Always A Bridge To Connect The Gap – part 2

Suddenly the music cut in again for Dee. If she were a phony, I was thinking, she would have probably bought the first explanation offered. But she keeps coming back to this. “There’s a piece of music that he did listen to all the time. He wants you to listen to the words. See, that’s the music I keep hearing. And if he was into country-western, those words have a lot of…” As she momentarily paused, falling into a brief silence, another idea suddenly came to her. “Does he have any tapes or c.d.’s lying around that he listened to? Any that maybe had special meaning for him?” It took me a moment, but I finally had a brainstorm. “Wait a minute,” I remembered, “there was this tape of love songs Scott made for me.” “That’s it!” Dee exclaimed excitedly, finally recognizing the right answer. “You told me about that country music thing and got me off the track, but that isn’t what he was talking about.”

“He’s saying, he wants you to listen to the words.”

The Tape, and Where it Led Me

You see Honey though it might seem that way the music has never stopped

Scott, September 1997

Channeled Writing

The next day, I held the tape in my hands. It symbolized a great deal to me, although it had resulted from a painful period in my relationship with Scott. During our first summer, a few months after our meeting, I had gotten scared and broken up with him. In retrospect, it was the single most stupid act I can remember taking. Though the reasons are now irrelevant, I had never before been in a successful, mature adult relationship, and I found the prospect terrifying. In my fear, I had pushed him away. Scott had been crushed, simply not understanding. He knew in his heart that our relationship was right, and meant to be. Nevertheless, despite his pain, he had carried himself with a grace and kindness that left me with new respect for him. Within two months, we were back together for good.

During those days of painful romantic exile Scott had made this tape for me as a gift, compiling his favorite songs of romance to express to me more than he could say in words. The tape had become one of my favorites, always among those carried with me in my backpack along with my tape player for musical inspiration as I sat outside painting. Now, a chill ran through me as I paid attention for the first time to the title written on the tape in Scott’s handwriting. Healing Rhythms, said one side, and the other Transitional Tunes. “All right,” I thought to Scott, smiling, “I hear you.” But the message was not yet complete.

I thought back to the reading with Dee. Immediately after we had finally gotten the message about the tape, she had said “He’s talking about his voice. He wants you to listen to his voice.” She briefly paused, then continued. “Was he into poetry? Did he put his words down…in a notebook?” I answered affirmatively, thinking of the numerous notebooks still stacked among the library bookshelves. “Well he’s saying, those are his messages to you. Those are it. You’re supposed to just enjoy them. He said to read the poetry; there’s a lot of meaning in it. And he said they weren’t meant to make you unhappy, they were meant to make you happy. To know that there is always a bridge to span the gap. Just a small bridge.”

Scott, a prolific writer, had left behind several bound journals of his writings over the years containing poems, essays, fiction, and free-flowing creative writing exercises. On page after page he had honestly poured out his heart and soul, exploring his inner angels and demons and constantly pushing forward his creative limits in the flow of his words. Though I had skimmed the dusty notebooks since his death, thirsty for contact, I had not read their contents carefully.

Now, as I found an entry dated September 10, 1990, my breath was taken away. He had penned the words on the very day he’d made the tape for me:

Well I’ve made it up up and away and emotion flows freely but tears well up and change seems imminent and inalterable prevarications incumbent upon our one life and once more into the breech good men and chase down that demon through the hallowed halls of Christendom and discover self and avail oneself of Freudian psychoanalytical bombast and learn and revel in truth and make cassettes that heal and rhythms of peace and transitional tunes and onward Christian soldiers to rise up like a phoenix after long arduous death and know we will remain and know we will be free.

What rational explanation could there be, I wondered, for his having written these words? Though I searched my mind, I could see none. It occurred to me that, in freely expressing himself through the creative-writing exercise, Scott had spoken straight from the soul. On some level Scott had been in direct communion with the greater mystery even as he’d been here, living his life. Part of him had glimpsed even then the outlines of a greater picture.

“I’m slow,” I thought to Scott, holding the paper in my hands, “but bear with me, baby. I’m finally getting it.”

“Thanks.”

A Chill of Confirmation

It’s a little hard to describe but everything is different but I am so much the same and I’m so very much with you…

Scott, April 1996

Channeled Writing

Dee is only a receiver of information and often does not understand its meaning. Like an interpreter in a long-distance conversation, she can only pass along what she picks up and hope that the message will make sense to the recipient. During the session she made one casual statement that would have meant nothing to anyone else, but took my breath away and left me convinced that she was making genuine contact with Scott. Just as she had finished telling me that it bothered him when I made statements to the effect that he “wasn’t there,” and to just give him a chance to get through, she suddenly chuckled to herself. “What is this noise he’s making?”

Before I could respond, she said “He used to go into this voice when he was alive. It was meant for humor. What is this?” she laughed, “it’s like a Donald Duck noise. What is that?” It took me just a second to figure out what she was talking about, but the answer then became perfectly clear to me and I was filled with delight. Scott used to make a certain noise sometimes when he was in a light mood, an expression of his buoyant flippancy, that is hard to describe. This short sort of bursting quack, that might be spelled like “nnyacch!,” reflected his playful humor and was quintessentially Scott. My law partner called it the “Scott noise,” and another close friend called it his “veto noise.”

When I explained this to Dee, and made the noise for her, she said, laughing, “That’s it! He said he’s done that several times hoping you’d hear him. He’s right near you doing that and you’re picking him up and don’t know it.” Warm feelings flushed through me. Had she tried, Dee could not have chosen a more specific or unique identifier of Scott’s personality. Joyously sorting through the implications, I asked her “Does that mean that they keep their personalities when they pass over to the other side? Their sense of humor?” “They don’t lose a bit of it,” she said, “they take it all with them. Especially when you get really down, his sense of humor comes out. He’s not going to be unhappy, he can’t be. He has to be happy, he’s earned that.” Scott had reached me, and touched me with his joy. Deep within, the dark clouds began to lift.

Published in: on July 24, 2008 at 3:22 pm  Leave a Comment  
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A Spirit Begins To Stir – part one

A Light Breaks Through

No circuits remain uncompleted where truth lies

Scott, November 1996     Channeled Writing

As I waited the next evening with some apprehension for the telephone to ring, hope, doubt and fear all circled and danced through my mind. I sensed that I was on the threshold of an important experience, but had no idea what shape it would take. When Daviea finally called we chatted a little, as I was too terrified to get to the heart of the matter. The stakes were simply too high, and “what ifs” were running through my mind. At last, Daviea said “I asked her how Scott was doing.” In the momentary pause that followed, my heart seemed to stop beating in my chest. “What did she say?,” I asked after what seemed an infinity.

“She said that he’s smiling!,” she reported, ” and that he’s doing very very well where he is. She said that a couple times, ‘he’s doing very very well.”’ Even as she spoke I began to feel unaccountably light, as if a breakthrough were being made. “She said he’s much better off now than he was in the body.” She briefly paused, then continued. “And she said that Scott told her that he was surprised that he went so quickly.” Though those last words could not have meant much to Daviea or to Dee, they immediately struck me to my core and reverberated there as true. On the deepest level of my intuition I felt that I was being handed a real communication from Scott, experiencing a genuine sharing. It suddenly dawned on me that he had chosen to communicate that specific message not only to penetrate my veil of rational skepticism, and to touch my heart that way, but also for the purpose of greater healing.

crockett-in-the-glades1

During his last days, Scott and I had become of one mind. Even as his physical challenges mounted and his body tired, and we fought battle after battle side by side, we grew in our love for one another and our souls melded. Given one last opportunity for union in this lifetime, each second became precious and an experience to be savored. The night before he died, we sat on the sofa together as usual, just talking and watching Thursday night T.V. By that time the infusion lines disappearing into the port in his chest had become part of the scenery, no longer any big deal. To us it was an ordinary evening, yet we both recognized it as sacred time.

We were easy together, having spent enough time together of sufficient quality to make words unnecessary for communication. I knew that Scott had made plans for the next day as the ones before, to simply survive. I knew that his death had taken him by surprise, and on some level that was part of my shock at his parting. Thus, in hearing Scott’s message third-hand, I intuitively felt that this was true, that Scott had effectively answered my prayers and made contact. My heart flooded with joy, flush with the dawning realization that Scott’s beautiful consciousness, his soul, had not died along with his battered body. The implications were staggering.

On a deeper level, Scott’s brief communication offered a message of healing in another important way. During the years we made our way through life together, we had faced everything as a team. All of life’s joys were made sweeter in the sharing, and the inevitable slings and arrows softened by the shield of our love. But yet there I had been on the morning of Scott’s passing, left unable to share this most momentous of experiences with him. I had seen him all the way through, bearing witness to the crowning “experience of a lifetime,” but now felt keenly the depths of my isolation. More than ever before I longed to be with him in this experience, to talk it through with him, to somehow help soften its impact in the sharing. But death had slammed the door shut on me, and hard, leaving me unable to do so.

Not until I heard Daviea speak those words did I realize how deeply frustrated and out-of-balance I had been left by my experience of Scott’s death. Even if I couldn’t have him back, I’d burned with longing to find at least a measure of closure with the event of his passing. In hearing Dee’s simple words through Daviea, I began to feel that an important circuit had been completed. More than ever before, I felt ready to start letting go of the bottomless pain I carried within like a heavy stone.

Feeling lighter than air, full with the dawning realization that my journey with Scott was not over, I literally laughed and jumped for joy after telling Daviea that I loved her and hanging up the phone. In spirit, Scott smiled.

A Window Opens

A few days later, I ran into a friend during a lunchtime workout at the gym. I had found that trying to return to my prior exercise routine, jogging one day and working out the next, helped to lift my sadness more effectively than any prescription medicine. My friend, who had not seen me since the memorial gathering, asked with sincerity and warmth how I was doing. It had been a tough journey, I told him, about as dark as I could stand, but I felt that maybe I might be just beginning to heal. I was proud of the small steps I had been able to take. I was proud, and somewhat surprised, to find myself surviving, to find myself still here. And even, at times, starting to tentatively embrace life if I wasn’t paying attention.

And I shared with my friend my fledgling awareness of a spiritual connection to Scott, my dawning feeling that maybe part of his consciousness had remained with me though his body had not. “I’m not exactly sure what’s going on,” I told him, “but something is definitely happening here. I’ve been writing him every day in my journal, and it’s like my sacred time. I still feel like I need to communicate with him; death hasn’t changed that.” Looking into my friend’s eyes, deciding I could trust him, I said “But that’s only part of the story. The weird thing is not that I’m writing him, but that I get the strong sense he’s listening. And sometimes, I swear, I’ve felt like he’s really been there with me.”

My friend listened spellbound, not sure exactly what to think or how to respond. “In fact,” I continued, I’m not sure why, “I feel like he’s here right now.” Feeling a chill pass through me, in pure desire, I said “Come to me, baby!” Standing with my back to the wall of large metal windows behind me, I saw my friend’s mouth suddenly drop open. Turning around, I saw one of the large, vertical windows lining the wall of the upstairs gym standing open. “That window,” he said slowly, “just unlatched itself and flew open.”

At the time I just smiled, not making much of the incident. No big deal, I figured, it must have been the wind. The timing was just a coincidence. But when I walked over to the wall a few minutes later, all of the other windows were latched shut. They were all several feet tall, framed in metal and quite heavy. And the day was still.

To Chapter 9

Published in: on July 18, 2008 at 2:41 pm  Leave a Comment  
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