Finding JOeY, a bereaved mother's journey to find her son..

                             Finding JOeY        The first book...

   We are legion.

    We are warriors.

 We are bereaved parents.

    I never wanted to be a warrior. Not like this. Having survived widowhood, twice, I did not think

of myself as a warrior. I was a survivor, somehow, of being widowed at the age of 36, and then again

in my early 50's. I knew what to do, the second time I was widowed... I learned how to grieve and I

discovered there was a

light at the end of a long tunnel, and I would be able to laugh again someday. This is my story of

me, my  husbands, and  especially , my son Joey. This is about me finding  the spirit of my son Joey

Brown, and having found him, I

found the true spirit of myself..
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   Yes, I was an uneducated  36 year old widow. The first time, "DEATH".. my husband of thirteen

 years, a man

who had

gifted me with three small sons...well, I was not ready for that one. 36 year olds are still dreaming

of growing old with their partners. You know the dream?....picket fence, husband to grow old with,

watching your children grow up, grandchildren on your knee....I fell for that script, like a mad drunk,

believed in it, had dinner on the table every night for our perfect little family.

   None of my children, who were 11, 9, and 6 years old at the time, nor me, were ready for it.

Shot out of the blue, I call those moments. Daddy was killed in a chemical plant explosion.

  Like all dates on the calendar, I mark September 12, 1989, like an etching in the core of my

being, as the day I started to wake up. To have to face 'death' , look her right in the eye, and lose

any illusion of control I thought I had. Yeah, that day was the beginning of me finally growing up.

  Sure I was angry. I was furious. This was not the script I wrote in my young mind... My husband

was only 36, he was

supposed to age right along with me, be a grandfather, be a steady rock who could hold my hand

throughout the difficult days ahead of me.

   No one is 'prepared' for this moment. The morning you have to wake up your sleeping children and

hold them and tell them that their Daddy had died. I used the word die, at that time, I did not know

then, what death really was. I was dumbfounded, a blithering, crying fool. Death had knocked down

the whole house of cards, and I watched my sons weeping, crying, holding onto me, not

understanding what happened to Daddy. I suppose I told them he was in heaven. What else could

I say at the time? I watched as people came and went, I was in a steady fog as I sat at the large oak

table in the dining room.

   I had been called to the hospital in the middle of the night , around 2 am, with the dire news ..and

I could not even go into the room where my husband's body lay, a victim now of the gases that had

seared his lungs. My big, strong, handsome husband did not stand a chance when the chemical

plant exploded. He was standing right over the zero point, the tank that threw his body 300 feet

through the air. His last words, he told one of the firefighters holding his hand, were "tell Marianne

and the kids I love them". I found that out 3 years later by reading the court transcripts of the

incident.

  Funny, people told me his body died instantly, to save me from the thought he might have suffered.

I will never understand that, even though they meant well. Yes, he hung on long enough to leave

those words to me and his children. To carry them in our hearts.

  My husband will always be 36, and as I grow old, as I turn 65, 66, 67 , I see a young man, younger

than my own sons now, who was the love of my life, smiling in pictures and dreams at me.

   I lost weight, I cried uncontrollably, I saw my sons watch me with sadness, what had happened to

Mommy? Where was Daddy?  I railed at God...why would you put Death into the pockets of my

small children?? Why??

    I looked deeply into the mirror that morning when my husband 'died', and my first realization

occurred that "Marianne,

you are not in control of death, or anything else...." I had learned my first, and most valuable

lesson, the hard way.

    It did not take long, however, for me to learn a few more. It's an odd thing, this Mystery, this

what you call God, this underlying fountain that ripples beneath the surface of all of this, and

constantly sends one on missions , forging you like a sword, to cut through the forest of insanity,

emotions, and all that Death brings with it. It is the myth of Cinderella, the myth of Persephone,

the many myths one lives out where one has to enter the idea of Hell to get to Heaven. The kiss

of a compassionate 'god' was required to begin bringing me back to life.

   Within weeks, I was brought to my knees as I fumbled through new widowhood and caring for

3 small boys...3 small boys who happened to also be my challenge to survive. I fumbled, but

I was also receiving gifts to cope with the massive overhaul of existence, that would recreate itself

again, and again,

and again as the years passed by.
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  A worker, a laborer, who had worked alongside my husband, called me that month, and asked

me to visit him at his home. He had been badly burned, he was in a wheelchair, he had been

near the center of the explosion and was covered in bandages when I arrived at his home.

  "I have something to tell you, Mrs. Brown.." he smiled, and looked quite peacefilled..

He explained that night to me, how he had been in the explosion and saw himself on fire...

how he ran from the epicenter of the fire and tried to put the flames out that were ravaging his

clothing...he told me he screamed at 'God' and said "God!! Please do not let me die like this!!"..

and then, for the first time in my life, I learned that there is more to all this than just bodies...

  Indeed, he told me that he felt himself leave his body, and float ever so gently above it, and

he said there was no pain, as he watched his body from on high, as it ran, trying to put out the flames,

he said he watched it from above himself...

  "Mrs. Brown, all I can tell you, is...God was there."

   I was starving for this gift, and I see, in retrospection, that whatever God was, was just beginning to

prepare me for the days and years to come, and I had a lot of homework to do when it came to

the ideas and notions I had of "god."


   My sons were angry, though. They did not understand why Daddy was the only one who had to

'die'. They did not understand why Mommy was crying all the time.

    I did not know it, at the time, that all of the gifts from that deep Source, a river called God and

Good, were all preparing me for not only another widowhood, but, ultimately, the greatest and most

crashing death I would ever try to survive....the death of my son, Joey, and the ability to walk through

the darkest and deepest tunnel of my short 'life' in this arena. For all of the husbands that leave their

bodies in my existence here, none of them, none of them come close to the utter devastation of self ,

mind and matter, all things that be and not be, all manner of existence at it's most horrific blow, the

death of my youngest son's body was and still is the TKO, the knockout punch, the nuclear bomb

that 'comes out of the blue' and annihilates your very be-ing, and smashes you into the ground.

  I had no idea, at the time, I was being prepped , for that.

   --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Funny thing, as you 'age', how quickly the years pass by, and before you can catch your breath,

you find your body has become old. All the years that followed my husband's bodily death were

filling up with me, and my windmill tilting quest, to understand Death. Death , the boogeyman

word no one dares utter, was sitting in my lap, demanding I seek it out, wrestle with it, and learn

it's meaning and secrets. I could have lay in a pool of tears, and sometimes I did, but I could also

tackle Death and tie it onto my toolbelt, and learn everything about that Mystery.

   I had been raised Catholic, and my first duties were to redefine every complicated story I had

ever heard about Death. I had to dig, hard, into every book I could find..to demolish the closed

circuit of religiosity and it's vague interpretations of Death....You know..the ones about sin, and Hell

and Heaven, and suffering, and all the human ideas built into me. Guilt, Desire, longing...Pining

away for someone's body to still be intact. Unimaginable constant grief, how to dive into that and

understand, thanks to people like Joseph Campbell, that I was on a journey that was as old as the

human race, that I was living a myth, that I was being dragged to the Underworld, within, and

erasing years of conditioning , and replacing my ideas about Death with new ones, that I was

Persephone, that I was swirling deeper and deeper into the world of truth and the lies which were

falling off of me like scales. I was an onion being peeled to the core, as I dumped each belief

system I had been taught, and as I stood at the very roots of the Hel goddess, the deepest part of

Marianne's soul, and was washed naked..to start over, to start climbing back into the sun, to let

spring arise again after a years years years of winter....

   Perhaps that is why, after I married my second husband, who I was with for 8 yrs, and he, too

decided to die in a car crash...perhaps that is why my spirit was more capable of seeing him, of

telling him to move on as I whispered to his broken body in the hospital that day. I knew he was not

dead, I knew his body was. But I knew he would go on, to greet his brother in spirit, to leave this

place that Rumi calls a dream. I could not do that with my first husband. I had not learned there is

no death. It took many years of cleansing to eradicate all I had learned from my parochial school

concepts of shame, blame, guilt, and victimhood. Suffering was there, but by then, I knew I had the

option to dive into the suffering and turn it into a lesson. By diving into that dark dark place, I

had also learned that someone always throws you a rope, and you can call that *someone* god, or

your higher power, or whatever you wish to call it, but you sit in that solitude of suffering, as this

world insanely swirls around you, and wait. The magic always comes, and grabs you by the hand..

and helps you climb out of that darkness, until you see light, yet again, and keep. on. going.

    By now, I was not only a cracked egg, but a scrambled one. The energy I had so boastfully thought

I had at 36 yrs old was waning. I had to, yet again, grieve, and yet this time I KNEW it was my own

mythology, my story, my warrior crashing again through the new brambles and thorns to get back to

the rose that lay in the middle of it all. I knew I would be kissed by god, and I would fight to survive

it.  I read even more, every Holy and Sacred Book I could read. I dove into Quantum Physics, I

visited Dr. Raymond Moody at his home, after reading his book Life After Life, groundbreaking stuff

for me, and I watched myself from afar, in a sense, as I was handed people I needed at the time to

carry me through.

    Strange, isn't it, when you finally break through so many limitations and concepts, when you have

shed your skin like a snake, when you believe "Finally I have learned I will not die"....

   Out of the blue...............

    Why. That's the first question I always asked. Why? Why learn, yet again, with another

husband, why learn about this thing called Death yet again? I see now, why, the why being

that I had learned many lessons since my first husband...the why being that I knew I would

survive the grief . The giant WHY being I would go on faithfully living out the myth , the

story I believed, finally , that I had written for myself before I was born into this place. I

would suffer, again, but this time I knew I would run that gamut, no matter how difficult, and

I would be graced by a living spirit that resided within and without me.

    Yet, I still lived in fear. For as many times as "I" died, something that Buddhists

tell you is necessary to do if you want to really live out this story here, this Maya, this

illusion, I still lived in fear.

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  When my youngest son, Joey, was 19 years old, he started experiencing spinal problems.

The pain he was in was acute, and he writhed on the floor one day trying to persuade it to leave

his body. Nothing worked, not massage or pills or anything in this world, so I took him to the

spine center in Grand Rapids, Mi, where he was told, via an MRI, that his spinal column was

collapsing. Detrimental. "Your spine is that of a 50 year old man." The doctor was aghast, and

demanded Joey allow him to perform surgery on him..."we have to put steel rods in your back to keep

your spine in place"...that was the decision the doctor gave him, a 19 yr old whose life was just

beginning, whose dreams were to be an adventurer that sailed the seven seas.


  Attempting to force Joey to go into surgery was like trying to put shoes on a snake. He was not

going to do that. He would take the pills for pain the doctor gave him and be done with it.

He refused surgery, he refused my advice, he refused to believe he needed it. He was 19, almost 20,

and by god he was stubborn . He would rather be addicted to the pills and that false sense

of security they gave him from those pills that his spine was just fine and he was going to

go about the business of being a young man with adventures on his mind.

    So one day he called me and let me know he was going to Bali. I was astounded, worried,

but he went. And he relished in it. He jumped off cliffs and swam, he met girls, he prayed at temples

and he had the time of his life. He did more in 3 weeks in Bali then most people do in a lifetime.

He obtained his pilot's liscense and moved to Hawaii with his older brother. He was a daredevil,

flying loops over the mountains of Maui, no fear, no holding back.

  He was taking huge bites out of this earth place, and the pills kept him free of pain.

   The day the doctors ended the pills, Joey found out how to obtain them without a

prescription.  That is when my Hell began.

  I was certainly aware that addiction genetics played a huge part in my first husband's family,

and some in my own. Joey became an addict, and his behaviour became increasingly erratic.


  My own experiences with his behaviour were horrific..I did not know the man my son had

become. I was learning, however, about the drug my son chose, and how, paradoxically, how it

affected his behaviour. Oxycontin, drug of choice. Drug of no physical pain.

  My son, who I knew was truly sweet and kind beneath it all, was exhibiting the making of

a monster, an angry, screaming man who could not control himself. He broke windows, stole

money from me, screamed at me, and as the oxycontin he was illegally obtaining would wear off,

he was just in constant pain.

  I realize now, by this time, he was lost to me. I had to cut him off, out of my life, to obtain sanity,

or try to survive. My worst fears were arising...my son could die, or go to jail, and for the umpteenth

time in my life, I was learning the rotten yet valuable lesson..I could not control him or what he chose

to do.

  He would continue writing poetry, fall in love with a girl online, and I tried desperately to force

him into rehab, which he went to for awhile, and then he fell off the wagon one night. I remember

the insanity of this angry young man, and I threw my clothes in my car, along with my dog, and

I fled. I still picture him screaming "MOM!! come back!!" and a river of guilt still washes over me

from that day, but I had to leave....Shrinks call it Flight, Freeze, or Fight. I had no fight left in me, so I

fled. I drove my car all the way to California from Michigan, for no reason whatsoever except

to gather my thoughts and gain back some insight.

  When I came back I discovered that Joey was living in an apartment in Kalamazoo, and was now

officially an addict. His wild behaviour was beyond my help. I did enable him, I will admit it now,

by occasionally bringing groceries to him. I could not bear the thought of him starving. No mother

can.

   Nonetheless, I did not let him know where I lived . I had moved to a different home, and

I was terrified of his behaviour when he was high. I knew I needed a safe place.

  There was no way out. I felt him slipping away from me as the abominable drug became his

everyday mistress. He was 22 now, and I could not save him. Nonetheless, I refused to believe his

body would die.

  I do remember telling him once, "taking drugs that are off the street? Death or Jail will be

your only options."

  Knowing full well he was in dire pain, and yet too stubborn to get surgery, I lived as best as

I could muster. I was already grieving his presence, and felt as though his addiction was removing

him farther and farther away from me and the family.

  I had always been overtly protective of my sons when they were children..even more so after

their father passed over.

  I truly believe Joey, who was close to his father, lost his backbone when his father passed..the

spiritual sickness manifested in his body as he became a man, but his grief over his father had taken

a toll. His dad was his strength, his backbone. I truly believe his spine collapsed because it was his

body's way of dealing with losing his dad at the age of 6. I believe Joey never stopped being a little

boy of 6 years old, grieving his father.

  I have 3 very stubborn sons. Joey was completely stubborn about what was to be done concerning

his spinal column. He was 19, going on 20, and had his whole life ahead of him. He refused to

get surgery on his back, despite my protestations, despite the pain he was in.  He had a life to live

, on his own terms, and he chose to live with his back as it was. I could not talk him into surgery

of any kind. He would hear none of it.

   After he turned 20, he called me and told me he was planning on going to Bali. Another out of

the blue decision he had made, his adventurer in him was to go see this world and take a huge

bite out of it. My worries and concerns were ignored, and he went.

  He had the time of his young life. Jumping off cliffs into iridescent pools of water, visiting

temples, walking the magical land of Bali, and letting me know how much fun he was having.

   In retrospect, I realize he somehow knew that he did not have much more time in this

three dimensional world we call home, and he was going to live life here as fully as possible

before he collapsed.

   He moved to Hawaii and obtained his pilot's lisence, and flew over mountainous terrain, some

times stalling the engine into freefall, all the while laughing, a daredevil. His back was slowly

disintegrating, but he took pain pills by the handful, pills he obtained not only from doctors but from

other more insidious sources.

   I had no control over his comings and goings. I knew it was out of my hands now. I could not

help him except to love him, no matter what he did.

  In a sense, I think Joey KNEW without a doubt his spine would eventually collapse and he

wanted to do as much as he could until it did.  His demeanor, however, began to change...

   The days of oxycontin, Vicodin, and anything else to ease his back pain, were now becoming,

increasingly, a burden. A monkey on his shoulder, he was changing into someone I did not know.

   His body reacted erratically to the drugs he was consuming, and he began stealing from me,

at first small amounts, then larger.

  This was not the child I raised , this was a junkie. Someone plagued by pain, whose scruples

had been lost when the pain overtook him. His response to the pills was paradoxical. Most people

fall asleep on them, but not Joey. No junkie nods for him. He was like a madman, he broke windows

in my home, hid from me, screamed irrationally at me when I tried to make sense to him.

  It was as if a monster had taken over my beloved child. I could hardly bear it. My energy was

destroyed, I had nothing to offer him except to keep repeating to him..."Jail or Death" ...is where

drug use like this would end up.

   I was a shell of a woman. I could not stop my son from this disease, that which made drugs

his only mistress, everything else was secondary.

  The sweet, loving, little boy I had raised had become a wild man, a large child with no

inner control, no rhyme nor reason, no checks or balances.

   I had to initiate tough love.

  I had grown up, myself, in a family where I had watched my own parents enable my alcoholic

brother, and I saw the toll it took on them.

  I sought out counseling, so that I would make the right decisions regarding Joey's increasingly

terrifying addiction, and was told to cut him out of my life altogether as long as he chose drugs,

legal or illegal, to consume as a prop for the pain in his spine.

  All those years, from 2002 to 2006, were a blur of watching him waste away as his back

increasingly collapsed, as he begged, borrowed, and stole to feed his habit.

  I tried rehab, he went but did not follow up. That would come later, after his back finally

tore into his spinal cord.  He was fine, in his own mind, as long as he had the pills.

   He had a 200 dollar a week allowance from his trust fund, which came from his father's

death. This fed his habit. I could not end this money from coming in, and I knew he was selling

even his furniture to buy drugs.

   The hardest thing was to cut him off from me. I did it to save myself from watching my

beautiful child turn into a raving lunatic. I was barely able to breathe during all of those years,

and in 2004, my second husband decided to exit this earth bound place by crashing his car

into a tree. He had been suffering deep depression since his own son had been sent to Iraq, and his

brother had passed away from alcoholism at aged 40. No amount of verbiage or advice from me

could stop my 2nd husband from beginning to drink heavily. I threatened divorce, and he, too, was

also watching Joey from afar, sinking more and more deeply into the hellish world of drug

addiction.

  I received the call from my oldest son, that my second husband was found with his car

wrapped around a tree. His blood alcohol level had been high and the medics had to use the jaws

of life to remove him.

   THIS time I ran to the hospital, not afraid to face that thing called "death" anymore, but to

look it right in the eye this time.  My husband's body lay in the ER, no brain function, no way he

would survive except as a vegetable. I knew he would want me to pull the plug, and as they did,

I whispered into his ear..."Time to go, go home now to your brother.." I knew, deep down, he

had already left.

   I did not have much time to grieve my second  husband's death , however, as my son was becoming

increasingly distraught and out of hand. He was literally kicked out of the apartment complex he had

been living in, and I had to help him find a new place. I was enabling, I know that now, but I

could not bear the thought of him living in the streets.

  Deep down, you see, they are still our children, our babies, our most beloved ones. I could

not save the child, lord, I could not save that child.

   I found him an apartment in the town I was living in. I still did not let him know where I lived,

but I knew I was not able to cope with a constant barrage of craziness every day as he sank deeper

and deeper into drugs. I hardly recall the emotional pain of it all, it was as though I were living in

a fog, and I see now, that underlying that fog was my fear that my son would die.

  I ended up in the emergency room with panic attacks, and was informed by the resident shrink

that I could not control whether my son lived or died.

  He was always on my mind. Always. I tried to work jobs, but he would show up at them

asking me for handouts. I had to have him removed from the store. I would find him standing by my

car at midnight in the parking lot, asking for money. It was as though I was no longer his mother

to him, but a place where he could begin to obtain drugs and keep that ''high" going, keep that back

pain away, and the thought of surgery was , in his mind, a thing of the past. He would not even

consider it.

   However, one night, in the midst of the chaos, my heart torn apart so many times I could

barely get through the days, I received a call from Joey's older brother, Bobby....he told me "Ma...

Joey's spine has collapsed, his vertebrae are about to cut his spinal cord, and he's been rushed

to Bronson Hospital for emergency surgery...."

   I drove 100 mph to Kalamazoo, Mi, where I ran to my son's side. For all of those years of pills

and inaction, and poor ungodly choices on his part, he finally HAD to have surgery...or he would be

paralyzed for life.

   I put my arms around him and told him I would never leave him again, MOM was here, and I

would not leave his side.

   And I didn't. The doctors removed the splintered vertebrae, and he recovered in the hospital, as

I lay in a chair sleeping that first night right next to him. He was still belligerent, still, pumped up

now with morphine, the doctors all debating whether his spinal cord had been seriously injured.

   I told him, as did a wonderful nurse at the time, that spinal cords heal. He was terrified that he

might never be able to urinate on his own again, or have children. He was afraid he would not walk

again. I kept assuring him he would.

   His addiction was not gone, I knew that, but he had at least had the surgery that I truly hoped

would be the beginning of his healing.

   Joey chose to return home to my house with me. A house I had kept him from, now he was

occupying my spare bedroom and in recuperation. I devoted my entire time to taking care of him,

he was fitted with a catheter and had to be watched on a daily basis. I became Mom again, and nurse,

and he was delighted when he realized that his spinal cord was healing, the catheter eventually

was removed, and he was able to walk and function normally again.

  And his back pain was gone.

  But, he was still a junkie. That does NOT go away. All those years of Oxycontin and Vicodin had

taken it's toll and kept gnawing at him.

  We both had a long road ahead of us.
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Joey was still an addict. He recuperated at my home, but I saw he was not over his physical

addiction to pain pills. As his health returned after spinal surgery, he became more of his real

self again, even recognizing how much pain and anguish he had caused the whole family. His

itch, however, to still obtain drugs off the street, was there.

  I followed him, once, when he took a walk to try and obtain drugs..and I chased off the guys

who were trying to sell to him.

  He knew. He saw me come home, a carton of cigarettes in my hand, and I told him "Unless you

are willing to go to the best rehabilitation center in Detroit, and get off of drugs completely, I am

going into my room and smoke all day and night until I die an early death. I am going to make myself

die first, buddy, unless you are willing to withdraw and stop using drugs."

  So I did. I locked my door and smoked cigarettes and cried. I was underweight, terrified, and

my last resort was a pretty dramatic attempt at slow suicide right in his face as I smoked carton

after carton.

   The old Joey, the one I had raised, finally gave in. He wanted his old life back. He wanted to play

his drums, his guitar, start new, with no back pain, and no drugs. He was remorseful and subdued.

He finally agreed to go to the most expensive rehabilitation center in Michigan. A place where they

forced one's body to withdraw in a non painful manner.

   Joey sat next to me and put his head down. "Mom, sometimes I am still 6 years old."

   I knew that little boy who missed his father was still in there.

   He asked me again.."Mom.....how can I live with myself if you pass away? I have hurt you

so much...where can I find you if you pass away?"

   I told him I loved him unconditionally. And that all was forgiven. I told him to look for me

"everywhere...I will be in everything, Joey..."..

 Little did I know at that time, those words would come back and choke me into remembering where

to look for my son.

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  Joey willingly went through the rehab program and I hired a male nurse to help him withdraw

at the center. It was still painful, but he made it. I drove him home, clean, his body clear of drugs and

I could only hope that whatever god there was would keep him balanced and secure enough not to

wish for drugs again. The doctor at the rehab center had inserted a small capsule of Narcan in Joey's

abdomen to offset any 'high' he might try to achieve. I.E., Joey could not get high. Not with that

capsule in him.

   Joey suddenly started blooming again. He felt as though he had been given a second chance at

living again. I saw him become his old self, happy, wanting to play his music, somewhat lonely,

as he had lost many friends.

  He talked of having a wife, kids.

  Things were looking up. I was not out of the woods, yet, but even I was starting to 'hope.'

   One afternoon, Joey came out of the spare bedroom and asked me to go to the library.

   An odd, very odd request from him. Joey only read books pertaining to rock and roll,

musicians, or piloting airplanes.

  "Mom, you HAVE to get a book and bring it to me today"..he was adamant. I asked him ,

which book? I was already perplexed by the question.

   "It is called House of Spirits and it is a book by Isabelle Allende" .

   I was floored. Of all the books I could imagine Joey NEVER reading, it was that one.

   Nonetheless, I went to the library and picked up the book. It was a bit worn, and Isabelle

Allende's photo was on the back cover.

   I handed the book to Joey when I arrived home, and he took it into his room.

   Two days later he handed it back to me. "Ma, here. I am done with this book."

  I was surprised...and asked him "Did you read it?"

   No, he told me, he had not. "But I did sketch the woman on the back cover, she looks

like an angel...."

   Again, my mind reeled at the thought of Joey sketching anything. He just did not sketch

drawings at all, so when he handed me a beautiful drawing of Isabelle Allende, I was

flabbergasted. "Wow"...I told him "This is beautiful."

  At the time, I had NO idea why this sketch or this moment occurred. I would discover, later

on, after my son Joey had crossed over, why I had this sketch. And I would also discover that

even before he passed over and left his body, he was prepping me for what he must have known

would happen.

  I was the motherbear , this time, watching Joey's every movement, not sure, or comforted

quite yet as to his healing process. Sure, his body had healed somewhat, and he was my son

again. No wild rides, no roller coaster of emotions, no drugs. He seemed to be content sitting

on his computer during the day, or visiting with his musician friend Andru. I found out from

Andru, later on, that Joey would listen to "Ode to Joy", in his house, over and over again.

  Joey would occasionally wake me up with visions he was having, of an 'otherworldly' REAL

place, glowing , iridescent, magnificent like a million diamonds sparkling, and he was

so excited about these visions, this place was so real to him. I realize, now, he was being prepped

also.  "Everything is energy, mom!" he would shout to me "Energy never dies!"

  I did not, at this point in time, believe that any of my sons would die before me. That is, leave

their bodies before I did. I refused to consider it, and if I did, I was thrown into a panic that was

unimaginable and I was seeing a counselor about the worst fears of my life in this place...

   But it was almost Thanksgiving , that year, 2006, and I was going to cook the dinner for my

3 sons. I was baking, also, hundreds of cookies for Christmas, and storing them. Joey was sneaking

the cookies, much like his dad used to do . I did not mind. I was just happy to create again, and

watch my youngest son heal.

   That Thanksgiving fell on Nov 24th...My other 2 sons showed up and all was well...except

for Joey...he seemed horrifically depressed and chose to stay in his spare bedroom. I attempted

gaiety with all of them, renting funny movies for them to watch, hoping beyond hope that

my life, and theirs, would return to normal.. My oldest son was married and my middle son was

working. I was so caught up in wanting everything to be happy and consistent, that I shrugged off

Joey's depression and assumed he was just tired.

   I know, I know..I have repeated the stories of these times, these moments, these events over and

over in this draft of words..I realize that....It is something we do, bereaved parents, we repeat..maybe

just because we want to understand what the hell happened, why, what's going on, and maybe

someone empathic enough to understand will help us in this journey.

   Having said that, I will go forward with my story, and I will find it difficult , but necessary, to

do so.

   After Thanksgiving dinner, my sons filled with all of the food and laughter, Joey asked me to

drive him to his small apartment in town.  He wanted some alone time, I guess, and he could pick

up better wifi there. The apartment was only a few blocks away, and I drove him there that

evening. It was getting dark, and as he exited my Jeep, he turned to me and said "Love you, mom!"

something he always said when leaving me. I told him I loved him and hoped to hear from him

the next day.

  Little did I know I would never see my animated, still attached to a body, son, ever again in this

three dimensional world.  That was the last night I saw him as he walked into his apartment building.

    I did hear from him the next day..he called and recited a poem to me he had written. He also

complained to me about the Narcan capsule in his abdomen.. he wanted it removed. "I think it's

infected" he told me. I told him to go to the ER, and NOT to try to remove it. It was just under his

skin.  I do not know , to this day, whether he removed it or not. What I do know, is that even if he did,

the Narcan was still in his system.

   I did not hear from him after that. I waited, and waited, just for a phone call. Nothing. I left

him messages, but he did not answer. I was beginning to worry, and asked his friends if they had

seen him. Nope. They told me not to worry, that Joey would be fine, that he needed time out and was

probably out with friends.

   On November 28th, I was not going to wait any longer.

    I had an extra key to Joey's apartment, and I saw that the notes I had left under his door

were still there. I assumed he was out somewhere, but I needed to know if he was okay.


   I turned the key in his lock, and opened the door. The apartment was dark, only one light was

on in his bedroom.  I walked quietly into his living area, where he would sit on the maroon couch

I gave him, and chat online with friends.  I looked to my right, and saw him , his head tilted back in

a pose of peaceful sleep, his mouth slightly open, and sitting on his lap was a computer, where he

had been happily chatting with a friend.

  "Oh, he is asleep" my mind raced.. I walked over to my young son, who seemed quiet, peaceful..

and I saw. I saw what no mother I know can bear. I saw that, the little baby, the child I had so

lovingly brought into this reality, I saw he was not asleep, and his body had died. I saw him and for

some, strange, one second of a moment, I put my hand on his face, gently brushing it, and said to him


"Mommy is not mad at you."

  I do not know why I needed to say that to this day. Perhaps because I knew he felt so guilty about

his past behaviours.

  My countenance lasted a second. A second later I was screaming.

   There is no scream that compares to the scream that rises up from the blackened heart of be-ing

that is as painfilled, horrific,  deep abiding death force of a scream  that is not only silent but also

deafening as a mother screams for her child. It is like a hand has grasped your heart and torn

it from it's foundations, a strike, a blow so huge you crumble, you fall, you crawl on your knees to

a small corner and just. fucking. SCREAM.

    It kills you. immediately. You are now DEAD, and yet you are still wearing a body.

That's the cruelest part. You are still wearing a body and DEATH is pummeling you as you stare

in shock at the baby, the child, the son, who is no longer using his body...but has left you behind.

   You are the crystal glass , and someone used a hammer on you. Pieces are everywhere.

 There is no no no no no Pain like THIS Pain.

    My son's body was draped with a bath towel. It was obvious he had taken a shower. He

seemed content, as tho his last breath in this world had been easy. His body stopped working

as he slept.

   This brought me no comfort at the time..I was now screaming madly as neighbours in nearby

apartments rushed to me..I had hit the floor, hard, and was shivering in the corner of the

hallway as people rushed to call the police, as I was handed cigarettes to smoke, as I could not

even remember the phone numbers of my other sons...

  I could not walk but was lifted by complete strangers who walked me outside where I paced

back and forth screaming at god...."I CANNOT DO THIS!" I yelled "I CAN GET THROUGH

HUSBANDS BUT I CANNOT DO THIS!!!"...

   The police came, they cordoned off the building, and brought the coroner's vehicle. I was

not noticing any of it.

   I knew that , at that moment, I would have to fight to live again on this earth, and I had been

handed DEATH yet again, and my worst fear had been realized. I would never be 'okay' again,

and I was soon handed over to the people who took me back to my house, insane, my eyes

dilated with the thousand yard stare, the impossible tears and screaming non stop, the horror of

horrors digging my own grave and anger swelling up in me as people began arriving at my home.

   I was told by someone to take a shower. They told me it would be some time before I took

another one. I could barely do this.  People came in droves, Joey's friends, women I knew,

all to somehow surround me with some sort of barrier to the truth. Nothing could comfort me,

except for me to begin throwing pots of flowers and dishes off of my back deck. I could only

scream Fuck You, God!! as I threw items and smashed them into trees, my friends somehow

perplexed at all this anger.

   Finally, though, my 2 other sons came to the house. We all 3 collapsed in each other's arms.

Our family had been struck the deepest blow of all. And there was nothing I could do about it.

  Nothing. I just. wanted. to. take. every. pill. in. my house. and. die.

I can barely remember that day. I had been struck by lightning, and my life was over. I only

remember the fog that surrounded me as people came and went, cried and left, came again

and told me to eat. A part of me, perhaps a survivor of the incident, merely said "Buy some Ensure,

then I can obtain calories.." To this day, I realize one tiny part of me knew what to do.

  But I, too, was no longer a body. I was a thing that had been pummeled to death itself, and

I was moving on fumes.

  Strange as it seems, this is the moment when Spirit enters, and takes over.

  I knew immediately that Joey's body had to be cremated. I told my oldest son to make sure

that happened. I wanted my son's body to be taken to the grave where his father's ashes were

interred, to a small cemetery in Illinois.

  The hospital and morgue allowed me to see Joey one more time, his body, and I asked them

to please tuck his childhood blankie under his arm to be cremated with. He kept that blankie

all his life, and never let it go.  They allowed that, and again, it was my spirit speaking, not my

body. I knew. I knew what had to be done. Symbolically, Joey had to be buried with his father.

   I sat through the funeral services, in the days that came, in another fog, with disbelief that

I could cry so much and not have a fucking heart attack from it all. I cried til doomsday, and then

cried even more. The ladies who ran the church aftermath, the swirls of post funereal dining, were

wondering what to serve.

  Again, my spirit spoke..."There are hundreds of cookies I baked in my freezer..they were for

Christmas, but you can use them to feed people after the funeral"..

   I had baked all those cookies for a day full of joy, and they ended up being eaten by people

at my son's funeral after service. I swore that day I would never bake a cookie again. Ever.

I have kept my word to myself.

   I immediately informed my other children that there would be no Christmas that year. I

pulled down the lights outside, the tree, the presents, all was lost and forgotten. No Holidays.

  I demanded, after the funeral, that we take Joey's ashes to the cemetery in Ill. We did, and I

KNEW that had to be done. My spirit was yelling now....I was insane but I knew what had to

be done.

  My oldest son, married, and with a grandchild on the way, took me to see a psychiatrist

in Grand Rapids. The shrink took one look at me and demanded I be put into the hospital.

Again, my spirit arose and I defied his orders. "NO, I will go to my oldest son's home and

that will be it."  I was now surrounded with not only a misty foggy barely functioning body, but

I was given heavy doses of Seroquel to allow me to function at the most minimal levels.

  I slept. and slept. and slept. at my son's home, on a mattress on the floor. My son was worried,

but I slept. I barely got up. It was too much to even pretend to be alive. My body was my curse.

  Nonetheless, my tenderness for my oldest son surfaced. I could see that he had not yet begun

to grieve his little brother, and it was time to leave his home, and go back to mine.

  I dreaded the thought of it. I knew I would lay for years on my couch, years, crying. This

was not a husband, or a parent. This was my heart of hearts, my child. This was, I believed

at the time, impossible to do..impossible to survive.

   The spirit, what can I say about the spirit? She, whomever SHE is, takes over. She moves

the body from point A to point B. She covered me in blankets when I returned to my home, when

all of the friends and family had left, when the days were long and I clumsily fed the pets or did

laundry, the Spirit ran my show, not my mind, my mind was destroyed. It fumbled through old files

, files filled with guilt and horror that I did not save my son from death, could not save my child,

old files I thought I had deleted were amassing in my head screaming that I was a terrible

mother, and my crying was endless, endless, endless.

   Spirit took it upon herself to take over. I had lost my mind. Only Spirit, that unexplainable

phenomenon , could animate me into the Mystery again, this time, the most painfilled scenario,

infinitely harder than any other 'death' I had experienced.

   Spirit started throwing things at me. Go to the Art store. Buy 3 huge canvases. Now, paint the

Universe.  Spirit screamed at me, paint the stars.

   My oldest son was kind enough to drive me to the Art supply store, where I purchased 3 huge

canvases and immediately began to paint.

  Art had been my only outlet since I was a child, and now I was intent on painting the impossible.

I would paint the Universe, and find my son.

   Go find your son, Spirit screamed at me. Go find your son.

Finding JOeY....

  I was angry. I told god, whatever god was to me at the time, that I would NOT lose my son

in some vast unexplainable void of Infinity. No, sir, I would NOT.  I will paint your huge Universe,

I will fixate on every star, I will find him and you will not get to keep him from me.

  I sat for days, point after point after point of light, brush tip after brush tip, each star it seemed

was my son, I would find him in there somewhere...

   The canvases were huge, and I did not stop. I would achieve the impossible by challenging

the god who took my son by painting it's Universe. I would find my son.

  Funny thing is, my words came back to haunt me . "Look for me in everything, I will be in

everything" I had told Joey, referring to my own bodily demise. Now I had to look for Joey.

In everything.

   People often mention "The Veil", the imaginary cover that separates this reality from Infinity, that

narrows us down to the five senses of the body, that keeps us from the All, the One, the Love that we

all are. I thought I had been prepped to understand Death in all it's forms, but I was as ignorant as a

newborn child when it came to my son's physical demise. "Death" . I had to start all over.

  At first, I reached out to grab the veil by it's handle and yank it. I banged on the gates and screamed.

I would sit for hours, pen in hand, the quiet CD playing soft Tibetian bell music in my ears, my eyes

closed and I would wait for my son to write to me.

  Little did I know that he would.

  I had never tried automatic writing. I knew, as an artist, that when I painted somehow 'spirit'

would take over the brush, and I was painting in a timeless place, where hours seemed like minutes.

  I thought...if you can paint like that, you can let Spirit take your hand and ask your son to come

through and write to you.

  I had nothing more to lose. I felt I had lost it all. Time, Spirit says, to dive in and Find Joey.


  The first mornings I spent , weeks actually, were spent sitting with paper in hand, allowing

myself to be hypnotized by the Tibetian bells, and allowing my right hand to grow limp on

the paper sitting on my lap. I was unsure of what I was doing, I was still skeptical, a huge skeptic,

about my own abilities to find my son.

   But I could feel myself, eyes closed, beginning to write, and in my mind the writing seemed like

it was monstrously huge. Large words like "GOD! GOD!GOD! LOVE!LOVE ! LOVE! INFINITY!

INFINITY!" felt as tho they were slipping through my arm, my hand, and onto the paper. In my

mind's eye, I felt the letters, the words, the voice of excitement and awe that came to me...as though

Joey were screaming with delight at his newfound Home...I cried as I heard it, was it real? Was Joey

screaming at me that he was in the Light of Home, was he creating these infinity symbols, what was

I doing?  I looked down at the paper and saw that the writing on the paper was small. How could the

writing in my mind look so large? I asked him over, and over, are you happy?? over and over, I asked,

and then, one day, out of the blue, the words came "I 'M WITH DAD!!"

   I was amazed at this...such small words on paper, but such huge words in my mind. Perhaps 3

dimensional paper could not explain itself as easily as the writing in my own mind, where one goes

to diminish the veil and allow for the download from the Source of All That Is.

   I was fumbling, trying to tear open the very Cosmos, when one day I found the sketch that

Joey had drawn of Isabelle Allende, when he was recuperating at my home. I pondered, and

wondered...why did he sketch this? I know that Joey knew I would certainly look into this

odd phenomenon, so I went online and found Isabelle Allende's website. I thought, what the hell,

I am going to send her an email and ask her why...why would my son sketch her picture, what

reason was there behind this? I sent the email to her, and explained everything to her in detail.

I expected nothing back.

  But, the next day, Isabelle Allende wrote back to me, and asked me about Joey. She wanted

the details of his sketch, and I sent the picture to her. She informed me that her own daughter,

Paula, had just recently passed on , a 23 year old, the same age as Joey, and she told me she had

written a book called "Paula" to describe the 'letting go' of her daughter, who was on life support

for over a year, and the shared 'death' experience her daughter took her on, into the world of heaven,

where Ms Allende needed to visit, to let her daughter go.

  I knew at that moment, that Joey's spirit, even when in his body, was preparing me for my

conversations with Ms Allende, to help me let go..to know I was not alone in this journey,

to receive the book "Paula" from Isabelle Allende, who gratefully sent it to help me to heal.

  Joey's spirit was working overtime. Even before he left his body.

I was, at this point, called by one of my friends in California, also. A woman I had known for

decades, herself a shaman, if that is the right word to describe someone who can see beyond

the veil since the day she was born. She and I had experienced magical things together, and many

visions when we travelled together in the 90s. She called me, out of the blue, from Santa Barbara.

"Marianne, for gods sake get your butt out here to Santa Barbara, your son is here and he wants

me to help you.."

I had not yet told her that Joey had passed over.

I bought the first plane ticket I could and ran to Santa Barbara.

   It was during this time of painting canvases full of stars, receiving messages from Isabelle Allende,

putting two and two together, that I was finally beginning to believe that the "veil" was thinning most

graciously, as I looked for my son.

  I was greeted in CA by my  friend who insisted I was a mess, a veritable mess, and wanted me to

"get grounded". Her solution was to have 3 shamans ground me, as they told me my spirit was all

over the Universe searching for my son. I took her up on it..again, I trusted her insight and besides,

Joey had asked her to help me.

   Mind you, my friend was always able to 'hear' the 'other side', even see them, since childhood,

so she was very careful, she said, to be mindful not to allow some spirits to 'come inside' her. It

was one of her fears, to channel anyone, and yet...when she saw me, and heard Joey consistently

speaking to her about helping me cope, she decided, for the first time in her life, to allow Joey to

channel through her.

  I was amazed she even did that. Talk about a good friend. facing her own fears of this, she allowed

herself to be swept into a trance. I watched her, this usually quiet and sane woman, who did not curse

or swear, suddenly change before my very eyes.

 "Mom!" she yelled from within her trance "MOM! fuck! Mom!! Im fine!!!! Im so fucking fine!! Quit

worrying about me!!! Stop painting so many stars!! MOM!! I AM IN EVERY STAR!!"..... Joey was

literally screaming through her body telling me to lighten up, live life, he was fine, dont take

this life on earth seriously.  It was NOT my quiet friend Suzan talking. I know Joey when I hear him.

  After Suzan came out of her trance she seemed amazed at his energy. "Oh my god, Marianne, your

son cusses a lot!! But let me tell you this..he is the Party of the Universe!!"...she was amazed at him,

the energy, the demands made of me that I lighten up and LIVE and LOVE.

  And to this day, I cannot thank her enough for overcoming her fear of channeling him. She

did me a solid, as they say.

   Now that I was beginning to realize that Joey was more alive then ever, even though I was still

grieving him as I knew him in body, I was being hit from all sides with gifts. I traveled to Joshua

Tree National Park and sat for days in the desert. Just sat and smoked cigarettes.

  I came home with a new appreciation that perhaps,,,,just perhaps....I could find other ways to

communicate with my son and find him.

   While in California, I had a vision of my new grandson who was merely a fetus at the time, but

I saw him as an 8 yr old, wearing a striped blue checkered shirt, with beige pants, and his mother was

wearing a white dress, his father,. (my oldest son) wearing a tie and the 3 of them were laughing and

holding hands as they danced up some brilliant white stairs..

  "Had a vision of your grandson?" my friend asked. I had, indeed. And later on, 8 yrs later, my oldest

son posted a picture of exactly what I saw.

   I find it to be no coincidence that my grandson was to be born right after his Uncle Joey had

crossed over into the light. I had to stay 'here' for him. He was the gift to the family to keep on

going.
 
  By now I was addicted to reading the pages of near death experiencers. I needed to read their

stories, and what had happened to them. I met Anita Moorjani on www.nderf.org, where I asked her

about my son.

  "He is closer to you now then ever when he was using his body" she explained to me. This was

before she became beloved by many with her book, Dying to Be Me.

  I gained much insight into the process of Death, now my constant companion in every aspect

of be-ing, by reading hundreds of accounts of people who died, and came back to speak of it.

   My own son, my oldest, a skeptic himself, was visited by Joey in a "dream that was realer than

reality"..as he explained it. Joey came and described to him, in detail, how he 'died'. He had invited

an acquaintance over, who just happened to have methadone and alcohol with him. This person

and Joey ingested it, thinking it would be safe. Joey, whose body was clean, stopped breathing

after he fell asleep from it. He told his brother he just fell asleep, and then woke up 'in a quiet

dark, and peaceful place....."I thought I would wake up on my couch, with my computer on my lap,

and I had just taken a shower...I was surprised to feel myself rushing like I was in a wind tunnel, and

then I stopped.." he spoke to his brother, who was angry at Joey, to calm his anger.."I wasn't sure

where I was, but then...I saw Dad..and he reached his hand out to me and said ' Come on, son'.  "

Joey told Bobby there was NO. WAY. he was coming back. "It's wayyyyyyy better here!!" and altho

it might hurt the family, he was staying with his dad.

  Bobby said Joey 'looked like he was covered in pixie dust.'..and Bobby, his older brother, described

in detail what only I saw, which I never mentioned to Bobby, when I found Joey's body.

   Joey knew I wanted details. I got details. Bobby had no idea Joey had just showered, or was on

his computer at the time. I did. I found him.

   Around this time Joey was also visiting his brother Mike, a diehard skeptic to this day. Nonetheless,

he informed Mike that he should not be afraid of 'Death'..."That's when the FUN begins.."

  Joey was living up to his moniker "Party of the Universe".

  I was not receiving these dreams. Joey was and is wise enough to know he can go to others, with

details, and I will then find them credible.

  My next huge leap came when I decided I needed to not only READ about near death experiences,

but I needed to MEET these people......as many as I could..I remembered the man who 'left

his body' when my husband 'died'. I needed to KNOW these people, hold their hands, visit with them,

SEE and FEEL with them.

  In 2011 I attended the International Association of Near Death Studies conference. I had to meet

them, I had to know the LOVE my son was in. Despite Joey's insistence to my brother, his brothers,

and other people that he was okay, I was not yet certain of it.

   At first, within the first 2 years after Joey crossed into the light, I researched faithfully

until I found a medium that I could trust. I chose George Anderson, who I felt was a humble

and honest man. My hunch paid off when I had him call me, and the skeptic in me used a false

name and phone number. I was not taking any chances. I wanted truth.

   Joey, of course, came through to Mr. Anderson like gangbusters, including his name. He

described the hellish experiences of his drug addiction, the horror I experienced and how it sucked

my energy dry trying to save him, his assurance to me that he was with his father and not to worry

about him. Mr. Anderson went on and on. All I had to answer was yes. or no. I gave him no

information. Mr Anderson read for me twice, and I knew I had chosen the right medium for those

early years, as I sobbed on the phone listening to Joey's reassurances, via Mr Anderson, that my

son was in the throes of Love and Bliss.

   Nonetheless, I needed more. I needed to talk to these everyday people who actually died, or their

bodies died, and came back.

  So I left, in 2011, to speak with them for a week at their conference. I went in with no expectations,'

but I came back with complete and utter KNOWING that my son was HOME. I was realizing it was

ME who had not awakened. Joey was awake. I was still sleeping in this dream.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  I was still riding the roller coaster of emotions well into the first few years after Joey left his

his body behind, and my anger was overtaking me daily, my patience with "god", or the "Source"

as I now call it, was gone.

  I stood in my living room and screamed at this god thing. "Why!!?? Where is my son!!

Who is my son now!!? Where is he!!"

   Suddenly a voice, inside, came to me and spoke, and was benevolent and reassuring. It merely

said "Find out who YOU really are, and you will know your son."

   This was, then, again the challenge I had dealt with ..those long years after widowhood, my

diving into books and lectures and sacred texts...my need to redefine god, redefine who and what

"I" was. But this time it had a sense of tremendous urgency, a calling that I had to destroy my

"self" even more, a choice, finally, to discover that "Spirit" that ran my show, that picked

up the pieces of "me" and was Infinite. I had to find her , and let GO. And put her back in charge.

  I had to surrender to her.

The International Association of Near Death Experiencers was a conference, held every year, where

people of every stripe came to meet and discuss their own experiences, having actually had their

bodies die, and having been released from their bodies, they realized they ARE truly infinite spirit...

  I arrived at the hotel in VA one day early, and was immediately aware that synchronicity was

in play. The first person I met on the elevator was PMH Atwater, herself a near death experiencer,

many time over, and a powerhouse of energy as I felt her standing next to me. The grin on her

face was wide, and loving, and she asked me why I was attending the conference. I told her about

my son and she immediately slam dunked "OH! Dont't worry about him!! He's In Joy!"

  Her instant remark was refreshing..I was elated. I had read her books and thanked her for them.

The rest of the week at the conference slipped by , and I was high on the vibration of the people

who attended. A whirlwind of people, all centered on the same truths....that there is no death..

That there is no death. I felt like dancing.

   I was a bit aggressive when I would encounter people who had died and come back to their

bodies. I would sit in the front of the hotel lobby and seek them out. Oddly enough, and

surprisingly enough, they were delighted to tell me their stories. People held my hands, and

cried with tears of Joy streaming down their faces as they told me their stories..stories of going

to a magnificent light after their hearts had stopped, after their cars had crashed, after their bodies

had died. A light so bright that nothing in three dimensions can compare to it. It infused them, and

they themselves realized that the light WAS LOVE. A love, indescribable, a love that permeated

the universe, a LOVE that was underlying all things, Infinite, benevolent, kind. I soaked up their

stories like a sponge. I wanted them to be specific. I was a mother, still, and had to know how my

son was. I was never disappointed. Even the speakers at the conference, many of them medical

personnel, doctors, theoretical quantum physicists, and everyday people who had experienced

what we call "The Extraordinary", were one by one feeding my spirit, raising it higher and higher

as I realized that my son , Joey, was still not only ALIVE but that , if I wanted to, I could

communicate with him anytime. "He is just vibrating at a higher frequency than you are, Marianne"

And yet, with all of these wonderful people surrounding me, I felt 'Marianne' had lifted and the veil

of 'separation' from my son was indeed, very thin.

   Within that week I met a woman who had left her body during a car crash..she was exactly who

I needed to meet, a 'down to earth' woman whose story was an eye opener. I asked her, as simply

as I could, "Were you STILL you when you popped out of your body?"

   She answered with  a laugh. "Why YES, I was still me!! I was a MAGNIFICENT VERSION

of me!!"

   She even told me that when she re-entered her body, it was like "trying to shove an elephant

into a Coke can".....the visual concept of that resonated with me. Were we that magnificent?? Was

I that magnificent??? My childhood upbringing had told me I was a sinner, a wretch, a non divine

bit of flotsam and jetsam only saved by the death of a guy on a cross.

  Yet here I was, not only discovering the immense beauty that my son was now in, but also

discovering I myself was a divine being, first, merely living out a short movie in three dimensions,

merely a body that had just forgotten , an amnesiac who was finally waking up to her own personal

Ultra Awesome Gigantic REAL spirit that she was.

  My friend laughed at my questions. She gently explained to me that this dimension, this 3D

place, was not real. It was a thick dimension, where space and time collaborated to slow..down...

the frequency of 'things', that materialistic viewpoint so embedded in so many people who were

still sleeping in the idea that this was reality...No, she insisted, this was not the real reality....This

was a dream state, and your spirit is dreaming it up.

  "You wrote the script before you were born into this body called 'Marianne..."

And when that body leaves the stage, we all meet together at the party. Home. Love.

  The REAL place . A place I was told, by many of the near death experiencers, was where we

originated, and will return to. Our bodies were nothing more then caricatures, costumes, props.

The real me, is beyond description. What little was described to me was that I was a Magnanimous

SOUL attached to every other SOUL and we were nothing more than individual aspects of

Unconditional Love.

   No worries about your son, they hastened to tell me. Their stories were told to me, face on,

as I held their hands at the conference and felt their love. These people were real as real could

be in this world. They had traveled, some of them , thousands of miles to be in this room with

me, none of us strangers, as we all sought or had found an absolute truth.

  There is no such thing as death.

I remembered the man who , when my husband passed over, who told me about himself

leaving his body. I thought of how far I had come from that day, as I was now sitting with

hundreds of people, like him, who had left their bodies, only to return with stories of love.

   I was finally dropping my skeptical demeanor. I was finally surrendering to the realization

that my son Joey was more alive than ever. I, however, was still asleep.

  I wanted to wake up.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   I was still painting. My huge canvases of stars were finished, and when I look back at the

tremendous pain of those first years I see a woman , as I also painted self portraits, who was in

agony. She was not alive, her pain had destroyed any smile or joy that  may have remained in her.

As an ex catholic, it was not hard to paint myself as a Madonna, only she was truly Our Lady of

Sorrows, a woman caught up in her own crown of thorns, or lying in a fetal position for days on end.

 She lay in a womb, in those paintings, wishing she could somehow arise from that place. I

have since packed those paintings in a closet, too painful to bear now, and I use them to remind

myself , how far I have come.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  However, as Joey told me at the beginning....Mom, I am in every star!!!  So slowly but strangely,

I saw myself now painting flowers. Flowers, flowers, and more flowers. I was caught up in some

bloom, some opening of my own heart's breath, some gigantic leap had occurred that was painting

flowers....why ? why flowers?? Was I blossoming in some strange way, now that I had HOPE, finally,

that my son was alive and was I learning, finally, that I could live again, even with this heavy body,

was I learning to open to even a minisecond of the LOVE I finally KNEW my son was in?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  How odd, I realized. I have had these marvelous gifts...all along...I have Synesthesia, have had it 

my entire life, have always seen colours in numbers, letters, and when I paint , I have always been able

to "feel" three dimensions on a two dimensional surface.

    I had been able to contact Joey through a medium, through automatic writing, at the beginning..

Why could I not believe enough in myself, as a Massive Spirit, already imbibed with gifts of the Soul?

I had been drawing since I was a small child, and it was my saviour throughout my entire existence, why

had I not noticed before that if I could channel my own soul, why in the world could I not channel my 

son? Who told me I could not? My egoic conditioning, my catholic upbringing, my doubts, all had to

be scrubbed clean, as I saw my paintings begin to morph, and realized, everything, everything I had

ever painted was merely a self portrait of my own soul.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 During this time, I received many phone calls or emails from friends...that Joey had come to them in

dreams, that he looked wonderful, that he was having a blast.  It made sense now, he truly was the "Party 

of the Universe" as my friend in Santa Barbara called him.

   I have always been a rebel. Tell me I cannot contact my son in spirit and BY GOD I will contact him.

and I did. 

   (All this time, Joey had been coming to other people and telling them "TELL MY MOM TO STOP 

WORRYING ABOUT ME!")

    But there was no stopping me now.

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Monroe Institute

   I had used Tibetian Bells at the beginning of my quest, my search for my son. It did not take him long

to get through, altho my skepticism didn't believe myself when he kept screaming in Joy that he was with

GOD! INFINITY! LOVE!!......oh, I wanted to believe myself.

  And I had heard of the Monroe Institute from a friend..a lovely woman I met at the conference..she told

me of course I could meditate..

  Anyone can.  We are just a radio, really. The Source is constantly downloading information to us, but

we are only on one channel. The brain filters out the other channels. I needed to change the channel. I

know that now, I just did not know HOW to do it.

  There is something to be said for tenacity on my part. I was going to the Monroe Institute, and by GOD

I was going to find my son.

  My son had told George Anderson, the medium, that "My mom is trying to break down the gates

of heaven".  He was quite jovial about it, as though I was pounding my fists trying to tear away the

Maya of Illusion that , at the time, I thought separated us . 

  Well, I told my son in my own mind, you are damned right about that!! I will tear down the gates 

and I will find you.

  You are my heart, buddy.

  There are times, when I am alone, and I can feel the benevolent spirits around me, like gentle

parents, who shake their heads with a smile, while they watch me fumble through this movie I am

in, when they see me throw tantrums like a small child..and they are ever loving, ever there, always

waiting for me to lighten up.

  Joey's words to me one morning as I awoke were to "Lighten UP Ma!! You take that place too

seriously!!" he came to his brother Mike and told him the same thing.

    This movie I am in, called "Marianne", must be so miniscule to spirit. so TIny, so short.

  I have to keep reminding myself of that. It is the Muddy dimension, as one of my NDE friends called

it.

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leaving my Body.

  I signed up for the Gateway Voyage at the Monroe Institute, an ashram, in a sense, indeed, and they

even have ashtrays. Of course, I was the only participant who smoked, but I appreciated the place

the minute I arrived there. It was not new agey, indeed, it was a lightness of being to walk into the 

place, where I was told I would be housed in a cubicle bed, with earphones, in a room where I could..

meditate. 

   I had researched Bob Monroe...I knew he had discovered the immense power of binaural beats..

That is, 4 beats per second, and how it transfixed and changed the way the brain processes 

consciousness. Okay then! I needed to change my channel! I jumped in with both feet, not looking

back.  

  I went there, of course, with NO expectations. I expected only a glass of water.

  Instead, I got a firehose.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 I   was not sure what to 'expect' when I laid down in my darkened cubicle at the Monroe

Institute. My ideas of 'meditation' had changed, I certainly did not only think of meditation as

some bevy of Buddhist monks in trances anymore, and I knew that prayer beads, rosaries,

painting, crocheting, all were focus points where time lost it's meaning, and one could bypass

time and center in the moment. I did NOT know how powerful binaural beats were. I found

out pretty quickly.

  I was intent , within my dark cubicle, my earphones on, to adjust my body into a position

of bodily death. I lay there, quite serious about it all, and folded my arms across my chest

as though I were laid out in a casket. Bring it on, I thought. Bring it on.

  One thing I have learned, not only from my NDE friends, but from Joey himself, is that

the Universe, the Source, that which HoTi represents as a symbol, is that , well, whatever

'god' is has a great sense of humour.  My one NDE friend told me "The closest you can GET

to 'god' in three dimensions is inexhaustible laughter, like a child.."

  So, there I am, seriously arranging my body into a coffin like appearance, and the minute the

binaural beats begin in my ears, I suddenly see someone's hand (my eyes are closed..dead), lay

a LILY on my chest....laughingly, making fun of my serious attempt to be a corpse...

  Yes, someone laid a spiritual LILY on my chest and I suddenly realized they thought my

"corpse pose" was funny.  'They' being whatever spirits were with me at the time. I could feel

laughter.

   It did not take long at all, as the binaural beats grew and grew, for me to pop right out...zip, zang

pop.  I was floating in a sea of stars. I was like a spinning planet and the whole of the Universe with

every star around me was ..well...smiling...I could see Joey's face to the left of it all, he was

laughing with glee...Oh My God..I kept myself still....was this really happening...It was the first time

I had been in the cubicle and I am handed the most beautiful stars, I am floating in them like a

dream and my son is here...I had NO idea this would happen..

I quickly asked Joey..."Oh my god, sweetie!! Oh my god, please please show me who I really

am, not that Marianne person but please show me who I REALLY am...."

  Joey laughed and showed me a mirror. I saw Marianne, in her body. He laughed. I said "No!

No!! you are jesting with me!! Show me who I really am!!"

  And, indeed, he was playing with me, but he finally said "I will show you a small aspect of

yourself, there's a lot of them, but I will show you one..."


   I then saw the most beautiful, flitting, flying dark creature, a spirit dancing, in the stars..she was

lighter than air, and flitted like a song on the wind, and then...I saw her stop...and through the top

of her head a blue, blue bright light appeared, and it slammed itself through her head and went down

her spine and I could see this brilliant light , lighting up every filament of her being..I saw it, and

it was an aspect of me!! I thanked Joey and told him I loved him so much, and as I floated for what

seemed like hours,but was only 30 minutes, I could not wait to return to my dark, quiet, cubicle every

day. I would consistently pop out of myself and float. In stars. Every day.  One time I decided to

try opening my eyes of my thick body.....

   Flabbergasted, I discovered I was STILL floating in a sea of stars. I asked the facilitator at the

Institute, later, if they used trick lighting in the cubicle..

  He laughed. "No" he told me "You were and are floating in that sea of stars..."

I had no idea I was capable of any of this..and I realized....yes, Marianne, you were and are

able to not only meditate, but that little screen in the middle of your forehead can travel anywhere.

And I had found, as far as I was concerned, the Holy Grail.

   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------For a week I learned, thanks to those binaural beats, that I could meditate. I would share my

"cubicle adventures" with other participants in the program, one of whom became a grand

friend. Everyone meets a friend like that, someone who you just KNOW that you have known

forever, at every level of being, and he shared his meditation moments with me, also. His face,

when I first met him and told him my son had crossed over, was stricken, and tears welled

up in his eyes. His empathy was kind, and I knew Joey had sent him , Spirit had sent him, as

a gift , someone who Joey would visit any number of times later on in my short 'life' here.

   So many visits from Joey, and all of them, as I sank down into Theta waves and floated

out to greet the multiverse. Joey's consistent remarks were that I not take the world I think

I am in seriously , at all. He was finer than fine, happier than happy, and he had chosen to

stay with his Dad.

  There is something to be said about the verse "Where two or more of you are gathered, I

will be there.."...and , indeed, the whole experience at the Monroe Institute was a gathering

of many people, all diving head first into their own personal oceans , all not afraid of running

into their true selves, or, as in my case, even a small aspect of my 'self'.

   As a child, I used to have dreams of flying, dreams that showed up in my forehead, where

a small screen would arise, and I recall quite vividly a night dream where I flew into a mirror,

passed through the mirror, and discovered an infinite number of bedrooms, resting places, all

coloured in different hues and decorated with comfort.

  It hit me, at the Monroe Institute, that this gift I had received from them, this ability to fly

into the infinity of stars, was something I had known I could do all along.  My childhood

had known it, but my religion had constrained it, shackled it, held me back. I was re-

discovering what I had known as a child.

   Perhaps that is why there is the other verse ..You must be a child to enter the kingdom of

heaven that is within you....

    I was on cloud nine....quite literally, the whole time at the Monroe meditation centre.

 Filled with this , now, knowing I could leave "Marianne" behind , in her lily covered coffin,

I came back to my home and would not even remove the earphones I wore, listening to the

meditation CD's of Bob Monroe, and singing the praises of the experiences to friends who

were a bit taken aback by my statements. I wanted EVERYONE to know they could LEAVE

this world behind, and travel to the stars.

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Anger, Guilt, Joey.

   Grief is still and always will be, a ride....I call it riding the tiger... You hold on to the tiger's

neck and just hope you don't fall off.  I rode a massively huge tiger, who would pause and

allow me to drink some water, or take a nap along the way.

  Despite all of my, our, visits from Joey, despite his statements to me to lighten up, I was still

angry, remorseful, and guilty.

  My first anger, initially, was at god, whomever that is, (I know it's something very very good),

and also at the young man who brought those drugs to my son that night when he crossed over.

  I was sitting on my couch, blankets wrapped around my fetal self, kleenex on the ready at

all times for tears, and I held my hand to my heart. I could 'feel' Joey telling me, do not be angry

at this man. Anger will overtake you, and where I am, MOM, there is no anger.

  I realized the angrier I was, the less chance I had to be close to my son. That was my thought

process at the time.

   So, I forgave the young man. I put my hand over my heart and told him, it's okay. And I had to

Let Go of it. Let Go of the Blame.

  Blaming and Shaming were so deeply embedded into me from early on, just downloads from

a religion that relished in suffering , blaming, shaming, and sin.

  I knew I had to remove, as best I could, those ideas from my thoughts, and replace them with

acceptance, even....yeah...surrender. Surrender has been my BIG lesson. You would think

I had reached it by now. I can tell you, straight up, that on this day I write this , I am still

struggling and wrestling with surrender and acceptance.

   But, indeed, I had to let go of my anger at the young man who brought my son drugs

and alcohol that night.

   And, as synchronicity would arrive that very week, my brother John called me and

told me that Joey had come to him and verbally chastised him about HIS anger.  My

brother John was ready to drive up to my home and go seek out this young man who had

been with my son that night, and was intent on strangling him, to put it mildly.

  But, as John told me, with a feeling of absolute AWE in his voice, Joey had come

to him in a dream and said "DROP IT! drop the anger. Now. Just drop it."

   John was , as was I, at the time, amazed and perplexed. Joey looked quite frisky,

happy, 'as though he had just come from a bout of surfing waves' , my brother told

me.

  But of course, I imagined. Joey can now create his own realities with a flip of

a switch, just a thought, and wham, he was there.

  So, he IS still sailing the seven seas, I discovered. Only this time, it was the Seas

of Infinite Possibilities.

   Sure, he was still Joey....but he was that Magnificent Joey now. No pain, no anger,

no blame, no shame, just pure laughter and love. His truest self.

   My guilt carried on, however. Even after my meditation center, after meeting with near

death experiencers, after all of it, after mediums, and holy books and massive realizations,

my guilt was still attacking me with what if...should have....would have....

  I could see this guilt was an old byproduct of my catholic upbringing, and I had no

idea how to destroy it.  I kept telling myself...Marianne, you did the best you could, at

the time, with what information you had.  I had to constantly remind myself of this, until

one day , I ran across a near death experience online that finally laid my guilt to rest.

  A young woman wrote about her own experience of dying, and waking her own body

up in the morgue.

  I read that twice.

  She WOKE HER OWN BODY UP, AND RETURNED TO IT IN THE MORGUE.

    That is when it hit me, like a thunderbolt.

   Joey, now in all his Glorious Self, could have stayed. He was, and is, that Spirit so Great

that his CHOICE, as he told his brother Bobby, early on, was that he CHOSE to stay with his

dad.

   Chagrined, I realized , finally, that Joey's spiritual journey and CHOICE , were none of my

business. That HE had made the choice to stay. And no matter what I had said or not said, done

or not done, Joey chose his own path. It was arrogance for me to think I had any choice in HIS

journey. I did not.

  With that newfound realization that we are SO powerful that we can actually reactivate our body,

even in the morgue, I let go of the guilt that had eaten away at me for all those years.

  The huge lesson, of course, is that I have to get OUT of the way of the spiritual journey of

everyone I love, and let them make their choices, as painful as I may see them, even my other

two sons who still inhabit bodies, I have NO control over their outcomes in their lives here.

  Still learning this lesson, to this day.

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Joey's visits come out of the blue, of course, and their timing is always perfect. He does not

come to me in dreams as much as he does to others. A year or so ago, he visited my meditation

friend from the Monroe Institute. My friend wrote to me and was amazed by Joey's visit to him.

"Yes" he told me "Your son came to me. I was at the theater, about to watch a movie, and decided

to close my eyes and meditate for a minute or so before the movie started..."

  My friend lives in Rio , and has never met Joey in his body. He describes him quite well,

however. Joey laughing, always.

 "Your son came to me , Marianne, and told me to LOOK for a word in the movie I was

about to see....and I asked your son....what do you mean? There are thousands of words in

a movie...but your son Joey insisted I look for that word..and then, Marianne, your son did

the oddest thing...he showed me a whole page filled with spaceships...hundreds of them..and he

laughed, and his last words to me were 'Tell my mom not to worry about me'..."

    I was again, amazed, as I always am, when Joey comes to people and provides me with

a TREASURE trove of information, Joey knowing Full Well that I would run with it and discover

what he meant. 

  The 'word', my friend discovered in the movie he watched , was "Excelsior." he wrote to me

and described how that 'word' kept popping up in the movie. "As for the hundreds of space

ships? " my friend , perplexed at Joey's visit "I have NO idea what that means!!"

  Of course, Joey knew me, KNOWS me well enough that I would seek out what this

meant, and I immediately turned to Google, of all places, typing "Excelsior" into my

search engine, only I knew, deep inside, he was talking about himself..."I am traveling

at warp speed, Mom!"  upwards and onwards, as it felt more and more the 'word'

describing itself to me.  But what about those spaceships? That made no sense to either

me, or my friend. Then it hit me. Type 'Excelsior' into Google and press 'images'.

   WHAM! There is was. A whole page full of images of spaceships. I hurriedly told

my friend. "Oh my , " he said "You found the spaceships Joey showed me in the visit."

  Joey knew I would find them. I could feel him laughing as mom solved yet another

one of his puzzles he was sending to people.

   My brother John calls me, on occasion, to let me know that "Joey has been teaching

me to fly.." My brother is disabled, and cannot move around very well. Nonetheless, Joey

has been helping John leave his body, and John describes it as a gentle waving journey, 'not

like Superman flying',, but more like a soft surge where one is carried on the wind. "But you

should see the places he takes me!" says my disabled brother.

  And Joey is not done with him. "Joey always looks so healthy...and happy..with that

sideways grin he always had!"  At this point my brother is just one of the many many people

that Joey has helped.

   Recently, my other brother, Andy, called me and told me that his wife was experiencing

deep pain in her lower back. We were all concerned, and we loved his wife dearly, a truly

kind and gentle woman, who is much younger than I am. I asked my friend in Rio, to whom

Joey so easily visits, if he could go into meditation state and ask Joey about my sister in law

and her health.

  "Of course I will", my friend stated.

   A few days later, my friend wrote to me. "I contacted Joey..or, well, he did come to me and

he told me to let you all know that your sister in law MUST look at her neck..he kept going on

and on about her pain in her neck..I have no idea what he means..he just urgently kept talking

about her neck..."

   I took my friend's words from Joey and called my brother Andy, and told him "Check your

wife's neck. Joey says so."

  My brother was surprised..."But she has no neck pain."

 I insisted. "Check her neck."  After all, Joey was and is in the Source, the Knowing, the Place

where Truth is and always has been.

  My brother took his wife in to get an MRI..not only on her lower back, but also her neck.

  Her neck was found to be covered with cancerous tumours, so many, in fact, they had to

perform surgery as soon as possible before the tumours cut off her spinal nerve at C4, where

she would have stopped breathing.

   Joey knew.

   I always 'know' that Joey knows the truth. I get angry, to this day, that he comes so easily

to my brother John, or , just recently , to children.

  A year or so ago, I was watching my 9 yr old grandson at my home. We always have

delightful visits, and he knows about his Uncle Joey who, I told him, watches over him like

an angel every minute of the day. My grandson woke up one morning and nonchalantly sat down

to watch early morning cartoons. As I fixed breakfast for him, he stated to me, ever so easily,

"Gramma...I had a dream.."  I smiled, assuming his dream was silly, filled with cartoons and

video creatures...but, no....he then, (again, nonchalantly), stated that "Uncle Joey came to me."

I stopped in my tracks and went straight to him, and sat down.

"Uncle Joey came to you?"

 "yes, Gramma. he came and told me he would make sure I had the best life EVER."

My grandson was born a few months after my son Joey had crossed over. My grandson was

like a Golden Child to me, a reason to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Then, I simply asked my grandson..."What did Uncle Joey look like?"

I assumed, at the time, he would describe his Uncle Joey as many others had that

Joey had visited, or from pictures he had seen of his Uncle Joey.

But, instead, (as Joey would have it) , my grandson said quite simply..

"Well, Gramma....he looked like a white shining light..like a reaaallly white shining light.."

I was shocked. NO one had ever used this terminology around my grandson.

I then asked him "How did you know it was Uncle Joey?"

He smiled at me and said "Oh I just KNEW it was him. Can I have my breakfast now?"

   Out of the mouth of babes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------References to Joey's visits to people and my utter amazement when they tell me, as I am ALWAYS

amazed at him, brings me back to a story of one of my friends, a lady whose son had crossed over in

a car accident. I met her through another lady, who I used to have breakfast with, and I was glad

to finally meet someone in my small town who had also had a son cross over, and I hoped I could

share with her many of the visits I had from my son.

  Well, huge mistake on my part. The minute I brought up the subject, she shut down. She

was a local librarian, and a skeptic, and would have nothing to do with such ridiculous

stuff, indeed, she would not speak of her son nor consider the notion of him visiting anyone.

OK. I still met with these women for breakfast, for a year or so, but one week my new friend

was not there.

I was informed that she was in hospital, as she was receiving a heavy round of blood tests,

but she was in no danger, merely a routine round of tests, and I thought nothing of it..

Until one day when I received a phone call from another friend who was out of breath...

  "Marianne!!! Guess what!! Her son came to visit her in the hospital!!"

  Well,well. My skeptical librarian friend evidently had had her son show up to her.

It didn't take me long to call her that day.

  She was quite civil about it all. Yes, she told me, her son stood at the foot of her bed, and

told her "everything is going to be allright, Mom. No worries."

  I was confused...I asked her what her son LOOKED like when he appeared to her.

"Oh" she told me quite frankly, "He was as solid as you and me. He was wearing a brown

shirt and blue jeans."

  I was still confused, yet excited for her, but what I did not understand was why he would

show up, in such deep material form, and tell her not to worry..about blood tests?

   A week later, however, my friend's daughter found her mother's body. She had crossed

over peacefully, at home, from an aneuryism.

  "OH!" I realized..."THAT is why her son came to her........."

  I stood in my kitchen that day and railed at Joey..."Why don't you show up to me like that?"

I yelled a bit, but then felt the soft pat of laughter surround me, as Joey said, very openly to me

in my mind's heart, "Mom, when I come to you like THAT it will mean it is YOUR time to

GO!"....he laughed and laughed and, indeed, I still can FEEL them , all of them around me,

like a group hug, laughing at my tantrums and angry utterances.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  My husband Bob, who was my first husband, was there to take Joey 'across', and, as Joey

told his brother, "Dad  put out his hand and said 'Come on, son'..", had come to his sister right after

he passed on, and she told me this story only a year ago, that my husband , her brother, had come

to her as a ball of light, swirling beautifully, "and I knew it was BOB", she told me, as he asked her

to forgive him for some of his behaviours he had exhibited to her when they were children. She knew

it was him, but it was only after he came to visit her that night, that she received the call that he had

passed on.  I don't know why she waited til last year to tell me, but all timing is perfect, and so I

believed that I needed to hear that story at the time when I needed it.

Bob came to me,once, in a dream after he had crossed. He was wearing a backpack, and a huge pond

of water lay between us.

 "I have to go." he told me.

"I want to come with you!" I yelled.

He just quietly picked up his backpack and smiled. "You can't", he said.

"If you need me, " he spoke to me as he walked away "Think of the sun coming up over

a mountain, and I will be there..."

and that. was that.

Bob has come to his son Bobby, my oldest, and Bobby says his father always is..smiling, but,

his arms crossed, leaning back on a pillar of strength, as the rush of the world moves around

him, he stays still, his energy one of "all is well", as Bobby explained it.

I remember quite well how I lay in my heap of ashes in early grief, saying over and over to

my husband in spirit..."You take our son, now, he is yours..YOU take him and take care of him

now..."  I handed Joey over.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I could write, now, about how Joey just recently came to one of his childhood friends, and he showed

up to her as a small child, and she said she ran through the woods with him, both of them laughing..

and then he stopped, and put his hands on her shoulders, and quietly told her "Tell my mother not

to worry about me.."

She JUST told me this story, 3 weeks ago, altho he had visited her back in 2006, and she had NO idea

he had passed on during his visit to her. Why was I hearing this now? She also told me Joey visited

her 9 year old son, who informed his mother one day that he was going to grow up, have three boys,

and name them Bobby, Mike and Joey.   She had never mentioned my sons' names to her small son,

but, he knew those names. She showed him a picture of Joey, and he smiled and told her "Yes, he

comes to me all the time in my dreams.."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am a bereaved parent.

I will not bullshit anyone when I say that every waking moment, every second of my existence

in this place is all about Joey and my quest to KNOW him AS HE IS and learn not to long

and desire him in a 'body' anymore.  I have forged a new relationship with him, and I realize

that I had to forge (and am still working on) a new relationship with my real self. It sure as

hell isn't this body I am dragging around.

  I am tethered to it, however , and even though I am told by theoretical physicists that I am

99.9 percent empty space when we start searching out quarks and fractals, I still 'feel' the

heaviness of carrying it around, knowing full well my one son is free of his body, and can

fly and create with no strings attached. WHY I am still dragging this body around , I have

no idea.

  Near death experience people tell me "Your work is not done." Joey has come and told

me "Your work is to just be kind to people. It is the little gestures that mean everything, a smile,

opening a door for someone, making someone laugh. You don't have to paint the Sistine

Chapel or discover anything important..all you have to do is be kind."

   Is it really that simple, since I still question why I am imagining my body, that my only

reason for be-ing in this state is to be kind. "Start with yourself" 'they' (all of them with

Joey) have told me.

   I have 'felt' them, around me, I feel them now as I write. The infinite numbers of family,

parents, husbands, everyone, and Joey right there, in the Party, all of them circling

around me , nudging me on, making me STAY here in this place, be a grandmother, that's

one of the roles YOU chose, and be the best grandmother you can be.

   I am still a mess, I will not lie to any mother or father out there that I have shared my

own personal journey with. Yes, I know without a doubt that my son Joey is alive, well,

and Home with his dad and many others are with him.

   Yes, he has blasted through the ethers, ripped down the separation, torn down the veil

that I thought separated us when he crossed over...and I dove into the deepest part of the

Infinity Ocean to meet him halfway.

  But, to this day, I still fear, I do not yet completely surrender to my story, my myth. I know

I have two other sons in this place, and I still live in fear that another one might leave me

behind.  I still see a counselor to help me with panic attacks that rise out of nowhere if I

believe for one second that my other sons might be in danger. I am still, with all that

I know, a control freak who lets her egoic belief she can somehow protect her other children

from whatever outcomes their own spiritual journeys take them on.

  I STILL find Marianne stomping her feet, demanding that this experience bring her no

more pain, demanding, even, that my body dies, soon, so I can beat my other 2 sons to the

finish line.

  When I lay down and ask that Source, that God , that Force behind it all, to let me die,

let me leave this body for good...well, they laugh at me. Not a mean laugh, but a gentle eyeroll

as they watch me trying to control my own exit from this place.

  How many of us, bereaved parents, are still terrified of going through that pain again? Oh ,

hell, we all are, it seems.

  The ONE son I KNOW not to worry about is Joey...which is odd, since I used to worry about

him at the beginning of this all the time. He has since convinced me with determination that HE is

absolutely okay.

  It is my other sons I now watch, and pray, will NOT exit before I do. Maybe I need to pick

up my physics books again and remind myself that there IS NO TIME.

  IN MY HEAD , I know that all existence, all manifestations, are occurring at the same moment..

That Marianne is being born at this very moment in 1951, that I have already passed over , that this

really is only me as a light wave on a field of infinite possibilities..

  I sometimes joke to friends, who think I am insane, how many 'mariannes' are there?

If she is inhabiting every multiverse overlapping each other, what is she doing

in the other ones??

  The star we see in the sky has long since died but we see it's light now. I am that star also,

and who sees my light flickering on from some otherworld, even after it has been turned off.

  Joey says I think too much. Yes, perhaps I do. I am never NOT amazed by him when he comes

to people who he KNOWS I will believe, with no doubts. People say "You should know by now

he is okay!"

  I remember someone once, when my children were little, someone asked me "what gift can you give

your children to make their lives easier..."

   Oddly enough, my answer to them, was..."To die well. To show them it is easy to die."

   Joey has become my teacher. I have zero fear of my own bodily demise. Joey showed

me I will die well, and be reborn to a Home I have forgotten. Joey is more a mother to me now,

not a son. He is my wise teacher, who comes right when I need him.

I know he will be the first one to take my hand and say "Come on, Mom" when I finally

let go of that very last breath.

  "You will just surf to your son" a woman who had an NDE told me. "You will just surf

to him and you will wake up."

  This is not the end of the story, though. It is only a beginning, as I wake up and realize that

there is no ending, and no beginning, and I am with my son, always, and he continues to help me

find the Beautiful Spirit that runs my show, the spirit that stands even now, next to Joey and all

of 'them', and observes this little Marianne until her short movie here is finished.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  I had to find my son, and I found so much more. My journey here did ride the tiger, sometimes

I still ride it, holding on for dear life, lest I end up in a pit of fear. I envy those whose fear has

left them, completely. I stood toe to toe with all the goddesses and gods and demanded they open

the doors to where my son was laughingly residing. I found out I could. I discovered laughter, again,

something I had lost for 5 long years after my son crossed. I discovered laughter one day while

watching a video someone had made, and when the laugh came out of me, I hurriedly put my hand

over my mouth, as though I were disrespecting my son. Quite the contrary..I realize now my son

IS pure laughter, and to laugh is to be closer to his and my own true spirit.

   Sorrow, as I was taught , was necessary. I know now that sorrow comes from the foundation

of believing that I am only a material body, in a material world. I know that I did NOT know, at

the beginning of my grief over Joey, that the material world is merely a playful white light,

a hologram, an imaginary dream that I was taught , as a child, was reality. I had to suffer to

suffer to suffer until I was sick of suffering. I had to long for my child as he was for a long

time before I would search for who he really IS. To this day, I do not wish to fall into that dark

hole again, where I longed and desired him in his body. I will not look at his pictures, or the many

movies I taped of him as a child or as a man. I will not go there again. The only time I will

reminisce on these films and pictures, will be on my own deathbed. Then, and only then, will

I watch them. I will know him as he is NOW. now.

  I have not stopped painting. Joey still surprises me as he takes over my whole body and helps me

paint the Universe, huge, impossibly intricate beauty that he sees, and I know these paintings are

pale versions of his world.  I can feel him using my hand in every brushstroke.

   I also found myself able to return to comedy, and made youtube videos that make people

laugh. At the beginning of my grief over Joey, I thought I would never laugh again. But, years

later, I found myself creating laughter, laughing at myself, and, in some way, hearing applause

from Joey and all the spirit that surrounds me, that I could still laugh and help others to do so.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  My grandson came, as per the usual way Divinity works, right when I needed a baby to hold

and care for. Only a few months after Joey had crossed over, I was watching a small baby, 4 days a

week, as his parents both worked at their jobs. What an odd combination of deep grief, and also

absolute love and delight, as I rocked my grandson and played with him. As I sang the same songs

to him that I had sung to my own children.

  I do not doubt that as my grandson was coming to this 'world' here, Joey whispered into his

ear, "That lady is going to really need you now."  My grandson and I have a deep relationship, and

to this day I make puppet videos for him to make him laugh.

  I recall, a couple of years ago, how furious I was with this three dimensional existence.

Complaining, online, yet again. I always take quantum leaps forward, and then wham, I feel

myself falling into despair.

  The phone rang and I answered it. It was one of the near death experiencers I had met. She

saw my whining angry cries about having to continue living in this world, and she flattened me

with some truths.

  "Yeah, okay, Marianne..so YOU KNOW it is a hologram, a not real place, but if it is, YOU

created it, YOU have to look for the miracles in it, because it is just as much a part of spirit as

where I went, and where your son is...YOU have to find that in everything around you.."

  And my words to Joey "Look for me in everything" came back to slap me into changing

my perspective.

  I have spoken with so many grieving parents. I have heard their stories, and understand the anger,

sadness, sorrows, rage, horror, guilt, remorse, and everything that accompanies one during their

long prison sentence they are pretty sure will never end.

  I only tell my story because I got tired of suffering. I knew I had to reach out from my broken

idea of my 'self' and go look for my son. I knew, deep down, he was with me the whole time.

I am not out of the woods, yet, I have much much more to say. I still sit on bended knee sometimes

wishing for someone to call me and tell me that Joey has come to them, and for a while, I am

dancing with the angels.  I can still sink like a rock, too, and to this day I cannot drive down the

street where he passed over in his apartment.

   Go figure. Nonetheless, I write this whole story , Finding JOeY, to help other parents who

are out there, if indeed my own personal journey can help them put. one. foot. in front of the

other, each day, and look for the miracles our children send us.

  I EXPECT miracles now. I want them to be the NORM. I am still learning, always will be

learning, to surrender to whatever comes, and TRY not to judge it, but just allow it to come,

discomforting sometimes, but remembering it is happening for the greater good. That all of the

experiences are happening for the greater good, and, that in the end of it all, and in the middle of

it all, and throughout it all, as Joey says................all is well.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Added to my story:

 As I was writing this, my brother John was driving his car back from Louisiana to Indiana, and

the traffic was a bit difficult for him to maneuver through. He asked Joey, hey, help me with this.

That very second, he looked up, and saw a street sign. On the sign was the word "Excelsior." He

smiled and wrote to me later of his experience. As I said before, in my perhaps rambling,

discombobulated paragraphs and streams of consciousness, Joey does not stop giving us signs..in

this case, an Actual SIGN on a road..

  It really is just a matter of perception. I could keep this story going for ages, for all the years I

seem to have in front of me, or I could stop here. But I intend to call this Part One, of Finding JOeY,

because I know, deep inside, that more is forthcoming with my quest to understand where and who

my son is.

  For those bereaved parents on their own quest..I can only say..take heart....you will find your

child. They are in everything, and it is just a matter of time before they come to you in dreams, or

come to others, as Joey does, in dreams and visits. Do not let anyone sway you from these visits.

You will have naysayers and people whose fear of your newly opened, freshly wounded, but

also freshly insightful mind who will dismiss your child who visits. There are people in this world

who cannot fathom that which is 'otherworldly' to them. YOU will KNOW in your heart when the

signs come, when the dreams manifest, when the synchronicity begins to overtake you. It took me

years to even begin to believe , with absolute credibility, that Joey was alive in spirit. I was my own

worst enemy, my most skeptical critic. I had to find solace within myself to say YES, my son IS,

and always WILL BE.  The initial stages of grief of a child , I do not ever think I could possibly

envision doing that again. I know how it feels. Nonetheless, each of us are on our OWN journeys,

with our child, with our children. Be. Gentle. With. Yourself. You may feel like you are in a hole

or on the edge of a cliff, and you cannot climb out, or you want to jump.

  But I can promise you that if you listen, quietly, you will be able to step off that cliff and you

will NOT die, you will fly. You may be in the darkest hole, where not a thread of light enters, but

if you wait, and listen, and KNOW, someone will throw you a rope. It will be small, or large, but this

is YOUR personal journey, and I can only hope my words of my own personal journey in this world

can BE that rope you need to pull yourself, even an inch, out of that dark place you are in.

  Question Everything.

  Believe in the Signs.

  Follow Your Heart

  Love Yourself.

Joey tells me not to stop writing, he will have more to say. This small book is just the beginning

of the rest of the journey I am on.

Much Peace to You, my fellow parents.

Marianne.

I have a p.s. for you now. The other day I was walking down a 2 mile stretch of beach, filled with

thousands of rocks of every shape, size,and colour. I was at the beach with my oldest son and

grandson. My oldest son is named Bobby.

   We had been there for about an hour, and I had searched high and low among the many rocks on

the beach, looking for beach glass.

  I noticed a rock shaped like a heart and something drew me to it.  I picked it up, and turned it over.

The words "Hi Bobby" were written on it, and I knew right then it was sent by Joey and all the

angels for me to find.

   I immediately showed the heart shaped rock to my son Bobby. He was,to say the least,

flabbergasted. He could hardly believe his own eyes.

  "Mom!" he said..."Of all the rocks on this beach, the odds are astronomical that you would

pick up THAT rock...wow....they really know how to get through.."

    Yes, my son, they come through right when you need them. Thank you, Joey and all of

those spirits who once again showed us a miracle in real time.

 













 

 

Dearest Riley:

I am intent upon writing you a bit of a long stretch, a lot of words to tell you about me, your grandmother, and what my life in this world has been. I don't think enough grandparents do that, we have to 'guess' from old stories handed down through generations.
I figured I would start from the beginning and just keep adding on. You might as well know who your grandma is, and where she came from.
I was born at Mercy Hospital in Gary, Indiana on July 25th, 1951. My mom told me she was asleep during the whole birthing thing, but that's how they did it back then. The doctors were control freaks, I guess, and just knocked the mother out and then, voila, she wakes up and a baby has been delivered.
Well, I won't lie to you....judging from a few letters of love my mother (Dorothy Ann Keilman Carter), and my dad (George Andrew Carter), those two were planning on having 6 sons. I suppose I must have been awfully cute because they were delighted I was born anyway, despite being a girl. I was the first born to them, your aunt Colleen (another girl) came along 14 months later in Nov 24th, 1952...then , finally, a boy, my brother Dennis on March 9th, then my mom had a miscarriage...
I do remember that night, we were sitting down to dinner and my mom turned white as  a sheet...and sort of fell over...I remember a babysitter tucking me in that night, I think his name was Michael Jergens, he was a teenager and I really did not know what was going on. I knew my mom had been taken to the hospital. That's about it. I don't know if my mom miscarried a boy or girl, altho I think it was a girl.
Then comes my brother John , born Sept 22, and then my sister Josephine, born Jan 13, then last but not least, my little brother Andrew...born Feb 17th.
So, that's the basic countdown. Your great grandpa George and great grandma (who you met as a baby) were prolific, and very old timey Catholics. That is the way they did that in those days, especially old timey Catholics....
My dad told me that the first place I ever lived was in an apartment in Gary, Indiana. At that time, Gary was a pretty awesome, thriving city, with a lot of stores and places to shop. I remember the corner Walgreens, 10 cents for a coke, and the small round plastic and steel seats around the soda counter. That was when you bought a Coca Cola right out of the spigots..real syrupy sugar, not the crap they sell now.
I also remember going into dimestores, they called them Five and Dimes, like Woolworths, where there was usually a plastic pony at the front of the store for kids to ride on. That cost a dime. There were dept stores,too, long aisles of stuff to buy, and huge fans hung from the ceilings to cool off the customers. I saw my first african american people in the stores, and for some reason , at a young age, I associated black people and popcorn, because the dept stores had popcorn for people to wander and eat as they shopped.
And, oh, you could smoke cigarettes anywhere in those days. My mom and dad smoked Kool cigarettes all the time.No one cared.I suppose people were dropping dead from cancer right and left, but no one at that time associated it with cigarettes. or atom bombs.
Nonetheless, I remember going to the dentist in downtown Gary, Indiana..the upper floors of some building, and always being treated to a handmade chocolate milkshake afterwards at yet another soda fountain. I remember the feeling of my cheek lying on my mother's fake fur (mutton) coat as I rode home with her and my dad in the car.
To this day if I put my face next to a fur, I can feel my mom's warmth next to me. Go figure.
I dont remember the apartment in Gary, Indiana. My memories of the house my father bought in Hobart are fairly vivid, though.
I must have been around 4 or 3, but my first memories of that house are a small living room, a scratchy green chair , and a kitchen in the back. By then, my sister had been born and we shared a room with cribs. She was much more sociable then I ever was, and I was told she would sneak out of her crib a lot. I was pretty afraid, as I recall , of associating with other people. They scared me, maybe because I found out later , much later in my life, according to my mother, that whenever I cried they did not pick me up as a baby. I guess it was my dad's idea. that I should learn to 'soothe myself'. Of course, this is not something one does nowadays...always pick up a crying baby.... but back then people had some strange ideas....
Nonetheless, to be continued.......................
the kitchen in my first house I remember had little spice containers, metal, red and white. We had a stainless steel kitchen table that seated 4, with red plastic and chrome chairs. I liked the basement. It's doorway was off the kitchen, and it had a wringer washer down there. I liked the smell of bleach and soap that basements had back then, and I remember my cousin almost falling into the sump pump down there.
My very very earliest memory was of someone holding me , and I was looking outwards over a long field, seeing a row of corn cribs in the distance. My mother swears I could not have remembered this, and that I was only a few months old. But I do remember it.
Life was easy when I was little.
I didn't care for walks to the corner grocery. There was a boy there, whose father owned the store, and the boy would grab me. I didn't like that, so my mother would sit me on the counter. Stores were on corners, then, and they had white butcher counters where a butcher would cut meat and a display case of glass where you could pick out what you wanted. Your meat came to you wrapped in white paper with a seal.
There was always a gumball machine at the entrance. Milk came in glass bottles, but, it was the atomic age , after all, and more and more plastic was showing up in the aisles of food. I contend that, after WW2, corporations like Dow Chemical didn't know what to do with all that crappy plastic they created, so they started covering food with is.I am lucky to remember what paper covered meat looked like.
Of course, back then, my mother was a housewife. My dad got a job as an engineer on the EJ&E railroad..that's Elgin Joliet and Eastern Railways. It has since been bought out by a Canadian company in the 1990's, but if you ever see an EJ&E boxcar, know for sure that is your great granpa waving at you.
My own take on being a little girl was that it was a wondrous time. Our house was at the end of a block, and there were open fields aplenty , which are not there anymore. I took your gr gramma back there to see the house when she was in her 80's, and the two maple trees my dad planted as baby maples in front of the house were now full and tall and alive with richness and leaves.
I remember that house because doctors made house calls back then, and our Doctor Vye was his name. He came to the house to vaccinate me and my sister , who hid behind the large scratchy green chair. We did not like him much, that old man with the needle.
I was told by my parents that I snuck into the neighbour's automobile and had a bowel movement as a 3 yr old right on his front seat, and then smeared it all over the windows and seat. I do not remember this, but my parents did. My dad said it was horrific to clean up.I was also told I broke the tulips off all the neighbour's flowers in her flower bed.Evidently I was a bit of a destroyer of worlds back then.
Hobart also had a restaurant, I believe it was named Art's Restaurant..and we would go there and sit in the booths that were red plastic, (again) and there were chrome hatracks , because all the men wore hats back then. I remember french fries and ketchup. I was always, for some reason, making myself store one memory or another , maybe because deep down I knew I would tell you about it all someday.
When we moved from that small house in Hobart, out to Hobart Township, on Liverpool Road, out to the country when I was around 4, began the happiest years of my childhood.
My dad wanted to get out of a neighbourhood and into the country. And boy were we in the country. We lived in a redwood house on an acre of land with 52 trees and woods behind them, and fields that ran for miles. Sometimes a horse or stray sheep would come into the yard.
I basked in all of it. It was a little kid's dreamland. From the small swingset situated behind the garage, where my sister and I sat and swung back and forth, singing to the horses across the road, "Rory and Beauty, Rory and Beauty.."(those were the horses names..)   such beautiful horses, I am sure they heard us singing to them.
The road, Liverpool Road to be exact, was long. It wound through meadows and down a steep hill, maybe steep for me as a child, to a creek that ran under it called Turkey Creek. We made a lot of trips down there, my brother Dennis went down there to fish, using only bread and peanut butter as bait. He was ecstatic when he finally did catch a bluegill and dragged it home, half gone by the time he ran into the house, proudly showing my dad his catch. I remember my dad laughing, because hardly a bone of the bluegill was hanging from the rod at that point.
The trips to the creek were pretty wild, something most parents would not even allow nowadays, and I recall quite well the time my brother Dennis, and sister Colleen, crossed a log over the creek. I was holding my very little brother John and attempted the same feat, but alas the log cracked as I crossed and we both fell into the water. Luckily I walked out, holding my very little brother aloft to keep him from drowning.
I received a spanking from that one when I got home.
The woods behind the house were the special place of wonderment where I lived out so many days wandering, where I saw the old stone structures of homes not built, where I climbed trees and watched the birds.
Our yard was huge to me, 2 cherry trees in front of the kitchen, where many a Sunday picture was taken of my sister and I in our Sunday clothes, that itched. One time, I am told, we used our white sunday gloves as bait , goin fishing, but I don't remember doing that.
My favorite trees were the catalpa trees that I could easily climb and become queen of the yard. I sat in them for hours, just as I sat in the tree at the end of the driveway , and talked to the many birds and insects that visited.
Next to the yard was a huge, unfettered field, filled with wild grasses and untouched meadowland. I would hide in there, too, and create huge circles of stomped down grass, where I would sit in the summer and listen for the buzzing and chirping and frogging songs...where I would lay in the grass and ensuffer the brunt of chiggers afterwards, but I did not care. I did not want to be in the house.
There was too much to see outside.
I especially was fascinated with ants. I would sit for hours on end, a day was an eternity back then, and watch the ants work as a team. Even when I was small, the entire idea of ants was like the perfect society to me. Everyone knew their job, and everyone worked together. What may have looked like chaos to an untrained eye, looked like perfect timing to me. I knew that those ants were way smarter then any humans I would ever meet. At least they know why they existed.
I would feed them tiny handfuls of sugar, and my father was a bit taken with that , and laughed because he was always trying to keep ants out of the house, and there I was feeding them.
Not only did ants come into our yard, but one day a horse arrived , must have ran out of it's stall. Of course we all wanted to keep it, but your gr granpa knew horses, as he worked on a horse farm after WW2, because he had shell shock from the war, he told me. Working with horses helped him. So we did not keep that horse.
I was a pretty quiet kid, as I recall, avoiding the kitchen at all costs, and since there was a white chicken house behind the big house, I preferred creating a fort, which I allowed only my sister to visit. I called it the Mary Fort, as I was already gaining a preference for Mary, or the Blessed Virgin, and she was my go to saint whenever I needed protection.
There was an old Victrola in the chicken house, and my dad called it junk. I wish I had that thing now.
One day we discovered a nest of baby mice out there. My dad took swift care of that with a shovel. I was not moved one way or the other, perhaps all children are too little to understand. I do remember the blood and flesh, and so did my sister. One day she asked me for a sandwich in the kitchen , so I threw a piece of bologna on some Wonder Bread and doused it with ketchup..
"Here" I told her "Have some baby mice.."
Boy was she mad.
Did the same thing again with cottage cheese and ketchup.
"Eat some brains."
I do remember her beaning me on the head with a blessed mother statue.
Cant say I blame her.
My sister Colleen and brother Dennis were, and still are, ultra close. As the oldest, I was left to fend for my self, and they played a lot together.
I did play dolls with my sister, when I was upstairs in the old house.
We each had a doll. They both looked the same, and I named mine Dorothy, she named hers Anne. After our mother , of course. We took old drawers out of cabinets and made them cribs. We both decided our husbands were in the army, and we were home taking care of the babies.
We did this for hours. We didn't have toys like you had. We had to make things up. We used a cardboard box to make a small dollhouse, and cut out pictures from the Sears Catalogue of moms and dads and kids, and we even cut doors and windows into our mishappen dollhouse . We cut out appliances and pasted them on the insides.
Sometimes my father would bring home a huge cardboard box that once held a refridgerator, or a stove, and we would have a blast making it into a house outside. Eventually it would collapse but we made a sled out of it, then.
My dad was never one to forgo work, and we needed a new septic system at the house. The old one was shot, and the pipes in the house were old. To even get the water going in them , my dad had to flip a switch, and then I would stand in the 'pump room'  where , when I heard a *click* , I would smack the pipe with a ballpeen hammer to get the water going. To this day I cannot quite figure out why that worked.
My dad was intent upon digging, with a shovel, a while series of deep trenches that would be the new septic system.
His work , combined with running a train, combined with making babies, kept him ultra busy, and eventually the trenches filled with rain water, which, of course, became our play area..where we caught leopard frogs, and threw rocks into the whole mess. We ended up moving before dad had a chance to finish his septic system. You have to give him credit for trying.
One time, he was painting the upstairs bedroom that was adjacent to the bedroom where all the kids were. I remember how tired he looked, and he had barely gotten a coat of paint on, when I decided to help him, without his knowing about it.
I liked tasks that I made up myself, and so I thought..well, I will just put the first coat of paint on the rest of it for him. So, I did. Not sure to this day how it looked and I was only 8 or 9, but boy was he surprised in the kitchen when I came down the wooden stairs and told him, guess what. I painted your room for you.
He literally ran up the stairs in shock or awe..one or the other. To this day I think he was astounded I would make the effort.
I remember asking him where the tooth fairy kept all those teeth.
I remember my sister and I planning to pull our pants down at the bottom of the stairs BEFORE we went to the bathroom so that we would be ahead of ourselves. Our logic was askew, to say the least, because you can't climb stairs very well with your pants down around your ankles.
The kitchen in the house was yellow. I think all kitchens should be yellow, for some reason. Under the stairs of the house there was a pantry with a sloping roof right off the kitchen.
So many things happened in that kitchen.
There was a breakfast nook, or bar, where the radio would play 1950s music, like "Personality" and we had 3 little bowls of water with tiny turtles in them. We fed our little turtles the food turtles eat, which were basically larvae that looked like Rice Krispies.
None of us could look at Rice Krispies much after that.
My dad accidentally changed the water one day in the turtle bowls and they all died.
My sister, who had a huge heart, cried her eyes out. She cried over her dead goldfish, too. I honestly do not remember crying much. I was usually hiding out somewhere else.
My sister Colleen and my mom got along MUCH better than I did with my mom. My mom was always unusually quiet, except when she was angry with my dad, then I could hear her mumble under her breath as she washed dishes.
My mom was quite a beauty, and was really feminine about herself. She knew how to pull that off , with  a scarf or a necklace. Her beauty stand, complete with a skirt, was fascinating to pillage. My sister and I would watch her put on her makeup. She had a little box, a red box, with the word Maybelline on it. She would spit right into it, and take a brush, and brush up her eyelashes. She used a little pencil for her eyebrows, and when she put on that always reddish lipstick, she would smear it on her top lip, then her bottom lip...and bite down gently on a kleenex to absorb the rest.
She wore pin curls during the day, her hair was dark and when my sister got older (in her teens)she and my mom would do each other's hair.
But I could not escape , try as I might, the grand ideas my mother had about me and my sister's hair. I had a thick black shock of hair, my sister's was thinner and lighter. That did not keep my mother from occasionally laying our heads down , ass backwards, across the kitchen sink , and attacking us with The now Infamous TONI permanent curls.
If there was a torture chamber in those days, it wasn't just girdles and bras..No indeed, for a small girl a TONI perm was a chemical mixture that was similar to Napalm, as far as I was concerned, and after washing our hair, she would mix the batch of chemicals and the immediate smell would scorch the nostrils off our noses...we choked as she wound each chunk of hair into a tight little roller, and coughed and snorted and screamed a bit until she was finished.
After our hair was dry she would unwind the curlers and our hair simply exploded. Masses of unruly curls plagued us for days , and the smell of the chemicals did too...we simply had no way of fighting back, except to wait for the permanent to dissipate and the smell to vanish.
All in all, you know what, Riley? I was never bored. There was always something to do. Always an ant farm to watch or a tree to climb. Days were infinite. I slept in a trundle bed by myself, and the wallpaper next to the bed soothed me, it had little yellow rosebuds on it. We had a big kid's communal bedroom , where we 3 little ones had our own beds, and then 4 little ones when John came along.
I would lay there at night and hear the sound of a train whistle off in the distance, and imagine that was my daddy, driving that train. I also said prayers every night, the same one, Now I Lay me Down to Sleep...and I blessed everyone at the end. I said the act of contrition, too...in case of whether I actually did die in my sleep I guess it was like an insurance policy.
Yes, I found things to do, and, being Catholic, my parents praising the Pope and their church, a time when nuns were your teachers and wore black hoods and dresses, I decided one day to be the Pope, and suddenly , with a beanie on my head and a blanket over my shoulders, and some squished up wonder bread in my hands, I turned on the record player in our big garage, and played The Lord's Prayer record.
I was directing my play and I was the star. I walked around the garage blessing everything and handing out communion wonder bread wafers to everyone..which was really just my brother Dennis and sister Colleen. I told them they had to carry my robe/blanket as I walked faithfully as the Pope.
That did not last long. Colleen and Dennis were not too impressed with being my serfs and flunkies and they were soon off together ignoring my sacredness.
Nonetheless, I also found great satisfaction with just sitting on a black and white linoleum floor in what we called the rumpus room, where Captain Kangaroo, bless his heart, taught me how to read. (I wrote to him, years later, after I had my own kids, and thanked him for that..he actually wrote back and was grateful).
But I was a kid with pigtails and dirty knees and usually barefoot, I think one yr we all contracted pinworms and had to take medicine for it, as we used to walk barefoot through cow and sheep pastures. I suppose my immune system was formidable back then.
Our baths were not always in the bathtub, sometimes our mom would throw us, filthy children that we were , into the utility tub in the utility room next to the kitchen. I ended up one time stepping into the sudsy water that my little brother John had just bathed in, and discovered he had crapped in the tub. From then on I was careful to check the water before I climbed in.
I guess my best friends at the time were birds and trees and whatever creature or critter was around. I was a loner, as my sister and brother usually were off doing something else.
I loved to draw, even back then, and write poetry. awful awful poetry, and I drew and drew on everything until my dad got wise and started bringing home reams of old paper he brought from work, for me to draw on. I did love to draw. I could sit there for hours.
and yes, I drew stick people at the beginning.
Sometimes my dad would take us all sledding, down a large hill right down the road, and we would end up sitting in front of the big fireplace in the living room, where white brick walls and bookshelves were. We would hang our mittens to dry and socks , and change into our 'chinese pajamas'...silly red jammies with little chinese people smiling on them...dad would make beef sandwiches with peppers and hot chocolate, and sing songs.
The fireplace was sharp edged, brick, and I was pretty small at one time as I tumbled into it..I was licking on a lollipop, they told me, when I smacked my head and blood came out of the wound, covering my sucker ....I am told I simply said "I have Gaboo on my Gaboo."
Not much phased me, I was astounded by the idea of "saints" and sometimes I was terrified of them showing up in visions to me. My dad just laughed when I told him , and he reminded me I would be a saint myself if I saw any.
I recall quite well one of our neighbors had a pet crow , and his name was Joe Both. That crow would sit and yell COCA COLA!! at the top of it's lungs and we would all laugh.
I remember that my mom wore pedal pushers. Go look that up. Sometimes, when it was really hot out, she would wear just her girdle and bra. I always thought that was weird as a kid. I guess you will have to look up 'girdle' , too.
There was no air conditioning in homes back then. The only places that advertised as "air cooled" were theaters and saloons. My dad would sometimes take the three of us to a saloon, or bar, and they always seemed kind of sticky or dingy. We would sit on cold plastic seats in a booth, and he would buy us all a cherry coke.
The bar smelled like beer to me...that yeasty smell of beer, where men stood at the counter and sipped the beer. Men all wore hats back then, or long overcoats, or suits. My dad was a bit of a rebel, he had a moustache for as long as I can remember. He wore 'dago' T's, under his cotton shirts, and I remember how much he complained about the tight trousers of the 50s and how much better 40's
trousers were, they had bigger pockets and more room.
My dad always used Brylcreem on his hair. He parted it and made a little wave in the front. same thing for my brothers. even I learned how to part their hair and make that little wave.
Whenever we went on a ferris wheel ride and got stuck at the top, my dad would say "Now you can look down and see whose hair is parted correctly and who is going bald". That comforted me because I was terrified of heights.
Those childhood days were filled with wise sayings from my dad. I remember once he pointed at the new fangled television we had. a tiny box with moving pictures. He told me "always remember not to believe a word anyone says on there, or in life, until you find out the truth for yourself". Little did he know I would take that to heart, and as time went on I applied that statement to everything.
Some of which he wasn't too happy about. I questioned EVERYTHING.
I suppose a lot of my questioning started really early on.I watched my parents, sometimes they fought, like all parents do, and my sister Colleen and I would go upstairs and sit on the top stair and make little paper airplanes that said "Please dont fight" on them,and we would throw them down the stairs. My parents were quite taken with them, and it did stop them from yelling at each other.
My dad was a railroad engineer and he grew up in southern illinois, in towns like Chester and Cissna Park. His dad was William Cissna Carter and his mom was Stella Marie Dozier , she was from Corbin Kentucky ..(I found out later that is why my dad cooked so much southern food, his mom was from Kentucky.)
But my mom was more quiet and demure, she was raised as the youngest child of 9 kids by Joseph Keilman and Anna Labb. Joseph was a choirmaster and very patriarchal. She was raised in sort of a cold, uptight family that did not joke much. One day, she told me, as a little girl, she was sitting at the dinner table with her family and someone asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. she responded by saying"A flapper!!"....to the shock of her family.
otoh, my dad was a kid raised on the Mississippi river, he got to see the last of the steamboats going down the river. He told me many times the pranks he pulled with him and his brother Bucky, and the trouble they got into . His dad was Bill Carter, and Bill was a guard at Menard State Prison. Once, a group of inmates tried to climb the wall and Bill took a rifle and shot one. from then on he was known as buckshot Bill.
My mom met my dad at the Tivoli theater in Gary Indiana. She had dark black hair and blue eyes. Evidently a man in the theater lobby became ill, and my mom went to help him...when my dad saw that he immediately liked her. so I guess their love was born from compassion.
They were very different, tho. My dad was a salty guy and he cussed and smoked and chewed tobacco, whereas my mom was a dainty lady, very precise about her looks and demeanor. Perhaps she married my dad just to have a taste of the wildness in herself that had been suppressed for so long.
who knows. Im just guessing.
Nonetheless, they got married and spent their honeymoon at Lake of the Ozarks. And they ended up having 6 kids. So they must have gotten along to some extent.
I heard from my dad and mom, quite often, that they wanted 6 boys. haha. So who is the firstborn? Me, a girl. and then 14 months later my sister Colleen. Finally came Dennis, John, Josephine, and Andrew. My mom miscarried one baby between Dennis and John. I remember her getting sick and white and almost passing out one night, and none of us knew what was going on.
Nonetheless,I was raised sort of wild as a little girl, I had a lucky childhood. Being on acres of land, surrounded by trees and places to hide and climb, and no one stopping me. what fun.
I was always in the woods or outside getting chigger bites, pinworms, scratches and running around.
I loved it. My dad would sometimes take my sister Colleen and brother Dennis on walks down old railroad tracks and describe to us all of the rocks he found.. "This..is Iron Ore" he would say..and he would always tell us "The sun is out, you are breathing, the best things in life are always free.."He would tell us to listen to the birds, and owls, and I remember at dusk the mourning doves cooing, and the loud sounds of a bird called "Bob white! Bob white!"...
so many bees and birds and worms and ants and such a huge world of discovery out there.
When I was little I wanted to know about all of it. I wanted to discover that big world and I asked my dad if we could get a Ham radio. Back then, that was the only way to communicate with the world via electronics.
We didnt have computers in houses, all communication was by mail , and even tho I had a penpal later on from I dont remember where, I really wanted to talk to the rest of the world.
Well, dad couldn't afford a ham radio, but later on in life, when the internet came along in the 90s, I hooked up finally with the rest of the world.
Yeah, Riley, I had a great childhood. The only part I did not care for was
school.
Yep, I had to go to school eventually. My mom and dad were super strict Catholics, so they sent me to Catholic school. Namely, SS Peter and Paul in Merrilville Indiana. I was sooo shy. I had not really encountered a lot of friends that were human , most of my friends were birds and worms and ants, so when humans were around me, I clammed up. I was often daydreaming through school, and it seems the only things I liked at school was art class and english classes. We had a huge brick school, with rows of hooks where you hung your coats and put your boots on the floor.
The desks were made of all wood with flip tops and even a place for ink, but we had real pens and pencils by then.
There was always a long sign above the huge blackboard in the room where all the alphabet was shown in Cursive, and we were taught over and over again to write in cursive. We had special tablets with lines and dots where we had to be very studious and careful to write in cursive.
My last name was Carter back then, and it didn't take long for some of the kids in my class to start calling me "Carter little Farter Starter"...boy I didnt like that.
I just hid from anyone mean, mostly.
My first grade teacher was Sister Juanita. she was okay, I remember her telling me how well I could draw bunnies when I first started drawing at school. sometimes I drew on math papers and everyone laughed at me. I didnt like that.
We had to go to Mass every morning, and we had to wear little doilies on our heads. Everytime we passed the church we all had to genuflect in front of it, which I did a LOT. I mean, I was all set up for sainthood, or so I thought.
I didnt mind Mass..it was uplifting. The church was gigantic, and I would sit in the pew and look up at paintings of saints who were holding their hands in blessing in the dome of the church. I loved the smell of incense, and the priest spoke in Latin, and we would respond in Latin, and 3 bells would chime when the priest held the host of god up at the altar. Catholics are sort of pagans, really, at least back then in the 50s , they believed in magic. So did I, and I still do.
I was a bit of a wild child for 12 yrs..my parents were busy having other babies, and I was left to fend for myself in the forests and woods that surrounded my house. I climbed trees and was a real monkey at it. I made forts in the woods, I even turned our old chickenhouse we had on our property into a fort. I loved secret hiding places. I guess my parents just let me loose, and for 12 yrs I was pretty much feral. I loathed the idea of dressing up for school, and the many kids at school I did not know actually scared me. I used to try to put on plays at school. I loved directing plays. I loved pretending I was someone else all the time and I loved wearing costumes.
Luckily my dad was cool enough to bring me loads of old paper from his job as a railroad engineer on the EJ&E railroad. He would bring home boxes of paper for me to draw on, and I would draw all the time or write poetry. My dad encouraged it and that's why you see grandma still doing it now. No one told me I couldn't do it. Its sad to see kids who draw at age 6 and then some dumb adult comes along and tells them to stop. Everyone is born a genius at something, in my opinion.
Even at school where I was awkward and gangly, the kids thought my drawing was cool. It has always saved me, drawing, and it has always helped me see how my soul is feeling.
But I was still a wild child and my parents suddenly, out of the blue, by the time I was 11 or 12, decided I had to hurry up and learn to be a 'lady'.

Finding JOeY

How do I begin to write about you, son of mine? Do I start at the beginning, the day you were born, the day your older brothers, small children themselves, arrived at the hospital, carrying flowers for me....confused and young, they peeked into the window of the baby ward and saw you, my last little one, my youngest child, your brother Michael's first memory of his own life.
I was so young, my son. I had high hopes, dreams, wishes, the dreams of a young woman, a family, a white fence, a husband to grow old with, to watch our babies grow up and marry, have children, to be a mother forever to all three of you.
You had a red nose. The nurse had to put mittens on you to keep you from rubbing your nose. I had already given birth to two other sons, the oldest one always moving and sociable, the middle one always with his head in a book. I was young, I could follow you all like a motherbear and protect you, always too much, from dangers that I perceived through the lens of a mom, too young to imagine that anything would ever happen to her prizes, her gifts, her moments of triumphant joy, her three sons. These, she loved more than anything, these, these three boys.
You came home to a rented house in Morris Ill,  where mom stayed home and Dad went to work. There was, and still is, a white picket fence standing there, even though the house is gone. Daddy worked long hours, Mommy did, too, chasing after the likes of the three of you, her sole purpose was to protect you, nurture you , love you. The silly times, when all three of you would laugh as Mommy bathed and powdered you, and you danced on the big bed and jumped, while Mommy sang "It's a small small world.."
The bike rides, the coloring books, the million stories Mommy made up and the spillage of laughter coming out of your mouths while Mommy or Daddy tickled you.
Those were the happiest days of my life.
I was so naive. So lost in this Joy of YOU and your brothers , birthday parties, visits to Pappy and Grandma's farm, riding in Daddy's boat on the Illinois river, feeding you all the silliness and rocking and soothing you, my little boy.
And you fell in love with your green blanket, the one with the turtle on it. You would not go anywhere without it.
When I had your body cremated, I asked them to put that blanket in your arms.
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Let Go or Be dragged.
People tell me that I wrote this script before I was born. I wrote it with you, with your dad, with your brothers. People tell me I have a soul family. I am beginning, finally , to believe what they say.
Mommy is old now, she is much older. She lost her Joy somewhere and she does not know how to find it again. Perhaps she was mistaken. Perhaps her Joy was just misguided, attached to an outcome, a dream that she would carry on until 1989. The year that dragged her, kicking and screaming, into a world of hurt, denial, pain, suffering, and digging her way out of a deep wound, where she finally came to realize she could not protect her childish dreams, of growing old with someone, of watching her children watch their daddy grow old with her.
Listen, my son, when your daddy went to work that night, I kissed him. I told him I loved him. I did not think I would receive a call from the hospital at 2 am.
It is almost amusing, that when the hospital called me to hurry up and drive there, I chose to change out of my pajamas and put on a sweater that said "SuperMom" on the front. I did not expect to arrive at the hospital and hear the news that your Daddy had not survived the explosion that occurred at his job. That was unthinkable, my son. Unimaginable to me. This was not in my plans. This was not supposed to ruin my  dreams .
Inconsolable I was , and you were only 6 years old. How was I supposed to tell the three of you that your daddy stopped breathing? That he was thrown 300 feet through the air and that his last words in this life was that he loved us. I was so young, Joey. I knew nothing of such things.
I know now , this was the pivotal point in your life here that changed you, and eventually sent you on the journey to follow your father, and be welcomed by him later on in your life here.
How terrifying it must have been for you, aged 6, to hear that he who was one of the most formidable protectors in your young life, could be swooped away in a night, in a matter of seconds. No wonder you clung to me so hard as a child. I was now the only guardian of your own security.
Yet it was not enough.

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What I call the light, now, the Source of All Being, my highest self, what I call that now, had other plans for us all, didn't it. Did we really write this script together, my boy?
One of the men who was with your daddy the day his body was killed, was also a victim of the same explosion that occurred at his job. I remember the day he called me , I do not remember his name. He asked me to come to his home, as he had something to tell me.
I was still in a state of shock, anger, I guess the anger was the sudden realization that I had no control anymore. It was a bitter lesson. But , then again, we wrote this play together, is that not true, my child?
The man was insistent that I visit him. He had been burned over 50% of his body and was sitting in a wheelchair when I entered his home. Bandages on him, he begged me to sit down, as he was about to confer upon me a story that would question my very core beliefs and give me hope at a time when all hope was lost.
He told me he had been standing there when the explosion occurred at Daddy's job. He was on fire , his clothes and hair caught fire, and he told me he was screaming, screaming the words "God please!! Please don't let me die like this!!"
Then , he gently explained to me, that he left his body.....and suddenly he saw himself floating above it...he described how peaceful it was....to watch, from above his own body, as it ran trying to put the fire out on his clothes, to watch from a place of peace and light...
Then, my son, he told me these words..
"God was there."
I had never heard such a thing. I remember well telling all three of you children this story, but you were all so angry that God had 'taken' daddy, you did not care. And who could blame you, and your brothers, for being enraged that Daddy wasn't coming through the door again at 5 pm . ever again,
Little did I know, at the time , that this event would haunt all of you for the rest of your stay here in this place  , and little did I know I could not protect any of you from what would be the most horrible day of my own life here , when you , my most precious child, would pass over and join your father 17 years later.
But, we wrote the script together, did we not?
All of us, what were we to learn. What was I to learn? What possible reason would I choose to play this part in this place? Why would I choose this?  These questions still fill me up, and I can only answer one of them.
That my 'fear' of death is gone. I know now, through you, my child, that there is no death.
Because you have shown me the way.
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to be continued
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So, I am talking to you, son, and suddenly on Feb 27, 2018, you respond to me to let me know you are okay. Oh, my son, you send one of your messengers who you have spoken with , and as I write this I can barely breathe through my tears of relief. I guess all I had to do was speak to you on here, and you come through like gangbusters...
Today:  from your old childhood friend Monica:

"I have something to tell you. It is a little long so please bear with me. Joey came to me in November of 2007.

I was sitting on the edge of my bed and all of a sudden I looked around and I was on your property in South Haven. I didn’t understand why I was there but I knew it had to be for a reason. I’ve had people who had crossed over come to me before to tell me things but at the time I didn’t know the significance of this.

All of a sudden I saw Joey but Joey wasn’t an adult. He was the little boy that I remembered from Douglas Street. He looked at me and started giggling. I looked down at myself and realized I was 8 or 9. I kept calling his name and he would start running. I ran after him begging him to stop because I was getting tired. We were running through trees and jumping over logs. He finally stopped and I caught up to him. He put his hands on my shoulders and asked me for a favor. I told him anything. He told me to tell you that he is ok. I asked him what he was talking about and he said within time I will find out.

I found it odd and one day I happened to be on Facebook and I said to Joe Kruger that I needed to talk to Joey. He told me that Joey had crossed over a year before. I had no idea. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you any of this sooner." Monica.

Dear son, you did it again, how many times you have come through to people like your brother Bobby, who you explained to, in detail, how you crossed into the light???

You told him things ONLY I KNEW. It was me, after all, who found your body. Bobby did not know any of the details surrounding the death of your body.

How foolish am I , still, not to KNOW you are in so much happiness and Love? Why am I always so shocked and surprised when you come to someone and TELL them to tell me you are happy and not to worry about you?

You know what? You floored Bobby. He was shaking back in 2007 when he told me about your visit. He said you looked like you were 'covered in pixie dust'. I guess you can come to any of us, anytime, in whatever garb you choose.

I swear, son, the most incredible visit was the one you made to Riley. To have a grandson relate your visit to him, to me, one morning...and you come to him as a bright white light, he says, and he is , what...only 9 yrs old? But you tell him he will have a great life and you will make sure of it.

and then you tell your brother Mike "Don't be afraid of Death, Mike, that's when the fun begins.."

You take Mike to the McMurdo Ice Station and show him the deepest part of the ocean and tell him "Dive In , It's not as deep as you think..!"

You know Mike's fears, you know that Bobby needs to believe, too, and you come to Bobby's son to cinch it. You go to my meditation friend, Pablo, and you interrupt him in meditation and tell him to look for

a 'word' in the movie he is about to watch. Pablo is confused, and says "But movies have lots of words?"  You remind Pablo that one word will keep showing up.

The word is Excelsior.

And then, just for fun, you show Pablo a whole page full of spaceships...why?

Pablo tells me all this, but you must really know that I am going to go FIND out what you mean.

So I use the Internet, I find Excelsior, to go beyond, warp speed , the speed you are travelling the Universe, my son.

and then I type Excelsior into Google images and there you have it..

a whole page of spaceships.

Joey, you are so good at this.

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I still sit and have a hard day thinking about the day I found your body.

You must have watched me flying down to meet with all those near death experiencers to LEARN about how you were.

They all assured me you were in such a state of love. It was what I needed, kid. To learn you were Loved.

I have NO idea, to this day, what that Love even feels like. Damn I wish I could FEEEEEL it. I would be so much more peaceful. I just count on it that someday I will know. 

Be there first, Joey. Be the first to take my hand. 

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to be continued
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I will spend each day talking to you first. I know you think I'm silly, and you have come so many times to us all, laughing and assuring us you are with your daddy. But I speak to you in the present tense, always, because deep down in the heart I know you are always sailing the Universe. Nothing holds you back.

It's been 11 and almost 12 years of earth slow speed on this recording of my life here, since you discarded your body for freedom. I feel stuck, my son, and even though your story of yet another visitation came to me yesterday, and I feel slightly more peaceful, I am still overwhelmed with rage and loss and anger and sadness and all of those impediments that keep me from flying.

You have come to my brother, John, and showed him how to fly. I ask you to show me, not just the experience I had at the meditation institute, where you came to me laughing and showed me myself as a beautiful black figure dancing through the stars, where I floated in stars and you sent a glowing blue light right into the top of my head and I could see every filament of my body lit up in blue, bright, beautiful.

Yet I wake up into this 'world' and still wish your body would walk through the back door.

I know I am still sinking in ego, so much word salad of questions come out of me, waiting waiting wanting wanting to know how you are every day.

That motherbear is still in there, wishing for your presence as whole and complete..You have let me know this is YOUR journey and YOU chose to stay with your dad. I suppose I will understand that someday.

I live in this world pretty much alone, wishing , wanting for answers. I remember how , at the beginning of this, I heard you speaking, with joy, GOD! LOVE! GOD!....like a child who found such happiness, and I never believe MYSELF when you do that to me , I suppose that is why you so often go to other people and tell them that you are okay, and to be sure to let me know it.

I still do NOT know why I am still wearing a body. I do not know , I thought perhaps it was so that when I do drop  this body, I can show your brothers how to 'die',,, they will be watching , and I want so much to let them see how easy it is. I want them to see me calling your name as you appear to take me across. I want them to see me with that JOY in my eyes as I let go, when you and daddy come to get me.

Is that it? Is that the reason I am still here in this perception?

You have taught me there is no death, you were helping me learn that even before you crossed into the light. I have NO fear of that day, I just want to know why that day has not arrived? But, then, blind faith, right?? When I look at quantum physics and it tells me 'Hey the past present and future are all in the same place'.....so maybe that day has already come and gone..

Oh how I wish I could SEE through your eyes now, what LOVE really is, what a millisecond this world is, how fast it goes, how ridiculous it is.

I can try it when I am painting or drawing, but I am guessing all I can grab from you are snippets of your perception ....you are so free now....
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to be continued......
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I hang on to every visitation you have shown me , every one is like a jewel I place into my heart and carry it around , tapping into it when I begin to falter and fall in this 3 d world.  This costume I am wearing feels tighter and tighter each day, more constraining as It Ages. I am not it, as they say, yet I use it as a prop. In fact, these are all illusory props, aren't they. Nothing real. But pretending.
I suppose I am supposed to use them to my best advantage. You did, when you jumped off cliffs in Bali, and swam in the water near Jamaica, and flew planes over Hawaii.
Nothing stopped you, did it.
You ate life here like a Lion, and roared.
I'm sure, once your inhibited body was dropped, You ROARED into consciousness, and , as Suzan Pelfrey said of you, you are the Party of the Universe.
I dream on purpose of the day I leave this costume behind. I can see you standing there by me, helping me lift right out of it, a huge grin on your face because it has not been but a second in time since you were with me in 'body', and you know I will know that, finally. I see your dad with you, both of you delighted that I have finished this 'movie',
No wonder I was so intrigued with Theater when I was young in body. Always directing and putting on plays. And here I am , playing out this role as a mother and grandmother, and Mike and Bobby are still playing it with me.

Best thing I can do now is learn to roar like you did. I seem to roar best when I am painting , my son.
Maybe I can extend that roar to every facet of this role here.
I will write to you every morning. I will never stop until the day comes when I no longer have a body to write with.
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Well, this morning I need to talk to you. Just to talk, I need to get some things off my head...honey, watch over your brothers please.....come and let Mike and Bobby KNOW that the Source exists, that LOVE exists, that they are LOVE. I want that for them so much.
I know they are both overwhelmed, I can feel it. Sometimes Mike worries me the most, and I have to go to this place inside me that says "He will be allright". I have always worried about Mike the most, because he was born such a gentle spirit, and this world is so harsh. I worry about Bobby, too, and yet he seems to have woken up from whatever self deprecation he had , once he had a child.
I want to go before them. I know, I know...I already wrote this script. But since you have a good relationship with the Light of All, give me a mention...I don't want to be here anymore, that's the truth. I am an enabler, a people pleaser, all of the dopey things I never wanted to become. I want to get through to your brothers that death is nothing to be feared, because there is no death. I need to manifest hope for both of them, but then I remember that is their journey. I cannot run their show, just like I could not run yours.
I just want to drop this body before they do. and they will, they will drop their bodies someday and both of them have come pretty close already.
Sweetie, I cannot go through that again.
I need to go before them. That is my main issue now, to get out of this place before they do. I don't think they realize how much I want that.
I also need to hear from YOU to tell me they are going to be okay no matter what.
I cannot stand seeing either of them in a state of angst or concern. I want them to know I will never leave them , in spirit, and I want Mike to especially believe in spirit. I think Bobby already is opening up to that , since you came and visited Riley.
But I am forlorn, wanting so much to be with you and Daddy..I feel like I would be a better mother without this conditioned body.
It's a constant drag on my being. I know there is no separation, that this is also a form of heaven. But it breaks my heart when I see Mike dragging himself down with worry, or Bobby going to work as a cop and seeing the things he sees.
I beg you to go to them, relieve them of their concerns, let them know they have nothing to fear. Please. Do it. I am no good at it , Mike doesn't think I know anything.
I am begging you, daddy, God/Light and all of the angels around you to help your brothers SEE.
Just a request, my little one. Please. Love. Mama...............................

okay Im back...oh my god I am so confused sweetheart,,, so sad,, this is getting close to me wanting to take all the pills in my house and wash them down with vodka...I cant do that to Riley...and that's the only thing keeping me from doing that right now...Im lost......I cannot live in this world anymore....I don't even want to be here...I cannot be yelled at anymore or told Im a terrible mother.....this is too much....how do you think I should handle this???? I don't know what to do....I want so much to be with you and daddy...where all this pain will go away...why did I manifest being yelled at?? was I so awful??!!! I took it all to heart...I can barely breathe right now......

How can I even get through today? I haven't been this low in a long time. YOU and DADDY are my only hope. The only reason I get through the day is because I know I will be coming to you soon and sooner than later. I want it to be NOW to escape this pain. This really hurts. REALLY hurts. I have beaten myself up enough, now I have someone else beating me up. I don't think I can do this anymore. I am hiding in my room like a fool, I am chain smoking and inside the house and I do not even care. I want to leave this place and my home is violated by rage and anger.

I want this body to die.

Riders On The Storm
I wake up to this madness I have manifested and wonder why I am still wearing this body. Is it to play grandmother? I hardly see my grandson, I hardly see anyone. Is it to keep telling your story to people? I see my other sons, Joey, your brothers who seem to think I am insane. I even wrote them a long email apologizing for my grief and weirdness over the years. I sometimes wish I could lose all memory of every day I have been in this place. Would it be worth it, to not see Mike in so much anger and pain, or Bobby. Mike does not believe in that place you are in now, that perspective of bliss. It must be hell for him not to know how happy you are, or that he can relax now, the higher power has him in it's hands.
Watching him, enraged, breaks my heart.
I love bedtime, you know. When I can sleep and leave this place, this ridiculous play, behind.

who am I to talk or judge? the doctor has me on meds to get by. No wonder my son thinks I am crazy.
I need for you and dad to come to him, please. whack him upside the head with that magic you do so well. Please. He creates so many of his own fears. Please.

I know you can hear me. I have the feeling that as I type to you with my fingers you already can read my mind. You are highly aware of that depression cloud I live in, but then you come along and show yourself to someone and I am lifted everytime you do that.

Your brothers both have enough on their plates, already. I don't want to discourage them with my own cloud I carry around. They have both been struck by lightning, too, first your dad and then you.I still feel their confusion and rage. I wish they knew deep down, like I do , deep down, that you and daddy are in absolute bliss.  I suppose all of my anger is thrown at whatever 'god' is, that I do not know what that bliss is like.
I take it with blind faith, from the people I speak to who tell me what it's like to cross over, people who have gone where you are and KNOW the joy. Heck, they cant even put it into words.
Im pretty sure that if I knew that Joy I would be more at peace.
But I have come a long way, kiddo. I know there's no death, and you chose to stay with your dad, just like you told your brother. I can't choose for you. I am still a control freak, tho, and want to choose that your other brothers live their lives out here, and that I am the next one to leave my body. I cannot go through having another child change that drastically on me before it's my turn.
My costume, this body, is becoming more annoying, it feels like I am cocooned in it. I would like it to fade away, asap. Cant force it. I have meditated it away, mostly, but it's a costume that just does not seem to fit anymore.
and I realize I am making all of this up.
No wonder your brothers think I am crazy.
Well, today I feel much better. Talking to Suzan Pelfrey, and I know you know her well, because you came and asked her to help me through that first year.
She and I spoke for quite a while, and just having someone to listen and BELIEVE is so overwhelmingly healing for me. My stomach pains went away. I felt like I was not alone. I suppose my vibrations were lifting to a place of peace, just to hear someone talk of the magic and mystery so easily.
I can see that I need that intensely. That realm where one walks in the bright light of god, where one hears we are infinity. Her stories uplifted me. Thanks. I needed that. I will paint stars today, write to you, and write to Riley. Suzan called you a healer, and indeed you are. To manifest to my brother, show him how to fly...to come to so many people to share your joy.
Suzan said I will cross over in my sleep.
I like that.
So you came to me again the other day, thank you!! 11 yrs later I receive a letter in the mail with your name on it. What!! You did it again, son, it's 2018 now and Mike had just left the house he had been in with me for a year and I had handed over 700 dollars to him when he left for his new job....and the letter, addressed to "Joseph Brown" shows up. That was enough to let me know you are watching over all of us and are with us, right there...that was all I needed until I read the letter, where it says you are owed 700 dollars from an uncashed cheque....what the hell!! I find out that the money will come back to me now, and there I was, concerned over the monies I had helped Mike with, and you decide the very day after Mike left and I felt so alone, to send me that letter in your name.
Well, you did it again. You know just when the time is right. I havent received anything for 11 yrs in your name and what are the odds I got this the day after Mike left with 700 dollars of my own money and you just laugh , I can feel it, by making sure I get it back.
"No worries, mom".
You blow my mind, kiddo.
Maybe you guys can help me with my extreme overprotectiveness I feel about your brother Mike. Ever since he was little, so quiet and introverted, I wanted to protect him. Come on now, Im still doing it!! He is 38 yrs old and here I am still perceiving him as a child and I want to take care of him to keep him safe. As if I have that power...Only YOU guys can do that, I can only change my perceptions. And allow Mike to thrive without my interference..same with Bobby but to a lesser degree. Bobby has and was born highly sociable, easy to make friends. Mike had a hellish time with kids when he was young. He is so trusting and I concern myself wayyyy too much with his journey. I know it even annoys him!! Its all because I found your body, Joey, and it boils down to my own personal terror of having another child cross.
Mike always seemed most vulnerable of all 3 of you to me. Please help me change my perception of him, so that I do NOT fall into panic at the least little thing. Marry him to someone!! Let him not need me, let a woman he falls in love with be his steady rock, along with you and dad.
I am not capable of mothering now, especially now, I suck at it because of the PTSD.
I ask for you guys to alter my perceptions. Let me see Mike as I see Bobby. Tough, determined, living happily and self determined to do so.
Let him not need me to bail him out or play therapist. I just want to see him so differently. I know you guys can work on that, please make that a number one priority. I am not a normal parent since you crossed over, Joey. I am trying.