Chatting With The Dead by Valerie Gilbert

The musings of a short, sassy, metaphysically jazzed new yorker.

So, boo hoo, my life was big many sad for big many years having lost my parents at an early age.  I believed in their existence in the “beyond” but belief (which means “to give life/leif to”) is not the same as knowing. You need tangible experience to feel something in your bones.   You can’t just read about surgery if you want to become a surgeon.

I was lonely.  Depressed.  Anxious.  Sad.  Angry.  You name it, I felt it.  I know for a fact that the tortured relationships (the torture was all mine, I assure you) I had with distant, detached, self-involved men were an outcropping of the pain I felt. When you’re miserable it’s not possible to attract really happy people.  However the torment I went through with each relationship served to heal me as I unleashed volatile emotions that had been kept locked inside for so long.  The entanglements were vehicles of my healing, even though they were painful, like having a bullet removed from a wound on the battlefield.  I’ve learned to trust everything in my life.  That doesn’t mean I accept everything that comes my way, I use discernment and set boundaries.  But when I choose to be with someone, or choose to be a certain way (even miserable) I own it.  I chose those relationships.  I am no victim.       

Over the course of the decades I had sought healing via channeled messages.   Diane, a dear friend, bought me psychic readings on my birthdays.  My overweening forever desire was to be with my life partner and Diane understood this, along with my need to communicate with my parents.   On some level I’ve been searching for my mate since losing Daddy when I was five.  I get this.  And yet I’ve never chosen a relationship in which I was nurtured, loved, supported and safe, as I was with my father.

One channeler told me that while I know what true love is, having had it with my parents, it is scary to me because I associate it with loss.  Bingo.  Sure.  So I bid low and as a result my dating choices only incurred more hurt.  I was afraid of the Wizard of Oz, yet I was on the Yellow Brick Road.  I associated love with longing.  The carrot always dangled in front of me. 

I now see as an older, wiser and much happier person how the path of pain has led me back to myself.  How each tormented relationship helped me to excavate my past, unearth the sadness, grief, and despair that I’d evolved since my father’s death when I was five and was never able to express since I was so busy tending to my mother and her grief.  I’m a very empathetic person but the one person I was not empathetic toward was me.  I was stoic and soldiered on.

Step by step I’ve built a new me through introspection and hard, personal work.  I’ve invested in my happiness. 

But as important as all the emotional tussling in the trenches that I’ve done has been to my evolution, so has the direct contact with my parents that I eventually experienced via mediums. 

Years ago I went to a psychic in Red Bank, NJ courtesy of my friend Diane.  This medium could feel my mother’s presence.  That was great, cause I sure as heck couldn’t.  “You’re her little air (Aquarius) baby.  I feel all this love.”  I started tearing up.  She felt my father’s energy, and said it was very different from my mother’s.   She said, “They want to prove to you that they’re here.”  This is what noted medium James Van Praagh calls “survival evidence mediumship”, information brought through that only the deceased could know, and only you can verify.  Saying “I feel all this love” rang true but is neither specific nor verifiable, and therefore not survival evidence mediumship.

She said, “Your mother is saying you had a funny dog.”  This was ridiculously wrong since I had no dog, funny or not (which was a real sore point from my childhood).  She continued, “And you hurt your right leg when you were younger.  Your parents are offering this as proof that it’s really them.”   I shook my head.  This was wrong, too.  I broke my right arm, but there was no leg injury.  She wasn’t proving anything to me except that she was bubbly and animated.  

As with many accurate readings (for I did feel this woman was connected to spirit) this does not mean that every word of it is accurate even if some or most of it is.  The two meanings did not become clear to me until later, as is often the case with psychic messages.   Sara was correct on both counts, the dog and the leg.  My sophomore year of college I twisted my ankle while being hazed for a humor organization.  I was wearing sneakers and my rubber sole screeched and stuck on the linoleum at an ice cream parlor.  I was charged by my tormentors with hopping on one leg as I shouted “Ha ha ha ha ha!”  in the crowded shop (yes, totally embarrassing).  As I started to topple I broke my fall with the objects in my trajectory, a man’s buttocks.  I desperately grabbed both of them.  Imagine his shock as he waited for his cone at the counter.  My humiliation was complete.

I had to go to the hospital.  My ankle was terribly swollen and I needed crutches.  So when my parents said “leg” it didn’t register because to me the event was “ankle”. However this injury is undoubtedly what they were referring to.  It was a serious wound and the pain in my foot and ankle malingered for years.  

I hurt my left knee badly about four years ago in a serious bike accident.  Someone chided me because I wasn’t wearing a helmet.  I said, “Well what the hell difference would it have made, my head was fine!”  I had just lost my job and health insurance and was trying to figure out whether I needed to continue my Cobra payments to get further treatment (i.e., surgery).  ER x-rays showed no breaks, but there’s lots of stuff in the knee that can be seriously compromised, like cartilage and ligaments.  There’s a real potpourri of junk in that joint.

I prefer alternative healers to regular docs and I asked my chiropractor whether he thought my knee would get better or need surgery.  He referred me back to myself (which made me love him even more).  I felt I was getting better and that I would rather treat this naturally and not worry about surgery.  He asked me, “Have you ever had a serious sprain before?”  I thought about it then remembered the ankle.   “How long did the pain last?”  I froze as I recalled the details of the injury.  “Ten years.”  I had wondered at the time whether my ankle would continue to hurt my entire life.  Eventually, I noticed it was gone after a full decade of twinges and discomfort.  I discontinued Cobra (that pricey snake!) and proceeded with my medical intuitive, chiropractor and acupuncturist, which cost considerably less than the monthly mafia extortion bill.

I also had a big “a-ha” moment when I figured out what my mom was talking about regarding the “funny dog”.  When I was quite small I had a white, fuzz-covered battery-operated mechanical dog.  It had a collar and a leash and I took it with me on the sidewalk.  It hopped slooowwly, so crossing the street was a rather treacherous undertaking, but doggie and me made it across with my mother’s supervision. 

The “heavenly contact” with my folks still felt ephemeral to me, wispy at best.  Yes, it was pleasant, I believe this medium was the real deal, and I could sense what she was saying about my mom and dad.  But I was seeking more concrete contact.  That’s why I studied with James Van Praagh.  I had seen him on TV and found him to be remarkable.  He is.  He has a stunning gift.  When he gave messages from the other side to the bereaved they broke down with recognition and gratitude.  The messages offered the possibility of healing by proving that our loved ones really are here.   They still think.  They still feel.  They see us. They love us.  They do their own healing and growing when they get to the other side.  They are simply on a different wavelength.  You need 3D glasses to see them.   Daily meditation and prayer facilitates the process of connection with Spirit, including your own guides and teachers on the other side.   If you’re texting all day and listening to hip-hop, there’s not much of a chance that they'll get through. 

My first class with James was at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY.  It’s a great new agey joint where you can take everything from watercolor painting to remote viewing.  They’ve got it all, plus it’s on a gorgeous, magical campus.   It was a large group and we did exercise after exercise.  I kept hoping he would stop the class and say, “Wait!  There are two people here who absolutely must talk to their daughter!”  It never happened.  We did transmogrification (staring at a partner in pitch dark and watching their etheric form shift), worked with pendulums, and read each other’s energy fields.  I learned a lot.  At the end of the weekend class James said, “How many people were hoping to get a reading?”  There were a good 150 people in the room.  At least half of us raised our hands.  “And WHAT’S the title of this class?  ‘Developing Your Intuition’.  YOUR intuition!” he sassed.   He then proceeded to give two hours of emotional readings.  I did not get a message. 

Shortly after my bike accident (which was shortly after I lost my job, and health insurance) I started ramping up my spirit activities.   I’d been to my first séance the previous October. During the séance I went into a light trance, and received intriguing messages from two mediums (which I’ve detailed in other chapters).  I was so impressed by the messages that when the man who gave me one said, “You should come back. Phyllis and I are running the next séance in December.” I jumped.

The two people out of a huge group who had messages for me were running the next meet?  You betcha I’m going!  I couldn’t wait.  I was starting to feel a real, tangible connection with spirit.   I returned with my cousin (her dad Pete was my mom’s brother).  I was really hoping Genia would get a message.  She didn’t.  I didn’t.  At the very end her dad and brother came through.  Then my mom arrived.  The whole gang was there.  The medium said dramatically to me, “Your mother and her mother are swirling around you, caressing your cheeks and saying how lovely you are!”  All the swirling and caressing took me aback, since my mother did little swirling in physical life.  I was more used to my mother’s criticisms.  The teenaged smartass in me came right back to life, recreating the dynamics of our relationship.  I thought “Oh yeah?  I’m lovely, huh?  How bout all the times you called me fat!”  The medium continued. “Change is coming!” she asserted.  “Your mother says that change is coming!  A new relationship is starting next month.  Are you in a relationship now?”  “That would be a resilient, resounding, resplendent no.”  “And in February and March, you will be creatively rewarded.  What do you do?”  She was relieved to discover that I was a creative type and that she was receiving accurately.  What Mom didn’t mention via the medium was “creatively rewarded” in February or March of which year.  They’re not so specific about time on the other side.  Maybe they don’t have watches. 

The next month I met a man.  Someone unlike anyone I’ve ever dated, someone unlike anyone I’ve ever wanted to date.  Lo!  He was not a depressed, angry, obnoxious, immature, narcissistic artist.  He was nice.  Pleasant.  Clean.  Affable.  I was not swept off my feet, though he cuts a very dashing figure, but I spent hours talking with him.  Or rather, at him.  I didn’t let the poor fellow get a word in edgewise since he was the first guy who ever listened to me.  There were no sparks that night, but as the evening wore on I found myself increasingly attracted to him as I grew aware that he was a compassionate human. 

Those sparks I’ve had in the past?  Warning signs!  Danger, karma ahead!  Yet I needed each and every one of those experiences to learn and grow, so I have not one regret.  Meeting and spending time with this man was a peaceful experience. I was used to angst, longing, drama and pain.  Now I know “sparks” mean “fire” = “smoke” = “burn”  = “ouch”.  I’m tired of ouch.    

I was incredibly comfortable with this man from the minute I met him. Within a few days I realized all the prophetic signs I’d been collecting over the decades regarding “Him” strongly pointed to “him”, the fellow I had just met.   This is the guy I’ve been waiting for all my life but the spirits had encouraged me to forget about since I had much to do and experience before I met him.  “I cannot divulge the place and time when this relationship will occur.” said the channeled spirit.  I thought they were being coy, but now I understand why.  I would have slit my wrists had I known true love was coming this late in life. I wanted to get married at 18 (to who, I don’t know).  Now I’m looking at a wedding that may well be sponsored by AARP.   “The relationship you seek stretches out a bit further…” The spirits have some sense of humor.  My game is already in overtime and I'm still waiting for the other team to arrive.

When the relationship did not commence immediately I became restless.  I was already old in my mind when I met him, so once I figured out he was “the one” I was like "Chop chop, let’s go, there’s no time to waste!"  But the relationship did not proceed.  I became desperate for psychic information.  I was convinced I was right.  Ten years prior to meeting him I dreamt of exactly how we met, in almost photographic detail.  I can recall that dream like it was yesterday.

One of my dreams had him coming up to me, asking if I was single, which I had to think about before I happily affirmed “yes!”  He quietly and seductively said “Finally.”  Then he walked away.  What?  But he came back later in the dream, with a vengeance (I will not go into the torrid details). This dream was prophetic.  We met.  He walked away.  I’m still waiting for him to come back.

I went to more séances.  It was now March.  I got a message from my grandmother saying I needed to go to school.  School?  I’ve been done with school since college, so what the hell was she talking about?  I concluded that the medium was off her rocker.  Humoring her, I asked the medium what kind of school since the whole premise seemed absurd.  “I don’t know but she was very insistent, ‘Go to school! Go to school!’”

I’m skeptical about most of the messages I receive, and with good reason.  You don’t want to take anything at face value before you’ve assessed the source and whether or not the message resonates with you.  Never give your discernment away, your common sense, or your power to someone else just because they have visions, even if they’re accurate visions.  We all get our own visions; whether or not we pay attention to them is another story.  Our dreams talk to us, sometimes we’ll have a “feeling”  (this is our gut, talking to us)  Some people hear (clairaudient) others see (clairvoyant) and some know/feel (clairsentience).  Always run other people’s messages by your own internal GPS system.  There’s no better expert on you than you.  We must trust ourselves, our abilities, and our intuition and stop looking constantly outside for pills, experts, and consolation.  The Kingdom of Heaven is Within.  When you find it inside, all gifts will reflect outside.  The movie projector is internal.  Life is the screen on which our thoughts manifest.  

I took a nap the day after the séance and woke up knowing exactly what my grandmother meant.  I was so excited, I cannot tell you.  That medium was not a kook.  My intuition had worked out the problem, and/or I communed with Nana while I was napping.  I don’t remember the dream or conversation.  I just knew that “school” meant two different psychic development classes that I was genuinely interested in taking but didn’t feel I could afford since losing my job.  I fought with myself but my cousin Genia encouraged me to take them.  I said “It’s counterintuitive when my income is gone!”  She said, “No, it’s totally intuitive.  You have to do it.”   She and my grandmother were exactly right.  Those courses deepened my connection to the spirit world and my own intuitive abilities.   The second one changed my life.

I went back to Omega for a second class with James Van Praagh, this time for five days.  There were 140 people in the group.  I gave up hope that I’d get a reading from this guy, but it dawned on me at some point that I was with 140 white witches from whom I might.  The class was filled with working mediums and psychics.  I didn’t think I was mediumistic or even particularly psychic.  This class started to change my mind.  We had an afternoon off (which pissed me off since I thought I’d paid for five full days).  James encouraged us to form practice development circles, and said if we were serious about developing our intuition we should "sit" or "hold circle" every week.  He attended a circle for something like 27 years, and he was born powerfully psychic.  Concert pianists practice every day.   Psychic skills are a muscle one must develop and maintain like any other. 

I wanted my money’s worth so I organized a group, pronto.  We met in our gorgeous classroom with huge windows surrounded by trees and a field.  There were about eight or ten of us gals (as you can guess, the class was predominantly women, with a few exceptions).   We decided to focus on one person, with one medium doing the reading.  I volunteered to be read.  I wrote my mother’s name (Nina) on a piece of paper and clutched it in my lap.  A Russian medium sat across from me and concentrated.  She was a court translator during the day, from Polish to Russian to English.  At night, she translated from living to dead.   I loved it.  She closed her eyes and spoke with her thick accent.

“I’m getting letter M as in Mary.”  Well, close, but no cigar.  I thought maybe she was picking up M as in Mom, or M as in Mother, and M is awfully close to N (maybe her psychic Russian hearing wasn’t so good?) but didn’t want to give it to her.  You don’t want to “feed” the medium with answers or leads.  So I fed the medium. “Try letter N as in Nancy.”  She saw an image of me with blonde hair, red lips and nails.  This was a character I played in a musical comedy right after my divorce.  It seems my mother saw the show from the other side, which amazed me.  I trust she had good seats.  But that was all the Russian got. 

Another woman in the circle came up and whispered in my ear “is it Nina?” I looked at her amazed and nodded.  I didn’t know any of these women, really, maybe a first name or two, but there was no intimate knowledge about me by either medium.  This woman ran with the reading. I felt bad for the Russian gal since she’d been usurped.  It turned out she was in awe of the reading I was about to receive, and my life was about to be transformed.    

She kept her eyes closed. “Oh, I feel terrible.  I’m weak, I’m so weak.  And I’m in pain, ow!  Ow!  Oh, my stomach…my blood is bad, oh, oh, and it’s a MESS! What a mess…”  She sat uncomfortably with all this, since unfortunately she experiences what she’s picking up.  She didn’t name my mom’s disease, but she very specifically described my mother’s symptoms toward the very end. 

“Are you aware your mother was speaking with people on the other side when she was near the end?”

“Uh, no.  She was babbling incoherently.”  Her body was riddled with the toxicity created by pancreatic cancer, not to mention the morphine and other drugs I administered to help alleviate her discomfort.  They didn’t seem to work.  She was in massive pain.  

“Do you have a sister?”  “Yes.”  “Older?”  “Yes.”  “Is she sensitive?”  “Yes.”  “Sensitive to the point of being a pain in the ass?”  “Yes.”  

The medium then proceeded to speak the name of the special man I’d met months before.  She said it three times.  Loudly.  Clearly.  I was dumbstruck.  My mother had told me at that December séance that a relationship was going to start.  I met the man, but the relationship did not commence.  So, when were the games going to begin?   She said no more on the topic so I let it go.  I was in awe of the fact that my mother was speaking so clearly through this woman.  Mom was here!  The hair was standing up on my arms. 

Mom communicated via the medium so naturally, so casually, that I felt as if I was having a “live” (forgive me) conversation with the dead.  I wasn’t sad, I was excited, as if I was having lunch with her.  We were back in the groove of our normal relationship.  Once the ball got rolling I felt like Helen Keller when she started understanding Annie Sullivan’s sign language messages…Mom and I were talking!  I could feel her.  This medium conveyed her personality, vocabulary, her cultural milieu and energy.  She said “Your mother is an excellent communicator.”  Of course she is, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!  Mom was very intelligent, and an English major.  And a lot of fun.

“She’s is pointing to the ground saying  “When I died, you were down here.  Now, you are up here.”  She lifted her hand high in the air, still keeping her eyes closed. “She wishes she could have done the same for herself.”  I got choked up.  Ever since getting sick my mom had only become nicer.   I was so used to her nitpicking and criticizing me.  I know she was doing the best she could at the time based on her beliefs.  We all are. I also know that learning, healing and productivity continues on the other side.  We don’t lose who we are.  Energy cannot be created or destroyed.  It’s physics.  We are energy.  Consciousness is energy.  We simply transform and shapeshift into our Light Body.  We lose nothing.  We gain everything. 

The message regarding my growth gave me insight that I wasn’t just a poor, sad little orphan.  I was this kind of cool woman whom my mother was complimenting.  She acknowledged my growth.  Which means she was watching me.  Which means that she’s connected to me, tangibly, in real time.  Which means I’m not alone.  Nothing has brought me closer to experiencing my belief in my parent’s non-physical existence than the live demo via mediumistic contact.

“Your mother has all your cats.”  I choked, “WHAT?”  My mother wouldn’t even let me get a hamster.  I didn’t believe it until the medium accurately described all my dead cats.  My mom is saddled with them for all eternity (or until she incarnates again).  Talk about karma!  I think it’s hilarious.  That’s what she gets for not letting me have a dog, or a hamster when I was growing up.  Now she’s coated in heavenly cat hair and taking out the etheric kitty litter, metaphorically speaking. 

“Now she’s showing me a tray of brownies.  Did she bake brownies for you?”

No, she didn’t.  This was a miss.  Then as the memories flooded back, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  My mother was reminding me of things I’d forgotten.  I used to make brownies for her!  Well, actually, they were for me, but that was the conceit, that they were for “her”.  My mom was more a lemon meringue pie/baklava gal, but who has the time to make them?  My mom went to PTA meetings when I was in fourth and fifth grade and I figured out how easy it was to make brownies from scratch using Baker’s chocolate.  The house smelled of baked goods when she returned at 10pm.  We had a little party upon her return. 

As amazing as all these details were I was dying to know more about the MAN whose name my mom said three times.  I trepidatiously asked if she had anything more to say about him.  The medium repeated my question to her out loud, then repeated my mother’s answer,  “Hasta la vista”.  GOODBYE?  I felt punched in the stomach, and I railed against the obvious meaning. Why mention his name if he wasn’t relevant?  Why tell me I’m going to meet him right before I meet him if he's of no consequence! The medium said “Is this someone you need to say goodbye to?” “NO!”, I said vehemently.  Hell to the no! 

“Your mother is showing me the magician’s trick where he pulls the tablecloth out from under a place setting.”   I said “Accurate”.  I was totally on my mother’s wavelength and understood the images and symbols she was communicating via the medium.  Many messages are symbolic, like a game of charades, and I interpreted my mother’s intentions at lightning speed. This man’s entrance into my life was foretold accurately, down to the month.  I met him on cue, the carrot was dangled, and then it was yanked away.  Man, but no relationship.   The metaphor was perfect for how frustrated I felt.  The rug had been pulled out from beneath me.  I had the eggs, milk, butter, flour and sugar, but no cake. 

“She’s showing me a puppy chasing its tail.”  While I had just got a puppy a month ago, I knew she wasn’t referring to that.  My mother always told me “Don’t chase them!  Let them chase you.”   Ha.  I was never much of a “Rules” girl.  I kept reaching out to him, simple emails, and initially he responded.  It was friendly, but it didn’t progress.  I kept trying to engage him, without pushing.  I certainly couldn’t let him know what I believed.  Talk about a kiss of death, “Don’t you know you’re my husband?”  No, he did not.  I was the puppy chasing its tail.  It was humiliating.  I stopped emailing. 

Then my mother switched gears and rolled fast forward.  “You need to be patient. He’s not going to get it at first.  But when he does, it’s going to move like gangbusters” Gangbusters is a word right out of my mother's lexicon.   The medium laughed, “Now your mother is singing “I’m Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair”.  Is there someone else you need to get rid of, first?  “Apparently so.”  I replied.  It was only 8 months since I’d been with the famous old man and he was still in my thoughts.   “Okay, point taken.” 

“She’s showing me King Kong now, do you understand this?”  “No, I don’t”  “She’s showing me Tarzan, does this make sense?”  “None.”  I still haven’t quite figured that one out yet.  We loved old movies, my mom and I, but not King Kong and Tarzan. 

My friends think I’m crazy for believing that this relationship will come to fruition after all this time.  I don’t believe in him.  I believe in me.  I trust my dreams, my feelings, my gut, my intuition.  I received a highly accurate description of him from a psychic a full year before I met him.  I trust the myriad messages from other people, many of them strangers, that point to him, even though they have variously described him as a blonde and a brunette. Those are details.  I discern the heart of the message, what they have in common, not the minutiae that is off.   If a group of psychics had him in the next room they would each describe him variously.  It’s a game of “Telephone”.  And for those who don’t already know, “hasta la vista” means “see you later”.

But most important, my mom came back to me.  I can feel her now, and I know from another psychic that she’s the one knocking around my kitchen (the cabinets pop open by themselves).  One psychic feels she sits at the foot of my bed at night.  This is a lovely image, and it sits well with me.  The “other world” is right here.  It’s not up there or down there.  It’s right here.  Just like our bodies are made up of cells we cannot see and the air is filled with microwaves, x-rays and cell signals we do not feel.  We know them by their works.  They are there.  You have to align with their frequency.

If one is to learn the subtle workings of spirit one must become subtle oneself.  I feel connected to my mother now.  I know she saw me vacuuming this morning when feathers were flying in my bedroom (my ancient down blanket finally burst).  It was a scene right out of  “The Sound of Music” when Maria plays with the children or “Fanny and Alexander” (one of my favorite films) when the nanny has a pillow fight with her young charges late on Christmas night.   Magic.  And a mess.  

Feathers can symbolize Angels.  I highly recommend Lorna Byrne’s book “Angels in My Hair” if you want to get a hands on understanding of how prayer and communion with spirit works.  It’s complex.  It’s mysterious.  It’s stunning.   Lorna has been seeing and communicating with angels since she was a child.  Most people thought she was a moron.   Read the book and decide for yourself. 

Whereas in the past I missed my mother, now I love my mother.  It’s in real time, and it’s a huge difference. My friend Bill invited me last minute last night to see “Wit” on Broadway, starring Cynthia Nixon.  I wasn’t particularly in the mood to see a play about a woman dying of cancer.  Bill’s mom died of cancer when he was young, as did mine.  I had writing to do and I was exhausted, having been up til 2am the previous night, not my usual bedtime. 

Here’s how I made my decision.   I was doing the laundry yesterday (and I’ll be doing it again today with all those feathers in my duvet cover).  My building’s laundry room is in the basement and I passed by the superintendent’s office.  It was empty, but the TV was on and there was a bald, skinny woman wearing a baseball cap.  I identified Cynthia Nixon and knew that “look” from “Wit” because I tried to watch the HBO version of it but didn't like it.  I haven’t had TV in three years, and I don’t read the paper.  I didn’t know there was a revival of the show on Broadway starring Cynthia.   But a “flash” came to me “Oh, she’s doing ‘Wit’”.  Thirty minutes later my pal Bill invites me to the show.  This is synchronicity, and I know enough now to take the hint and follow the Yellow Brick Road.  Spirit gave me a preview of the evening on my super's TV.

I rallied my energies, painted my face (even though I suspected I’d cry it all off) and met Bill.  The play is 90 minutes, no intermission, and I remained unmoved for the first 60 minutes.  “Wit” is about a very smart, very proud academic who is humbled and broken from pain, being a patient, and facing her own death.   Her doctors are academic and cold like herself. She’s a John Donne scholar (“Death, Be Not Proud”) and deals with cancer via her intellect.   

As she degenerates the only thing that matters is the compassion she receives from her primary care nurse, someone she deems “not too bright”.   Her pride disappears as her fear and vulnerability come to the fore.   An old friend comes to visit at the end and there are sweet moments of nurturing and of humor.  The tears were pouring down my face by now, but I shrieked a loud gasp of a laugh when the children’s bedtime story being read to Vivian (the patient) was peppered by amusing commentary by her friend.  

When you hold back your sorrow, you hold back your capacity to feel joy, as well.  I let them both rip.  Laughing and crying blend into each other now, different sides of the same coin. 

I know deep joy because I allowed my innards to be excavated by deep pain, my hardness softened by sorrow. The pitfall to avoid is not to let your wounds become covered over by scar tissue.  Keep your heart bravely open.  The bombs that explode and devastate only make your heart cavity Bigger.  Keep it Big. 

I’ll close with an end quote from the movie “Kama Sutra” where love and loss are intricately tied. 

“Knowing Love

I will allow all things to come and go

To be as supple as the wind

And take everything that comes with great courage

My heart is as open as the sky.”

http://ravingvioletvalerie.blogspot.com/2012/01/chatting-with-dead.html

©2012