by Tessa Lynne
To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
I thought each day would be infinity to us—we would have looked together at nature’s beauty and known we shared a piece of heaven on Earth. The inside message is a wish for miracles. I read it and almost lose my belief in them. I cry out loud my question of why there could have been no miracle for Michael. I have not forgotten that we were blessed with miracles throughout our time together, but why could there not have been one more?
The other card is the one Michael sent me for Mother’s Day. It pictures a man similar to his younger self, shirtless, a newborn cradled to his chest. As much as I mourn my loss, I mourn for our children. I ask Amelia to tell me what she knows of the son who is lost to me. Kenna and Callie are a comfort, more so by returning to their everyday lives than by mourning with me. They ask thoughtful questions and put up with my tears. The first week they spoke often of their own loss but less so now—my knowledge of Michael was not theirs.
7/8
As I sit in my office waiting for Sally, I wonder if I should tell her today about Michael’s death. No, it is too soon. I could not keep my composure and maintain my role as her therapist—she is here.
Amelia comes to tell me there is just enough time for her to place Michael’s death in the context of his near-death experience almost a year ago.
“Then, Michael was granted a return to life because there were several lessons he had not yet learned. One was to have loved un-conditionally, another was forgiveness. After you entered his life, he was able to learn both to the extent he had been meant to in this lifetime.”
I ask Amelia how long Michael would have lived if I hadn’t reached out to him in October.
“He would have never recovered from the weak state he was in—he would have died last December.”
I hadn’t known that for certain. Amelia tells me more.
“Michael’s initial recovery brought him into the lives of Maeve and Henry and helped them achieve closure with regard to their son’s death in Vietnam. There were other lessons Michael learned in that time and other lives he touched, among them the young man at the hospice, Ethan, and his parents.”
I am grateful to know that my reaching out to Michael gave him more time and aided the growth of his spirit. There is just time to ask Amelia if she can confirm my encounter with Eli.
“Child, you are quite adept at knowing the truth of your experience.”
It helps me to see clients, to inhabit my professional role, but I am drained after a few hours and schedule accordingly. I have become expert at reducing the red, puffy eyes my tears leave in their wake—cold packs, tea bags, and cucumber slices. Whenever it seems my tears have run dry, I am soon reminded they come from an inexhaustible reservoir.
I leave the office, turn my car radio to NPR, and hear the harmonic voices of a men’s chorus. I can pick out Michael’s among them. It is so real to me that I think Mahalia must have heard him sing in our secondary lives, and she recognizes similar tones. I should pull over. I am gasping, tears cloud my vision, but if I stopped my life every time some incident ignited my grief, I would do nothing and go nowhere.
I have returned to some of my less than healthy eating habits, using food to distract me and fill, to some little extent, the deep void I feel. My weakness is a sweet tooth, and then I balance the sugar binge with anything salty and crispy. My favorite is what I am eating now—chocolate ice cream, a pint at a time. The icy cold hits me first, then the sharp bite of chocolate, and finally the velvety texture that makes of it a comfort food. It is not the worst vice, and I do not chastise myself.
7/11
I see Sally today and tell her about Michael’s death. I acknowledge my grief, but I do not share it. Over the years, I have mentioned bits of my personal life to her. She once complained that it is always superficial, that I do not share important or difficult events. Like other long-term clients, it is hard for her to accept that she opens her entire life to me, and it isn’t balanced by my own disclosures. Now, she conveys her sympathy and says to take what time I need with Amelia.
I cannot help but compare my experience of grief to that of others. I do not presume that my loss is a greater one, but the circumstances are different than most. Except for my daughters, and now Sally, there is no one who knows. I sometimes feel that I am being shunned, purposely ignored in this most important aspect of my life—my grief a hovering ghost.
How can I share my loss with others when their sympathy might be tinged with doubt? If I had told close friends, months ago, I could turn to them, but only if they had accepted the truth of my story. To present them now with the surreal account of my life with Michael, expect them to take it all in and then to share in my grief, is more than I dare to ask. So I reply to the standard question the expected answer that “I am fine” and hide my sorrow.
My mother I do plan to tell, but I can’t bring myself to call her. Even though she had seemed to accept Michael’s reality, I can’t predict her response. It is usual for me to call her every week, but I am restrained now by uncertainty. In ordinary circumstances, I would have made notification calls immediately with the expectation of a knowing sympathy.
7/13
Pain, that predator, still stalks me, but it doesn’t cut as deeply, even as I come to a better understanding of that analogy of grief to physical pain—to being sliced open, flayed to the bone, raw flesh exposed to the air and the salt of my tears. It is easier to write those words now than when I felt them every day, every hour, when a deep chasm opened between the part of me that feels and the part that puts feelings into words.
In the early morning and late evening, I walk on the island, seeking connection with nature and with Mahalia. These times are the most peaceful, the light less harsh, the sounds muted. I feel in the air an energy not unlike that of the spirits who have kept me company. The calls of the mourning doves are now soothing murmurs that suggest a response to some unseen presence, but they are only being who they are.
This evening, I walk far out on the island, beyond the trails and old forgotten paths. I sit on a narrow stretch of beach in the last rays of the sun and meditate to the sounds of gently lapping waves and distant sea gulls, hearing in their muted cries echoes of my pain. I pray to the Creator—for strength, to be replenished, to know serenity, to accept. As I make my way back, in a walking meditation, I hear the name Jacob and sense it is the name of the spirit who would have been born to Michael and me. I will ask Amelia if she can confirm it.
7/14
Michael is back. There is no mistaking his presence with that of the other spirits I have experienced. It is stronger, more definite, the essence of Michael. His presence is familiar but his physical aspect, so apparent while he was living, is absent now. It is obvious to me that a spiritual/physical relationship is no longer possible, that it required two spirits and two physical bodies, acting in concert.
I first feel Michael’s presence as gentle warmth, as an energy that surrounds me. Then I feel his touch, soft as a feather but unmistakable, on my arm or cheek. I can sense his presence when I return home, like the hum of a small bee reduced to the lowest possible level, to where I can’t say if I hear it or feel it. I think that he has been waiting here for me, letting his essence accumulate so as to be more noticeable. Such is the force of his presence that I sometimes enter a doorway and collide with him. It is noticeable, but it does not stop me in my tracks as did Eli’s energy.
I know that spirits of higher status have a greater ability to make their presence known. They can control the degree of their power, and they can stay at a distance or come close. I think that Michael is appearing with all the force of which he is capable and that he comes as close to me as possible.
7/15
In the minute before Amelia appears, I am aware of Michael’s energy next to my chair. I say only “hello” to A
melia. She greets me, then turns her head slightly and looks to where I can sense him.
“Hello, Michael.”
She appears to listen to him, then turns back to me.
“Michael has completed the first two stages of transition, of which there are seven.”
She glances again to the space he occupies beside me.
“Michael is eager to say something to you, but I want to first tell you that not all spirits are able to return in this manner or so soon after their physical death. Michael’s high status, and his conduct of this recent lifetime, has allowed him to have this access to you. Your spirit, due to her high status, has the ability to make you aware of his presence.”
Amelia turns away from me to listen to Michael again.
“Yes, I know that you are impatient and frustrated.”
She listens to him for a longer time, then looks at me and conveys his message.
“Michael is intent on finding another receptor. He does not want to appear to you through Sally. He is looking for someone more suitable—a male who is quite similar to him in age and physical characteristics.”
I immediately picture someone who so closely resembles Michael that I could almost believe it is him. We spend an hour or two to-gether, and I get a sense of having met him, talked to him, touched him. There is a minute left to ask Amelia about the name Jacob. She confirms it is the name of the spirit who would have been our son, then listens to Michael.
“He says that he has spent time with Jacob, who had not yet given up his hope that you would be together and might yet have a child. He was among the young spirits who brought Alexander’s message of the light.”
Our time is up. I say my usual goodbye to Amelia and a tentative one to Michael, knowing he will remain close.
7/16
Michael’s presence has been less than constant. I know he leaves to search for a receptor. I wonder, when I meet a man on the street or out walking, if he has found one. How will I react if someone speaks to me, says my name, and I realize it is Michael? Though I am expecting it, I will have to pause and catch my breath.
Sally calls to see if I have time for a short session this afternoon to address a minor issue. Near the end of it, I can sense Michael’s presence, and then his energy moves closer to her chair than to mine. I expect Amelia to come, but it is not she who inhabits the body before me. I know it is Michael. He looks at me with eyes of an intensity I have never seen—a concentration of all of the energy a body might contain, and more. All of the energy of his lifetime is there, of many lifetimes.
I wait for him to speak, but he says nothing; he doesn’t need to. He is present for a minute, maybe two, and then Amelia takes his place. As if chastising him, she faces me and explains.
“I declined to assist Michael in this, so he approached Sally’s spirit, Thalia. It was she who allowed it. The Council has not given him permission to speak to you, but he could wait no longer to have some physical connection.”
While Amelia is speaking, I can feel Michael’s energy next to my chair again. After she withdraws, he takes her place for another minute, still without speaking but with an even greater intensity. I know it is Michael—he touches me to the core of my being.
This is the first I have heard the name of Sally’s spirit. I am grateful to Thalia for having allowed Michael to appear. She would not have agreed had it been explicitly prohibited, but I have learned that spirits are capable of pushing the limits of what is allowed, pursuing personal agendas, and following a favorite maxim of mine: act first and ask permission later. If a spirit goes too far, they will be reprimanded; a loss of status could result from an egregious flouting of the rules.
7/17
I am working in my perennial garden, pulling weeds, when the phone rings. I brush most of the dirt from my hands and reach the house before it stops ringing. I answer and hear a voice similar to Zachary’s. I know it is Michael, and I am not entirely pleased. My first thought is of my client, if he has disrupted Sally’s evening. He reassures me.
“I made a promise to Amelia that I would make no more contact without her permission, but I could not wait. I have yet to find a suitable receptor, but Thalia has again cooperated. She was close to both of us in several of the past lives we have shared, and she wants to assist us.”
He confirms that he is still near, close to me and the girls.
“I have wept as I observed them and knew what I was missing.”
I ask him about the stone and the card that Amelia couldn’t find. He says he retained them as he made his journey to the spirit world, but he plans to return them to me. I ask him if their return will be a message, a sign it is time for us to move on.
“You are correct that it will be a sign. And now, sweetness, I must go. I promised I would take only a few minutes. There is too much at stake for me to push the limits. I will continue my search for a more appropriate receptor, a male.”
I sit here, somewhat stunned and unsettled by Michael’s phone call, by having heard him call me “sweetness” in a voice so close to Sally’s. It is only when I think back to his convincing presence in my office that I am able to accept the voice as his.
7/18
I am excited at the prospect that Michael will soon find a suitable receptor. A man close to his age and body type might be too much to expect, but any male receptor would give me a better sense of him than if he were to appear to me again through Sally.
I walk this morning, serene, knowing Michael’s love. I sit at the shelter and cherish the memories of reaching out to him from here. I let them wash over me—there is no pain.
I continue my walk, take a faint trail, then leave it when I notice a mossy area off in the woods. I walk over, drawn to it, and am aware of a strong energy field, similar to that of spirits but with a distinctly different quality—of the elements, rising up from the ground. A large log, from a tree long fallen, is well on its way in its gradual return to the earth that once nurtured its growth. Its velvety sides are textured with lichen and moss in blended shades of copper, brown, and green. Its top surface, half its volume, has been leveled by time, its core turned to a rich mahogany mulch. I stand on it and feel as if I am walking on air. I am reminded of when Eli’s presence surrounded me and lifted from me the weight of the world. I will come back.
This afternoon, Amelia tells me there has been a change of plans.
“Permission has been granted for Michael to appear to you, this one time only, through Sally. He has become frustrated over his futile attempts to find a more suitable receptor.”
My wish for Michael to find a different receptor is not as strong as is my desire to speak to him, to experience again the intensity of our last encounter. But when he takes Amelia’s place, I am disappointed—the eyes that look at me are not the same. The degree of difference is that of a light bulb that has been switched from its brightest to its dimmest setting. I feel an ominous sense of trepidation. Who is this? I put my unease aside and ask him to what extent he is speaking as Michael, the man, and to what extent he is now Alexander.
“Alexander is no more. I have taken the name of Michael.”
That does not exactly answer my question. We talk for a few minutes but, without that earlier intensity, I am aware that I am holding back. There is too much to say, and too little time, as we try to establish a connection. We have not yet succeeded when Michael ends it. “I have agreed to keep our meeting short. Our chance of further contact will be at risk if I do not comply. I will continue my search for a different receptor—this is not how I choose to appear to you When Amelia returns to say goodbye, I am once again aware of Michael’s familiar presence next to my office chair.
7/20
Two days since I have been aware of Michael, and I assume he continues to look for a receptor. I consider our options: Michael could continue his search for a different receptor, a man; he could speak to me directly through Sally again; or he could let Amelia convey his words to me. There is a fourth option: Mi
chael could abandon his efforts and continue with his full transition to the spirit world. I could mourn as others do—with no expectation of speaking to their loved one. Would that be the wiser choice? I will never know. I cannot turn away from this opportunity.
7/22
Shortly before I expect Amelia, I am once again aware of Michael’s presence. A moment later she has news for me.
“Michael has now been granted official permission to communicate with you through me. He will make his thoughts known to me, and I will then convey them to you.”
She looks attentively to where I can sense Michael, then speaks his words.
“I went before the Council to plead my case to appear to you through a different receptor.”
Amelia interrupts to tell Michael she wants to say something, then turns back to me.
“The Council is concerned that Michael has not yet made a complete transition to the spirit world, that he has retained too many of his human qualities and desires. He was in danger of being declared an errant spirit.”
She turns to Michael, listens, then repeats his words to me.
“I told the Council that I am aware of my need to complete my transition, that I am not an errant spirit. They were eventually satisfied that I understand both my limits in this world and my responsibilities to theirs. They gave me permission to continue my search for a receptor, but they refused to assist me.”
When I ask if one of them can explain errant spirits, it is Amelia who responds.
“An errant spirit is one who chooses to live outside of the rules, is incorrigible. They tend to be either young spirits or those who pursue a course of action tied to their recent physical lifetime. They are capable of influencing human subjects, urging them to act contrary to their original intent.”
Amelia turns to Michael, listens, then repeats his words.