Dearly Departed Read Online Free Page A

to the flower arrangement.
    ‘Can I have your attention please?’ she asked. The chattering stopped, and all eyes became transfixed on the convener. ‘I would like everyone present to share their experiences with the group— anything, just anything, no matter how small, simple or even if you feel it is unrelated. Speak the truth, I am encouraging you to develop. Perhaps you had impressions in your thoughts or feelings.
    Some may have heard a message, observed a vision or sensed something within their bodies.’
    I came to realise later that her disciplinarian manner was in fact there to help, support and develop our confidence, gifts and potentials. If we didn’t learn to share what we experienced, then the path of development could be impinged. But as a ten-year-old child sitting in a room full of adults, I found this form of confrontational questioning very intimidating and scary.
    ‘I will come to you first, sir. What did you experience?’ The man slightly blushed as words rapidly fell from his mouth. ‘Now the lady next to you—madam, tonight what occurred for you?’ It was obvious as she made her clockwise move around the circle that no-one was going to escape the ‘dreaded questioning’. Finally she came to me—it was now my turn. I was quietly confident. I had a stillness within me that I had never experienced before, an inner confidence that I was not indeed mad—it was real. I plucked up the courage and told the group exactly what I had experienced.
    I could hear giggles, whispers and grunts, as though they were thinking, ‘This child’s in fantasy land’. Inside I felt an anger that was not natural. My face coloured, I was embarrassed. I’d made a fool out of myself. I was a failure at my first attempt.
    Thank God supper was served and I had something to occupy myself with. I was starting to learn that food was a comfort in trying times. I noticed two adults from the group approach my parents.
    One was the redheaded lady who had placed the flowers in the circle, and the other was a man. There were whispers and occasional glances my way.
    The lady had come to tell my parents about the prophetic message I’d delivered—the only one in the roomful of adults, from a child. It was from her deceased husband, a pilot whose plane had crashed. He was buried in a green valley in Wales. The flowers were to commemorate his death. The gentleman recounted that during the week a visiting circus had come to his suburb and an elephant, the star attraction, had escaped, made its way down the street and eventually trampled his garden, destroying it. Through the feedback from these two people, my parents came to realise the common thread or vibration was around flowers. They had come to the weekly circle to develop their potential, but in fact it was me who showed great potential as a psychic and medium. My path was set. My apprenticeship to the spirit world had begun.

4
The secret
    The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only those who will seek them.
    Ayn Rand
    T he weekly development sessions held at my parents’ home were spin-offs from their investigations on Saturday nights in the city. There were about four couples who lived close by and shared a common interest in wanting to explore the world of the supernatural. Once a week they would visit my parents’ home and assemble in the lounge room.
    My bedroom adjoined the lounge room, and at times I would sneak out and peer through the door to try and catch a glimpse of what was happening. I can remember a woman sitting in a chair with my mother standing behind her—Mum had placed her hands on the woman’s head and was saying prayers. Years later I was to learn that my mother was a healer and what I had witnessed was a healing underway.
    The Saturday trips to the development circle stopped abruptly after I gave my first public demonstration of my gift—when I accurately gave the message to the woman whose husband was buried in Wales and when