The day before I was slated for a healing session with my favorite healer Anysia Kiel (check her out at Anysiakiel.com) I was walking by the inlet at Island Heights with my boys.  It was a blustery warm day perfect for an after-work stroll.  My phone rung, it was not a number I recognized so I ignored it and we made our way around and back the water offering white caps as some small sailboats took in the wind. My phone rang again, this number I recognized.  It was a patient who had passed in March from ALS, she had been on service a long time, 18 months, that is long in the hospice world. We had many nice visits as my heart slowly broke watching her disease consume her.  I had stopped by to see her husband once after her death and had been meaning to stop by in recent months, but life demands kept each day full no matter the longing of my heart. So, I answered the phone- “Hello?”

The voice on the other end was a little annoyed, “You just called this number? Your phone number just came up! Who is this?” Her husbands voice demanding my answer.

“John, it’s me Phyllis-but I didn’t call you- “

“Who?” the wind was causing turbulence in the background.

“It’s me-Chicago!” His nickname he gave me for our mutual love of the band. He rarely called me by my given name.

“Chicago? Oh my?! Did you call me?”

“No, but you have been on my mind, and I honestly have wanted to stop by…” truly this was the case.

“Hmmm, well your number came up on my phone!”

“It must be Marilyn,” I offered

“Yes, it must have been her! Well you know you can come by anytime….”

We spoke for a few more minutes and then with promises to visit I hung up.

The next night I went to my healing session, the energy was crowded with spirit so much so even I could feel it.  After the usual spirit appearance of my favorites, Anysia stopped and listened, “You had a woman, a patient that recently passed?”

Now this was a surprise to me, because believe it or not no patient in spirit has ever crashed a healing session. Which always surprised me, I have been doing hospice for 17 years and helped hundreds of people pass and yet she was the first to visit. Anysia described her as being light and airy- which was wonderful after years of being prisoner in her body on the earth plane.  She said, thru Anysia’s translation, that I had no idea how I effected people, and how grateful she was that I shared her journey home.  She said that I was truly an Angel.  It was extremely sweet, and her words made me cry.  Her disease is my least favorite, if there can be one, and it took a lot of internal courage to walk her home, it broke my heart often, but I showed up because that was what was asked of me. 

I read recently two things about butterflies, one is they don’t see the beauty of their own wings, but they still fly and the other is we often forget the process the butterfly goes through to become one.  Metamorphosis is often messy, caterpillar, cocoon, gooey mixture that rebirths into a beautiful being. 

So I do not see myself as an Angel, I am too human at this point, but I do see myself as a butterfly having been through some daunting and messy moments that brought me where I am now.  I am learning to see my worth, to see myself as others see me, to respect myself as others respect me.

The thing is this, my patients feed my soul, they help me grow and become a better person, they develop my spirit and allow me to share the Light of God that is in all of us. Whatever I have done for them in sharing their journey the return has been tenfold. I am truly blessed and grateful for a visit from the Otherside.