CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Pause and Reflect
January to May 1998
On New Year’s Day 1998, I had more on my mind than Kristen’s birthday, or what the year would bring, or even Joanne, the massage therapist. In a reading I did two weeks earlier, I foresaw physical death for the very first time. A Gemini father would die in the coming year. Steve’s father was a Gemini. In fact, he shared my father’s birthday. Tianni’s father was a Gemini also. In the notebook I recorded this reading in I wrote: Cecil 4th June? Danny 29th May? See what happens. Somehow, this is tied up with my lessons, with my completing what I am to do. Am I to help Steve cope with what his father’s death will mean to him? The words, in italics, are what I wrote after each card: The Empress Mum; The Sun Happiness, Approval; The World Completion; The Magician I have used my tools wisely; The Star All will be well; The Emperor Father, Cecil, Danny; The Lovers Gemini, Choice; Death Change; The Chariot Triumph over adversity; Wheel of Fortune Fate, Luck, Chance.
Other than all the cards being Major Arcana, none were the usual harbingers of death, not even the Death card itself. Another point of interest, in light of what was to unfold, is that I saw The Empress as my mother, yet did not see The Emperor as my father, but rather as someone else’s father.
In my need to better understand my developing intuition I returned to the spiritual development circle at the Boundary Street church. I had not been part of such a group since turning my back on the Windsor church because of my misgivings about the couple in charge, Andrew Fitzherbert and his partner, Reverend Ruth Bennett. It wasn’t all bad, though. In 1996, during a discussion on spiritual healing, Andrew gave a fair description of what I had been doing after hearing about Jandamarra O’Shane. He was just six years old when a stranger walked into his Cairns schoolyard, doused him in petrol, and set him alight. Having sustained burns to seventy percent of his body, he wasn’t expected to live. For weeks after that tragic incident, I pictured the boy in his hospital bed surrounded by a bubble of blue light because I had read somewhere that blue was a healing colour. Andrew said Jandamarra would grow into a fine man in the years to come, a man who would be a great inspiration to many. Time is already proving him correct.
Before leaving that same evening, I summoned the courage to ask Andrew about my guessing the day of Tianni’s birth. I needed to know if I had somehow made it happen. “No”, was his emphatic reply. “Only the soul knows when it will be born and only the soul chooses when that time will be.” Jason McDonald would later give me something else to consider. “Just as we have guides and loved ones waiting to welcome us home at the end of our earthly journey, we have guides and loved ones waiting to welcome us into this world.”
Thinking about what Andrew said gave me cause to wonder if a soul also knew its date of death. Was Cecil’s soul calling out for forgiveness? If so, it was in vain because Steve dismissed my warning as nonsense and refused to discuss the matter. In my need to talk to someone who could help me I asked my hairdresser. If it worked once, I thought it may work again. I was right, she did know of someone, but I couldn’t see her until February. It was then early January. Unable to bear the wait, I sought out a woman whose services I saw advertised in the local paper. She was no Ann Ann, but she did use an interesting method of numerology. I don’t know how she arrived at the first number, in my case six, but she said every nine years from that age I would finalise a cycle. From six came fifteen, the age I was when I lost both my parents, and so it went on. Che, she said, started his cycle at birth, something I had to agree with. At nine, he was playing rugby league. At eighteen, he was working at Banyo workshop. At twenty-seven, he was a father. The starting age for Steve, Kristen and Tamara ranged from two to seven, and from I what I could determine, their nine-year cycles were also relatively spot-on.
On February 14th 1998, I consulted the clairvoyant my hairdresser told me about. She was no Ann Ann either, but she did have an uncanny knack of accurately reading people in photographs. What she said about Jack Walsh convinced me that my suspicions about being abused were justified, and what she said about his wife made me sick to my stomach. That this woman was willing to live with such knowledge, regardless of the damage done to innocent girls, was beyond my comprehension. She had become as twisted as her mother. Carolyn finished the reading with an annual numerological forecast using one’s age, the current year, and the numbered cards of the Major Arcana.
Kristen and Che, she said, were going into a “Justice” year. This, she explained, meant much juggling and balancing. When I asked for more information about Kristen she focused on a photograph of her with Danny and Tianni. She warned against signing any papers or documents without fully understanding what they entailed. She then turned her attention to Danny and asked his birthdate. His card, she said, was The Lovers. “A Gemini in a Gemini year…He will have a difficult time of it this year”.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the photograph, but after stumbling over her words she hastily turned her attention to Tianni. “The little one is going into a Wheel of Fortune year”. When she again found herself unable to continue she moved on to a photograph of Che. She said he has some big decisions to make before focusing her attention on Tamara. “She will find herself in The Emperor’s favour this year”. On seeing my puzzled expression, she explained this meant links with government. Steve, she said, was going into a “Chariot” year and would need to be sure of what he wanted and take steps to win when the battle lines were drawn. As for me, she said, I was going into a “Hanged Man” year. I would need to just be, to accept, to go with the flow and not to fight what was coming. What was coming?
A week or so later, Kristen rang to ask who I thought “Granny” was. When I asked her to explain, she said she was someone Tianni had been seeing about the house. The first person I thought of was Mum. She said she had thought the same, but when she asked Tianni to point to a photo of “Granny”, the little girl pointed to a one of me! I suppose, I told myself, I might look like my mother to a toddler who hadn’t seen me in a while.
Early in March 1998, a story broke that momentarily pushed everything else to the background. Newspaper accounts of a high profile murder case read like the plot of an Agatha Christie novel. A Windsor veterinarian had been stabbed to death in a frenzied attack, purportedly over a dispute involving membership of the Cat Protection Society of which she was President. Andrew Fitzherbert wasn’t a member of the Society, but Ruth Bennett, was, as were several people who attended their church. When he was later arrested and charged with her murder I was shocked. When he was convicted, I didn’t know what to think. Did he do it? I honestly don’t know. All I knew for sure was that Fitzherbert, a gifted palmist, astrologer and clairvoyant, was a strange man with strange ideas. In choosing to represent himself in court, he had unwittingly brought about his own downfall.[1]
On March 28th, Tamara and I attended a workshop Jason McDonald was running at a Windsor hall. Since seeing him at the Brisbane church in 1996, I had not been able to forget him. He was guest medium the second time I went and I thought he was brilliant! When I told Kristen I was going she asked me to ask him who “Granny” was if I got the chance. My chance came during the lunch break. “It’s your mother”, Jason said with absolute certainty. “But then you know that, don’t you? Oh, and you’re there too.” There was no way I could conceal my surprise at hearing that, but he continued as if he hadn’t noticed. “You’re both there to help them through a difficult situation.” Why were we there? Was Danny mistreating the girls? Was he abusing Kristen? I knew only too well he was not averse to using emotional blackmail or even physical violence to get what he wanted.
When I got home I rang Kristen to tell her about Mum, but she started crying and hung up on me. With each passing hour I became more concerned as my imagination ran away with me. But when she did call back nothing I imagined could have prepared me for what she had to say. Danny was the Gemini of my reading. He had been diagnosed with lymphatic cancer several months earlier and had only months left to live. Kristen said she had to wait until he was asleep before calling me back because he had forbidden her to tell anyone.
I made appointments for Tamara and myself to have private readings with Jason but the earliest available date was May 8th, five weeks away. My own readings told me I would go to Ayr and be back within the Taurus cycle, which ended on May 21st. I saw time as running out and was at my wit’s end worrying about how Kristen was coping so far away from the support of family and friends. I offered to come up but she vehemently refused because I wasn’t supposed to know. One day, she rang to tell an amazing story. Three council workers stopped by for chips and burgers at the exact moment Tianni all but strangled herself with some rope she found lying in the kiosk. In an instant, the men leaped the counter. Two of them worked frantically to remove the rope from Tianni’s neck, while the third took charge of Kristen. “How much more is she expected to take?” I asked my mother while at the same time thanking her for ensuring my girls were safe.
In the weeks that followed, thinking of the kiosk more than anything else, I reminded Kristen of Carolyn’s warning not to sign anything without understanding what it was. She promised me she hadn’t and wouldn’t. I also asked her if she had looked into my suggestion of a pauper’s funeral for Danny. She said she had but his mother and sister refused to consider it. She was so very much alone.
As Danny’s health deteriorated he spent more time at Townsville hospital which allowed Kristen the freedom to talk with me and her best friend, Ann. Divine Timing was a concept I was unfamiliar with at the time but I was about to learn. On the evening of May 7th she rang to ask that I come up. The very next day Tamara and I went to Nundah for our readings with Jason. Despite my anxiety, I allowed her to go first. We were both taken by surprise to see he read at a plastic table under a shady tree in his yard. More chairs, placed a little distance away, were allocated in another shady area of the yard for waiting clients. It was all so low-key.
When my turn came I approached the chair Tamara had vacated but Jason was already talking. “Your father’s here. He wants to talk about someone whose name starts with “D” who’s in and out of the spirit world. He’s dying of cancer, this man. He’s known about it for some time. Nine months from the time he learned of it he will die. It’s a cancer affecting the blood.”
Other than Kristen’s experience with the Psychic Circle board that started it all, that was the first time I had received a direct message from my father. I knew Jason was right about the nine months. The previous September, when Ann was visiting, her four-year old son ran into the house yelling that Danny had fallen down while mowing the lawn. He was taken to Ayr hospital and later transferred to Townsville. He discharged himself saying he was alright and there was no need for fuss. By December, he had no choice but to tell Kristen the truth because of treatment he was receiving for an ulcerated sore that refused to heal. In forbidding her to tell her family and friends, he put an intolerable burden on her. How she stayed sane I will never know.
Jason went on to tell me I was to go to Ayr and help Danny cross over; that it was my duty as a healer. I told him I had no idea how to do that and anyway, Danny didn’t like me. Things were different in spirit, he said. Danny was angry and bitter and must not cross over in this state of mind. It would be some time before I fully understood what that was all about. Jason then told me he could smell home baked cakes and biscuits as my mother came through. Baking, he said, was her way of showing how much she loved her family.
Before the reading was over he told me Kristen would be alright, that she would be well looked after, not only by people in spirit but by those she knew. Most importantly, she was not to worry about the kiosk for someone would buy her stock at a good price. However, it was imperative I not mention this to her.
Since learning of Danny’s cancer I maintained regular contact with Kristen. I also sent her a copy of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ book On Death and Dying so she had some understanding of the five stages the dying go through. On the morning of Monday May 11th, Ann and I set off for Ayr, staying overnight in Mackay where a former neighbour and close friend of mine was living. Christine’s two eldest children were similar in age to Kristen and Ann while another was the same age as Che. It was Christine who told me about Dynamo, the hyperactivity association that changed our lives.
We spent a few hours with her in the morning before continuing our journey north. She was thrilled to see us but I knew it must have been difficult. She had lost John, Che’s playmate, a year or so earlier in a car accident; an accident I ‘knew’ was going to happen. Every time the newspaper reported a car accident in Mackay I held my breath, hoping against hope I would not see a name I recognised. By the time the accident did come, I had stopped looking. An hour after receiving Christine’s heartbreaking news I bought a condolence card, but I knew I wasn’t alone. John’s death made me feel sad, yet the card he wanted me to send his mother was one of joy – joy of being “home’’.
On our arrival in Ayr, we checked into the cabin we had booked before buying Chinese for dinner. We then rang Kristen to inform her we were just minutes away. She lived in a little place east of Ayr called Alva Beach. The poor girl hadn’t told Danny we were coming, or that we knew of his illness. This difficult time was to be the strangest time. In the first awkward moments at her front door Kristen heard herself say: “Give Danny a hug, Mum.” It was obvious to both of us the words were not hers so I reached out and held Danny’s bony frame in a long hug that saw anger and betrayal melt away. It was hard to imagine that I, and every other person who called themselves a friend, had been advising her to leave Danny to his fate. Of the five stages of dying he was trapped in denial and anger. Bargaining, depression and acceptance were not even on the horizon. She didn’t. She said she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she did.
The next two weeks were a strange mix of pathos, humour and spiritual awakening. After telling me of Danny’s illness Kristen asked me to get an enlargement of the composite photograph of my parents. She already had a copy the same size as mine. As a rule, Danny never opened Kristen’s mail but he did on the day it arrived. She could only observe in stunned silence as he tore at the envelope before demanding to know who the people were. When Kristen told me about this I thought back to Jason’s words about him being in and out of the spirit world. He had seen my parents. He instinctively knew that envelope was important. How could he remain in denial?
The next day we left them alone to come to terms with our presence, and on the Thursday, Danny had an appointment at Townville hospital so we knew we would be able to talk freely. We had woken to a light shower of rain and although I had packed my umbrella I couldn’t find it. When looking for it I realised I had omitted to pack my back brace, a wide elastic belt I would need to support my lower back when picking up Tianni. The workplace injury I sustained, resulting in a “slipped” disc, still caused me grief, especially when lifting. Buying an umbrella in Ayr was easy, buying the wide elastic and Velcro I needed for the back brace were not. I found them in the last place we stopped at and from there we set off to Kristen’s. As I hand-stitched my make-do back brace we talked. Nothing is more therapeutic than girl talk. In the afternoon, a Catholic nun Kristen called Sister Sue joined us. She worked in the palliative care unit at Townsville hospital. Sister Sue may have been in their lives for Danny but she was Kristen’s rock, her lifeline, her mentor. She hoped to convince Kristen to go to Townsville with her for respite, saying it was high time Danny’s mother and sister pitched in and took responsibility for their own. She was unsuccessful. When I returned to the cabin my umbrella was lying on the bed. It wasn’t there before.
That evening, after getting into bed, I held a clear quartz crystal in each hand and set about asking for protection, which Jason told me I must do before sending healing to Danny. Immediately after deciding I should include Ann and her baby, whom she brought with her, in my protective bubble a disembodied eye tried to force its way through the door of the cabin. I was terrified. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. It was an unnerving experience to be lying in the bed unable to move while another part of me took over, saying repeatedly: “Nothing can penetrate your protection.” With each repetition the eye weakened and fell back only to try again with renewed vigour until it finally gave up.
While acknowledging protection was the theme of the day, understanding the eye’s significance was still weeks away. During our second week in the north Danny suggested we take a drive to Townsville for in a shopping centre there we would find a “New Age” shop. Before he could change his mind we were in Ann’s car and on the road. In the afternoon, we went down to the beach where I showed the girls how to cleanse their crystals in the ocean as Danny watched on. He asked lots of questions about crystals and while far from an expert, I had learned enough to satisfy his curiosity. I felt he was moving from denial and anger to bargaining.
The next day we visited the massive crystal and gemstone warehouse in Home Hill we learned about in Townsville. I found it fascinating that two towns, divided by one river, could be so different. Ann and I sensed it the first day we crossed the bridge spanning the Burdekin River. Driving into Ayr was like hitting a dense wall of negative energy, whereas Home Hill was pleasant and light.
Three days before we left, Kristen asked for a reading. She wanted to know if she would be in Brisbane in July to see her good friend, Donna, who was having a baby. The cards told me she would, but not for the reason she thought. When I looked up I saw Danny standing a few feet behind her. As she followed my gaze, every muscle in her body tensed. The fight or flight mechanism had kicked in. What would she do? Run, faint or be sick? What would he do? Throw a tantrum or grab her by the throat? Nothing happened. Donna was his friend before she was Kristen’s, a fact he was happy to point out every chance he got. So, with the faintest of smiles lingering on his lips, he told us to continue. I looked back down at the cards and then up, but past Kristen to Danny. “Yes” I told her. “You will be in Brisbane in July”. His eyes were cold. His gaze was steel hard. He knew.
It was just as well we were leaving because we felt we had overstayed our welcome. Kristen had been acting strangely for several days and when Ann found out why, they had a huge fight. A male neighbour, a handsome one at that, had lost his wife to cancer some time earlier and the two connected in their shared grief. It was only one night, but Ann’s questioning of her behaviour had Kristen admit she thought she might be pregnant. Thankfully, she wasn’t.
[1] In the landmark “Cat Woman” Murder trial of 1999, Andrew Fitzherbert became the first person in Australia
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