring was approaching. Spring—a time for rebirth. That innocent gesture from a fair-faced five-year-old awakened m
e from my melancholy.
I honestly believed that my life was over and that I would never love again or at least never experience joy. What I didn’t realize was that it was only a time of metamorphoses as my wings dried in order for me to fly again. It may feel as if our wings have been cut, but in essence we only have to believe that they will regrow in order for us to fly again.
That year the old magnolia tree bloomed twice, once in March and again in October. The neighbor across the street had called me to tell me to look at the tree as another harvest moon began to rise. On the top branches were dozens of pink flowers, giving me the message that I, too, would bloom again.
My anger at the universe began to slowly fade. During the divorce I had lost my job, and although I was devastated at the time and felt that once again the world was out to get me, I quickly received a new job as an operations manager. Most of my new coworkers were younger than me, but they helped me take my mind off my problems. They invited me out after work and introduced me to new people who liked me for who I was. And I slowly began to BELIEVE in myself and in other people again.
[contents]
thirteen
An Angel
I was facing the second Christmas without my husband, the kids’ dad, and it felt like ice picks in my heart. That year, I had taken a lot of time off to try to figure out who I was and what I wanted out of life, but I still felt lost, as if everybody, including my guides, had abandoned me.
“We went over this last night at your home, Mom. The ex … ” A sob caught in my throat as I talked to my mom on the phone. The reality was still settling in that it was technically my first Christmas as a single mom. My husband, er, ex-husband, had left two weeks before Christmas the previous year and the divorce had been signed near what would’ve been our ninth wedding anniversary, just a week before the holiday. Anytime “Blue Christmas” came on, I wanted to throw a pillow at the radio. The last year had been a cloud of depression, sadness, and the blues. If it hadn’t been for the kids, I didn’t know what I would’ve done. But I knew I had to still keep going—even if it felt like I was merely going through the motions.
Messenger Between Worlds Page 6