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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781467024860 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 10/14/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 3 MB |
Read an Excerpt
Psychic Grace
A novelBy Keli Adams
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Keli AdamsAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4670-2488-4
Chapter One
Lemon
Take a moment to be still and, with your eyes closed, envision a lemon in front of you. How clearly do you see it? Imagine the same lemon without the distraction of the physical world around you. Through the darkness behind your eyelids, can you see the lemon more clearly? Can you see the brightness of the yellow color, the dimples on the skin? Can you smell its fragrance? Is your mouth watering right now just imagining the sour taste of the juice contained inside the fruit? Sometimes you can see more clearly with your eyes closed.
Closing your eyes to envision something brings it into focus quite clearly. Closing your eyes to call into view a loved one who has passed over is just as real an experience as imagining the lemon. Just because you may not be able to physically touch these people, doesn't make them or their world any less real. They are quite real in your memories.
If you look at a rainbow and focus on the green color, does that mean the other colors don't exist? All that really exists in creation is energy, atoms and molecules. The rest is simply perception. Energy cannot be destroyed. It only changes form. Allow the reality that we don't die, that we do go on and that we can communicate between dimensions, become your perception just for a moment, and see how different, reassuring and peaceful your reality can be. Regardless of spiritual affiliation, we are all going to physically die. All of us—each and every one of us—are going to continue to live on, complete and whole in spirit.
We are all individuals having many unique experiences here in this school of life, all learning our own unique lessons. We are doing the best we can to get through it. I choose to live my life with the belief that we do indeed survive physical death and that we move on to other incredible dimensions and even more amazing experiences and lessons. Believe whatever you choose. The truth will always be the truth. Just live through the heart while you are here. Truth will prove itself to us all.
January—1963
When I awoke, I found myself wrapped in one of those dreamy, delicate fogs—not quite sure whether I was awake or asleep. It was the middle of the night and I was sleeping like any tired ten-year-old would after a big day in the city. My older brother, Michael, and my younger brother, Patrick, were tucked into their beds in the room next to mine. Robert, the baby of the family, was asleep in his crib in my grandmother's small room at the back of the house.
My father's job required him to be away from home a great deal. Our mother frequently had excruciating migraines that forced her to isolate herself in a dark room for several days at a time. Even with heavy doses of medication, she was granted little relief. Four small children were a healthy handful for any parent, let alone one who suffered as much as my mother did. Gram, my mother's mother, took over most of the household chores, nurtured all of us and kept our lives grounded and organized.
We lived in Stockton, California, and earlier that day, my father had taken my brothers and me to San Francisco. Gram had stayed home with baby Robert and Mom, who was having a particularly rough day. I had enjoyed the memorable time in the city, in spite of the fact that my brothers were allowed to stand on the outside of the cable car, hanging onto the brass railing, feeling the breeze in their faces, while I had to sit inside on the wooden bench just because I was a girl.
When we returned home we were greeted by the wonderful smell of Gram's cooking wafting its way through the house. She had made pot roast, mashed potatoes, and peas, which disappeared quickly into the mouths of three hungry children. Gram was a terrific cook, and for a while, many years before, she had her own cooking segment, Connie the Cook, on television, her set alongside Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.
Shortly after dinner we were ushered off to bed since it was a school night. We were all tuckered out, and fell asleep quickly. My dad slept in the living room that night so Marilyn would not be disturbed—she was still engulfed in pain from her blinding migraine.
Sometimes Patrick had nightmares, and when Michael was feeling charitable, he would let Pat crawl into bed with him. That night, however, Pat snuck into my room seeking refuge from his dream-demons. Nights like this were common, and I barely woke when he tapped my shoulder. I slid over without even opening my eyes, giving up the warm spot to my little brother and fell back to sleep.
Patrick and I were very close, even though we were total opposites in personality. He didn't know a stranger, and I was very shy. I took him with me whenever I was asked to run errands. Even a simple request to go to the corner market for a loaf of bread triggered a wave of sheer terror in me—until I convinced Pat to accompany me. He was my hero. My older brother Mike and I weren't quite as close. He spent as much time as he could with Mom, whom he adored. Mike and I got along well; it was just a different relationship than with easy, light-hearted Pat.
Sometime during the night, I vaguely remember opening my eyes, and hazily, through the cobwebs of deep slumber, I saw two somber-faced men in white clothing maneuvering a stretcher down the lighted hallway. They were slowed imperceptibly by the weight of the slight, motionless form draped in crisp cotton. My father was numbly following the surrealistic procession with slow, halting steps, his hair disheveled from sleep, his eyes open but unseeing. I noted that his skin tone blended eerily with his pale-blue cotton bathrobe in the light, but before I was able to discern between reality and dreamland, I spiraled back into a deep, but disturbed slumber.
My mother and I were never very close. She was often sick, and when she did feel well, she was dedicated to her role as den mother for Mike's Boy Scout troop, trying her best to catch up on all the things she had not been able to accomplish during her latest excruciating headache. My mother was artistic as well as very creative. Once she made a little village on a piece of plywood using cotton for snow and made little painted popsicle-stick cabins. She created small people out of pipe cleaners and used Styro-foam to fashion their tiny heads. Mike's school project was a hit—thanks to her efforts.
Each day she combed and braided my long hair, and on some days, we wore look-a-like dresses that she had sewn herself. The dresses were sleeveless, made of tangerine-colored cotton, with white zigzag trim around the hem and neck. I really hated those dresses.
My mother used to make us made-from-scratch cooked tapioca pudding. We'd sprinkle sugar over the top, drizzle it with milk, and eat it while it was still warm and skin was forming on top. That was heaven on earth for me and I loved the nurturing sense I got from it.
I was an introverted young girl, terrified of people in general. I always worked alone on my school projects and didn't particularly feel the need to be extremely close to anyone except little Pat. The only times I can remember my mother actually showing me affection was when other people were around. She was a good mother, who truly loved her children, but pain unmercifully leached away her energy, and she could only give us what was left over. By the time I was ten, I was fairly detached from the mother-daughter bond. Perhaps my detachment was the first sign of my true reclusive nature. It wouldn't be until more than thirty years later that I would discover the primary cause of my mother's emotional distance from me and the inner pain that she had carried, unspoken, to her grave.
I awoke the Monday morning after our special day in San Francisco with an urgent need to see my mom. This was highly unusual for me as I never went into my parents' bedroom, and had NEVER felt the need to go say good morning to my mom. Patrick was still in my bed, just beginning to wrestle his way out of sleep. I quietly walked into her bedroom and saw only the subtle indentation that indicated where she had last lain. I knew in that instant that she was dead—my disturbing dream during the night had been real.
I walked down the hall on my way to the kitchen, watching my feet make each step, looking at them as if I had never seen them move before. It was something to focus on, something that was simple and real. Gram was cooking breakfast and I could smell the sweet, greasy odor of cooking bacon wafting down the hall. It didn't smell very good that day.
I turned and looked through the doorway of the boys' room. My dad was embracing Mike and they were both sobbing. Dad was trying hard to be of some comfort to his heartbroken, confused and frightened eldest son, but he could only say a few words before his grief overtook him, and his words became unintelligible, racking sobs. I turned away, feeling as though I shouldn't be watching this deeply intimate display of pain. I went down the hall, continuing the need to monitor my feet, and as I entered the kitchen, I asked Gram where my mom was.
Not turning away from the stove, she said gently but tonelessly, "Your dad will be out in a minute." I walked into the den, sat down and waited.
I felt nothing—no ripping sense of loss—just nothing. I quietly waited for my dad to come and tell me that my mother had died—that she had been whisked away in the night by two unremarkable men in white—never to return, never to brush and braid my hair again, never to serve me warm tapioca pudding, or build funny people out of pipe cleaners. Never was too far away for a ten-year-old to comprehend.
After a while, my red-eyed and exhausted father quietly entered the room, followed by my devastated older brother and Patrick, Dad's frightened and confused eyes telling the story of his grief.
He enfolded me in his arms tightly, spoke a few halting words and began to weep. Seeing my father in that unnaturally vulnerable condition stirred the first real emotions that I had felt since opening my eyes that morning. It hurt deeply to see my Daddy in so much pain.
Then I began to cry. It seemed strange to me that my aching for his pain was so overwhelming I couldn't hold back my tears, yet I felt no real emotion about my mother's death. It was still a foggy, out-of-grasp reality, like a fragmented, confusing dream.
I wrapped my arms around my father's neck, standing on my tiptoes to whisper in his ear that I would take care of him now.
I wept for him until my tears were exhausted, and then went to my room to get dressed for school. When I was ready, schoolbooks in hand, Gram said I wasn't expected to go to school that day. I was mortified. I wanted everything to be just like always. We had only been living in Stockton for four months and I didn't have many friends yet. On Monday morning, I was supposed to go to school. I wanted to go to school. Going to school was normal, and I was deeply yearning for something—anything normal. They thought I was being brave. I felt the tapestry of my childhood unraveling.
The next couple of days were filled with noisy arrivals. Red-eyed relatives, many of whom I didn't even remember, poured in from all directions. My father came from a large family in Texas who rushed to his side. I spent the unhappy hours surrounded by cackling women wanting to comfort me by holding me so tight I couldn't breathe and black-suited, serious-faced men, few of whom I even recognized. I felt lost in a sea of strange legs, and I wanted nothing more than to be at school, doing my math and counting the minutes until recess. I couldn't breathe and felt like an animal trapped in a corner.
Gram was playing hostess, finding space for all of the people and food that came with them. She was trying to manage her own grief and had no private spot or quiet moment in which to release her pain. She was incredibly strong and brave, always my Katherine Hepburn and Betty Davis rolled into one.
On the day of the funeral, things only got worse. Soon, all the watery-eyed women began arguing over who was going to braid my hair and who would provide the saliva for my "precious" little spit curls, or which of my dresses would be appropriate to wear to the funeral. Gram was staying home—she didn't go to funerals. I wanted to stay with her and the baby to pretend that it really was all a bad dream.
The funeral was a living nightmare. A black limousine with black interior and darkened windows came to pick us up. We even had a police escort guiding us through traffic. People stopped to gape, open-mouthed while we passed by, unaware of how empty-headed they looked staring at us, trying to see who was riding in a big, fancy limo, stopping traffic and going through red lights. I was fascinated by their behavior.
Once we got to the funeral parlor, I felt as though I had walked right into a black-and-white horror movie. The funeral director escorted the immediate family to an area off to the side of the shiny black coffin that held my mother's earthly remains. We sat there, veiled by sheer black curtains, and watched mourner after mourner walk up to the casket to get their last look at Mom. People lined up in the aisles, making a dark human train, and made their collective way past the dead woman, some only casting a furtive glance, some stopping to brush her cold, waxy cheek, whispering words of love or making promises that they would always remember her.
When it was our turn to be paraded past the casket, like a moth to a flame, I was drawn to the tiny, pink spotlight shining softly on my mother's face and the virtual garden of flowers surrounding her casket. It was clever the way they had hidden the tiny pink light amongst the blossoms, casting some kind of soft Hollywood glow. Entranced, I walked up to the side of her coffin. I cannot remember what she wore; only that she didn't look much like herself. She was waxy-looking, like a mannequin or a doll. I found myself staring at her chest, fascinated that it wasn't rising and falling with the rhythm of life. She remained as still as stone.
Dad and the boys began crying, and soon I was muffling my own sobs. I didn't cry very hard because I felt like all the people in the world were staring at me. I think most of my tears were the result of seeing all the men in my life vulnerable and hurting, this was a scary surreal scene, and I had nowhere to hide from it. The boys needed me so I had to be strong, even in my fear.
After a while, we were escorted down the center aisle, my eyes and nose red and my spit curls bouncing cheerfully in irreverent defiance of the whole scene. I just wanted to wake up from my bad dream. I just wanted to go to school. I just wanted to crawl into the safe confines of my box of normal.
After the funeral was finally over, the mass of humanity, family and friends invaded the house to eat and drink as though it was a holiday. I guess that since they knew Mom was already in the ground, they felt they could go ahead with their lives, as if nothing had really happened—out of sight, out of mind, so to speak. I suppose that's what life is all about—going on. However, through a frightened child's eyes, I couldn't process this.
I needed the noise to stop. I wanted them to go away, taking all those Jell-O salads,Tupperware bowls, and unrecognizable casseroles with them. I was determined to go to school the next day. My very sanity depended on it.
Group by group, the aliens eventually trickled out of our house, our fractured and hurting family finally left alone to begin the healing process. And so my first experience of death was etched into my memory wall. Who would have believed that death would kind of become the "theme" of my life, one after another interesting supernatural "gifts" would develop as time went on, and this shy reclusive little girl would grow up to serve others in a most unique and healing way? The journey to herself would not be an easy one, and she would travel the road alone. And now her vulnerable ten-year-old psyche was about to be severely tested.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Psychic Grace by Keli Adams Copyright © 2011 by Keli Adams. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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