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TheMagdaleneAwakening.com
Category:
Spirituality
Publisher: Sacred Escape
ISBN-10: 9780981789439
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 197
Copyright: February 14,2016
ISBN-13: 780981789439
Price: $4.95 (eBook)
This book shares the story of an agreed upon communication between a husband who died with cancer and his wife left behind. It is a story of loss, grief and hope of life after death through After Death Communication.
Excerpt
This is a story about death, the truest mystery in life. It is also a story about what happens following the loss of a loved one and the journey through the grief process. Death happens every day, but personally, I wanted proof consciousness survives. I wanted to be taught about death. When my husband was dying I asked if we could write a book using After Death Communication. We both were familiar with synchronicities. We had both experienced signs. We didn’t know if we would be able to continue after he died. Neither he, nor I, were psychic. We didn’t know how it might work but were open to possibilities.
Our story is about the experiences we had before and after his death. It is about the signs he provided and the synchronicities we shared. The story includes some of the important things I learned working as a hospice bereavement counselor. Listening to people grieve was my daily job. The feelings and emotions of others accompanied my own as I struggled with my husband's death. I speak as someone who has labored in their own, unique, grief process.
During the last 10 years working with hospice, I studied research done by doctors like Raymond Moody who completed over 45 years of study of the Near Death Experience as well as Melvin Morris who exclusively studied the Near Death Experiences of children. My personal style of grief support encouraged an open ended wonder allowing my clients to explore the possibility their loved one's consciousness survived the death of the body.
ÁUTHOR’S NOTE
This is a story about a death, not a murder mystery but the truest mystery in life. And it’s a story about grief and what happens following the death of a loved one. What do you call it when a life at any age is taken away by cancer? An unfair tragedy? It’s certainly not an unusual story. It happens every day to thousands of people, but the experience of it is unique to the individuals and the families living through it.
During the time leading up to the death, the world usually shrinks down to a few people. In our case and like so many others it included a hospice team to whom I owe so much. I was a part of that team for many years working as a grief counselor. I took the hand of the bereaved when their loved one died and walked
beside them for as long as they needed me. I supported them and taught them about normal grief.
I knew people survived the grief they experienced after the death of their loved ones. I had been a witness to that over the last twelve years of my career. I would assure people they would survive. I could say with great confidence, YOU WILL MAKE IT THROUGH THIS. I know because I’ve helped hundreds of people and they all do. So when I faced the death of my own spouse and the grief that followed, I was well prepared.
Chapter One: William Clark “Pancho” Andersen
Pancho Andersen was the most unique individual I’ve ever known. We could not have been more different. I was from a southern family, born and raised in Florida with my roots in North Carolina and brought up in the Methodist church with attendance every Sunday of my youth. His mother was born in Massachusetts, raised in Ohio. She married an emigrant from Denmark, who grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. His dad was gentile, belonged to the country club, played golf and read all the great works of literature. My father was a hard working contractor who used his hands and could do anything. My family were Democrats, his Republican. My parents had a high school education, his both graduated from college, Miami of Ohio. We; however, were both Florida born and for the most part raised. Pancho had a Texan flair. We both loved horses and raised our own. Our first date was to a rodeo.
I could not figure out where he got his southern drawl. Not from his family. That was for sure. Pancho spent his middle school years growing up in Richardson, Texas, outside Dallas. There he learned to love horses and caught his cowboy accent. He worked on a ranch and learned about real life from his boss, TD Sterns. TD ran a string of over a hundred rent horses. TD told great stories. Pancho took on the skill and added a flavor of his own. He could entertain me for hours. During our last trip together to Nova Scotia, when he knew he didn’t have long to live, he told me the story of growing up in Texas again. I loved listening to his stories.
I met Pancho Andersen in Atlantic Beach, Florida where he grew up after returning from Texas. I was 20 and he was a year older. He had become a surfer, even president of the Utica surf club, a true honor of that time. Pancho worked in Mayport for Matt Rowland at the tiny fishing village near the large Naval Base not far from his home. He loved the water in every way: to surf, to fish. You rarely found Pancho far from water or with shoes. He was just a flip-flop, T-shirt, blue jeans kind of guy. It didn’t matter how many Brooks Brothers golf shirts his Mom gave him. She supplied all of his ‘proper attire’ throughout his life, from sport coats to
boat shoes. Pancho was a rebel. His father was still wearing a crew cut and a skinny tie the first time I met him in 1973. Pancho’s hair was long, blond like corn silk, and I’m sure he didn't own a tie. He would concede and dress up on Sunday for dinner at his parent’s house, holidays, and special occasions. 'Proper attire' got shed at the first opportunity.
He didn’t care to impress anyone with material things. I had grown up in a middle class home and was enamored by his parent’s life style. I fell in love with his family as much as I did with Pancho. Education was important to me because my parents were not college graduates. Pancho only went to college because his parents insisted and then only studied what he loved: Marine Biology at Jacksonville University. He never completed his degree. His real university was the world and in 1973 he began to educate me about a world I never knew.
Chapter 2: Pancho’s World
I had been taken to church, but he taught me where God lived, in nature. I fell in love with Pancho when I first laid eyes on him. It was at a boyfriend’s house on the ocean. I bumped into him as he turned the hall corner, his hair bleached white from sun and surf, ragged jeans and a shirt with a tear on the pocket. He always wore Ray Bans that covered his blue eyes. The second time I met him I lifted the sunglasses in a rather bold move to check out those eyes. It was not long before he completely had my heart. When we went on a double date, Pancho in front with his date, I in back with mine, he reached his left hand around the seat to seek out my hand to hold. When he let me drive his brother’s MG, he stopped at the corner of 3rd and 12th St. in Atlantic Beach and asked if he could kiss me.
That was it, no looking back. During those early years, I followed him like a puppy, even through the woods. I almost stepped on a moccasin as we waded through knee-deep marsh grass. I soon found myself covered by tiny seed ticks that sent me running back to the car to strip down to nothing. I sat up in a tree stand where I was directed to sit very still so as not to scare the game even though I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes. Thank goodness nothing walked by me!
With Pancho, I watched sunrises and the most precious thing he gave me was the moon. He taught me about the full moon rising over the ocean every month at sunset and together we watched a thousand moonrises. We were children of the 50s, teenagers in the 60s, and lovers in the 70’s. During our first years together we hung out at Pete’s Bar in Atlantic Beach and the Spectrum Disco Club. We traveled together to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, England, France, Spain and Gibraltar, Morocco and North Africa. He proposed in Nice in a hotel overlooking the Mediterranean, we were together for 5 years and married in 1978 in a double wedding with Dean, his brother, in the Methodist Church in Jacksonville. In our
early lives we enjoyed freedom and fun. We gave the best parties, as many of our old friends can testify. We gave that all up in the 80s in order to raise a pair of amazing children. Now I know the real reason I married Pancho and the reason we stayed married for 34 years was due to those two amazing, beautiful kids. I knew he would father beautiful children.
The 90’s were years of building his business in Mara-culture. He cultivated clams from state leased marsh lands. He got to work next to manatee and under eagles. He was strong from hard work and after being diagnosed with stage4 cancer in 2003 he made a pledge to surf and fish every day of his life. He took a fishing rod on his boat and on the way to work he’d have a chance to cast or troll on the way to the lease on the Matanzas River by the 206 bridge south of St. Augustine near Devil’s Elbow. He was most comfortable in a wet suit or baggies, mostly well-worn and he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. The years following his first diagnosis changed everything for us. Time no longer seemed to make sense, for the first year I slept with my hand on his back or close to him afraid of his death and losing him.
We had many good years after his diagnosis. We learned to appreciate life, each other, every day and every moment. We explored our spiritual beliefs and what we believed about death and I promise you he was on first name basis with a God that many people never get to meet as he spent every day in God’s cathedral. He was shy but you’d never know it, except for many of my friends who didn’t believe he even existed. Standing face to face with you, if you could manage to get him in that position, he had a booming southern drawl and could talk your ear off about the things he loved. He loved surfing, he loved Nova Scotia, he loved his children and was proud of both of them and he loved me and let me know in a thousand small ways. Romance wasn’t his strong suit, but I would have bouquets of wild flowers over the kitchen sink and every morning he brought me a cup of coffee in bed…a treat I will always miss.
Chapter 3: Squamous Cell Carcinoma/Unknown Primary
Pancho returned from the doctor’s appointment late morning, dressed in his now typical “doctor visit” attire, a golf shirt instead of his tee shirt and boat shoes, instead of flip flops. His face was solemn as he entered the kitchen. I had been waiting for him to return, holding my breath and pacing.
“What did he say? What did you find out?” I asked standing at the door so anxious I couldn’t wait for him to walk in. “Well,” he grimaced as he tilted his head to the left. “It’s not good.” He had been told the results of the biopsy done during surgery to remove the lymph gland that had hardened into a knot on his neck. I held the paper he brought home in my hand and read. It was Stage 4 Squamous Cell Carcinoma, cancer, with an unknown primary.
“What does that mean?” I wanted to know.
“It means they can’t find where it started. They don’t know the primary source. But, it’s already spread to my lymph glands.”
We stood for a second frozen and stared at each other. He had found the hard knot on his neck in November and started with his primary care doctor. The diagnosis was confirmed with the surgery and biopsy in March. That moment we looked into each other’s eyes knowing his life was terminal. The diagnosis brought our focus to the reality of death.
Something about our relationship changed after that lightning strike. There are moments and places in your life that you always remember. We were standing in our living room, the antique clock given to us by his Danish grandmother Bedste ticked rhythmically. I saw the look of fear in his eyes and listened to him apologetically share the truth he could no longer avoid. He had really known since November when he’d had the needle biopsy. At that time he tried to make light of it, “They said there are some 'thick' cells in the lymph gland” he had said. With the full reality on the table we held each other and wept. At night I would find myself staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. With my hand on his back I used magical thinking, maybe I could somehow heal him if I kept it there all night. Often warms tears of disbelief streamed down from the edges of my eyes to wet the pillow. Brigitte, a close friend, offered hope of healing with a spiritual book about spontaneous remission. We needed hope. We needed miracles. We needed magic. Spiritual books were a long shot. I had been on a spiritual path since the children were born but Pancho had little interest in things that couldn’t be seen or touched. I was living with the teachings of “A Course in Miracles” and providing hospice grief counseling. I shared my spiritual insights with Pancho though he never admitted he agreed. Our spiritual life took on new meaning with the cancer diagnosis. Now, Pancho was open to possibilities.
“You can read it to me,” he said and we began to take long drives so I could read aloud. The book was called “Celestial Healing” by Virginia Arosnon. As crazy as it sounds it gave an account of a miraculous healing through the intervention of a hovering light. The author lived not far from us in Florida making it more personal and close. After being given a prognosis of only days to live and being told she would never leave the hospital, she begged an orderly to let her go home one more time to see her young son. The orderly agreed, but only if she promised to be back by morning. The book described her experience. When at home, lying on her bed, she became frozen as she watched the room fill with a white fog. Her body seemed to levitate and through the window she observed what appeared to be a disk shaped object 8 to 9 inches across. It scanned her body with a blue light...and she believes that day she was healed and lived to write the story of that healing blue light. Pancho listened.
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