In the summer of 2015, a client of mine―I’ll call her Beth―made her transition out of the body. I had worked with her for a year and a half as she battled a particularly aggressive form of cancer. She and I became close as regular clients and their therapists do. I was sad, but even more so, I was honored to help. It is powerful, coming to terms with and dealing with death. It was an experience I will never forget.
Blocked
A few weeks before she died, I visited Beth in the hospital to do some Reiki healing. (I am a Reiki Master in addition to a regular mental health counselor). A couple of days later, I went back to do another healing session, but this time there were endless interruptions and the healing never got done. When I left her that afternoon, I told her that I would check in and do some distant healing.
I went home with every intention to do distant Reiki, but when I tried to connect, I was “told” that I wasn’t allowed to. When we do distant healing, we telepathically or mentally ask for permission. For the first time in my experience, it was not granted.
Beth and I emailed each other later that week, and she wrote that she was in hospice. I offered to come and visit her and do some more Reiki. In a message on Tuesday, she suggested that maybe I could come on Friday. In the days that followed she was in and out of consciousness. Her husband took over answering her text messages. We never got the visit scheduled for that Friday, so I tried again to do some distant communication and healing. This time, permission granted.
The Healing
When I connected with Beth, the first thing that I saw was an image of her body lifted over itself. And then she and I began to have a conversation. I found myself reassuring her that it was OK for her to go. I was guided to say things that I’d never thought of before, and the words flowed through me.
Beth’s biggest problem was her anguish at leaving her teenage daughter. However, I saw and shared that this early death had been known since before her daughter was born. In fact, though not consciously, all of the decisions that they had made as a family were leading to this point and preparing the daughter for success.
When I finished talking I saw my client-friend standing before me, with a blazing sun behind her. She looked radiant and reassured, confident, happy, and powerful. Three days later, she died.
Dealing with Death
I attended her funeral, which was an amazing service filled with reverence and love. Many of the women in attendance were wearing head scarves, and some of them were printed with Beth’s poetry. The day was beautiful. Her spirit was surely there, proud to witness the love and devotion of her community.
On the day following her death, another friend of mine was giving a talk on metaphysics and channeling. At the end of her talk, she led our group through a guided meditation in which we connected with a loved one on the other side.
In the exercise, we went up a flight of stairs and down a hallway into a room and sat on a bench. Next to us was a box. We were to open the box and see if it had any contents. Mine contained a scarf printed with Beth’s poetry, but I couldn’t read the words.
And then Beth was there. I started hurriedly talking to her but then decided to stop and pay attention! Immediately I saw an image of two women walking arm-in-arm down a ballroom floor, dressed in Victorian style clothing. After that I saw an image of a white horse’s head with its mane blowing back in the wind. Both images gave me the impression that Beth and I have been friends before – that was the reason we had such an easy rapport and felt so close.
And then Beth read the poem that she had written for me.
True friendship transcends all bounds of time and place.
The seeds of friendship once planted blossom over many lifetimes.
Thank you for being my true friend.
Thank you, my friend. It is an honor to have crossed paths again.