MORE ON THE VEIL
HELLO DAD!

As I hit send on WITH US IN A NEW WAY, I knew deep in my gut I was asking you to attempt a swim with me across a very wide and turbulent river to the proposition that:

When a critical mass of US truly accepts and acknowledges those we deeply love are all around us and even closer than before,

And when we, in turn, reciprocate with mindful expressions of our eternal love for them, and intentionally work at mending, healing and strengthening our relationships with them,

With a deep knowing in our hearts they, too, hear us, feel us and are so grateful for all those sorts of things we are doing for them even though they are no longer in their bodies,

I believe that is when the veil will come down.

C.S. Lewis’s profound condolence card to his good friend’s wife prompted me to write those words. 

But his words were not the source of mine. 

I had two distinct messages in mind:  Only one that I’d previously shared.

HEALING AND MENDING RELATIONSHIPS BEYOND OUR BODIES AND LIFETIMES was a break-through leap for me.  One of those enormous dot-connectors.   It was blessed Rabbi Regina Sander-Phillips who shared these prescient observations after watching Steve Date’s film THE LETTER:

We heal as we accept and find meaning in the wounds we may always carry with us through this precious life. Whenever death comes–whether suddenly and tragically, or in the fullness of time–we and our relationships can heal beyond our bodies and lifetimes, even when no “cure” is available.

There is a parallel process for the healing of relationships. Even traumatic death can yield into a healing of relationships through generations:  Your son, your father and you.

In other words, not only can our loved ones who have transitioned help those of us still here in our bodies with our grief and healing,  we can also help them—we can do things to repair and strengthen our relationships with loved ones who are on the other side.  We can help them with their own healing.

Powerful stuff.

Even those relationships we may have thought irrevocably broken and beyond repair.  

That post focused primarily on the extraordinary things our loved ones—primarily my father and Jimmy—have done to help us here. 

It was Jimmy who dug the tunnel for my Dad to run through, connect and embrace me.

I have  felt for some time now that what I’ve been doing was helping my father and mending my relationship with him:  Writing and sharing in a very public way the story of his letter to me; and researching and writing his life story-specifically those formative, turbulent early years as a child, losing his seven-year-old sister when he was only thirteen, becoming a student-leader, and his meteoric rise as a highly decorated officer during those horrific years with the U.S. Army in the Pacific Theater.

I also wrote him letters of forgiveness and expressed my gratitude for helping Jimmy over to the other side. I finally was able to talk about him openly and lovingly with my mother and siblings—everybody. 

I knew this was helping me.  

But here’s the question:   How do we know if this is landing on the other side? 

That’s the piece I didn’t share with you.   

A month ago, I had a mediumship phone reading with Chris Lynn. It was my birthday present from Hilary. Hilary, Brittany and I think very highly of Chris and her gifts.  We’ve each had other spiritual guidance readings with her: past-lives regression; meet your spirit guides; clearing out any blockages. 

But, this was my first reading with Chris as a medium and the first mediumship reading I’ve done without Hilary and Brittany—aka Team Healing.

We’ve had many mediumship readings over the past eleven years, and my father has never come through once—until now.

Jimmy came through first—he always comes through—followed by my grandmother Henrietta Case and my 3^rd great aunt, Mary Sawyers, whose story I wrote and widely shared a couple of years ago MARY SAWYERS SWAN COOK-PIONEER MOTHER OF CALIFORNIA.  

Most of their messages were about my writing and sharing—encouraging me to keep it up and do more.  Jimmy showed me a microphone.   Henrietta said there’s another one of her writings I have not yet found, and I need to do a story about it.  Mary thanked me for shining a light on her amazing life.

Towards the end of the reading Chris said:

I feel like I’ve got a father figure here.  Nodding.  Sitting here with us and nodding. In understanding and appreciation. 

I sucked in my breath.   It was him!   I felt him.  

It was the very same electric, tingly, feeling I had during my first call with Emily Sue Buckberry when she told me she had found and kept his letter written 40 years earlier; and then five days later when I sat down in our kitchen and held it and read his words to me.  

[CL is Chris]

CL: He’s saying:

I’ve come so far—so far.   Thank you for putting the pieces back for me. Because you healed me over here.

CG: [I begin to choke up] That’s my dad.

CL:   He’s so grateful. [Chris is overcome with emotion]

CG:  I was honored to do it. [I’m in full-blown cry mode now]

CL:  What you and we are doing on this side of the veil has an impact on them too.  That’s stunning, and I didn’t know that…I didn’t know that. I thought they had helpers on their side to help them with whatever.  But he’s saying:

What we do on this side can help them. It’s a continuum. 

That’s the word he wants to use. A continuum.   Whoah!

CG:  I wrote a story about that.  I’ll send it to you. 

CL: You did?  Of course you did.

CG:  The title is Healing and Mending Relationships Beyond Our Bodies and Lifetimes.  And it does work both ways.  It works Big Time both ways.   My Dad helped me, he helped me Big Time, and then it was my turn to help him.

CL:  Yes.  He’s acknowledging it, and just being so grateful and so connected.  He’s showing me, he’s touching his heart and saying:

I have my heart back.  My heart, it’s back.

CL:  And he’s acknowledging it was a lot…it just was a lot for you to have to go through because of his choice [death by suicide.]

CG:  Yup

CL:  And he thanks you for not damning him in the process. He’s saying

So grateful

He just keeps coming back to

I’m so grateful

CL: This is grace.

We’ll come back to the reading.

Well, it’s not often when you ‘stump the medium.’  

For my father to come through like this—to acknowledge my work, my efforts to mend our relationship, to bring him back into my life, our family’s lives—to help HIM put his pieces back together—find his heart…

For him to confirm, ‘Yes, healing and mending relationships works both ways!’

I can’t even begin to express what this means to me.  

Blown away—much too weak. Hilary’s take:

“Full circle.  You’ve come full circle with your father.”

True. I went from wanting absolutely nothing to do with him after his death 50 years ago, to now where I feel closer to him and love him more than at any other point in my life.  I want to talk about him—brag about him—tell my grandsons about him.  Tell the world.

Chris went on to observe:

We don’t always see this connection and the matrix that is formed unless we’re looking.  They [on the Other Side] are all part of that web, and when one [of us on this side] becomes included in the web it strengthens everything on this side and the other side of the veil.  

The message they want to bring forward in unison is:

We are becoming whole.  Even though it doesn’t look like it on your side, we are becoming whole. And us as a human race are becoming whole.

There’s an overarching message that feels like it’s coming from the collective.  Over there are your loved ones, and it is like they are saying:

The honor is ours.  We feel honored when you are doing this work and the honor is ours.

And there’s a feeling that comes with it that I wish I could put words to.  

They are also saying:

The honor is ours.  There will be a time when there will be no veil.  There will be no separation.  It’s not a case of being on one side of the veil or the other, and when that dissolves, that is what we refer to as heaven.  That is the idea of the utter unity.

It does work both ways.

They work it from the Other Side, helping us.

We can work it from This Side, helping them.

And at some point, there will be no Sides. 

There will be a time when there will be no veil.

And, no, I have no idea what that might look like!

Or when.

But it sure is fun to imagine it.

Postscript-Dreamland

A few days after my reading with Chris, I had a dream about my Dad.  Maria, our housekeeper, came into my home office and said, “There are two men at the door for you.”  I went to the front door and there were my Dad and Jim Walton. [Jim was his best friend since WWII.  Both were U.S. Army Majors and fought together in the Pacific Theatre.  Jim also ran the job for Case Foundation in Coalwood WV, and it was Jim that convinced my Dad I should go there to work that summer of 1968]

They were decked out in their dress- white Navy uniforms and holding their hats.   Both were Admirals. Trim, tan and fit. In their forties.  Big smiles on their faces.

I had a long bear hug with each of them. First with Jim, then my Dad. The kind you have when it’s been a long time since the last one. [I can still feel our strong embrace as I write this.  The scratch of their whiskers on my face.]  They came into the house.

We talked a bit.  Dad said he was on leave and we’d be going on vacation together.  I asked him where his next assignment would be after our vacation.  He said

“Right here with you.”