A few days after Gary died, just before his funeral, his spirit came to visit me. I was in bed, crying. I was awake and alone. Suddenly, like a video, a vision played in my mind. It was so vivid that I knew I was not dreaming. I was awake.
I heard a voice, so clear, that it sounded as though it were coming from inside my room. I heard Gary’s voice say, as clear as a bell, “Debbie, I’m OK.” It startled me. I heard it with my ears but also from inside my head.
Then my vision began: I saw myself. I was on a bench with my head in my hands, crying. I looked up and Gary came toward me, smiling like I have never seen him smile before. I felt elated. He was wearing black jeans and a jumper with a diamond on it. The top half of the diamond was white and the bottom half was black. (At the time, I didn’t consider this to be of any significance, but seven years later, I understood, as I will discuss later in this book.)
It was Gary, but he was made of light. He sat next to me and put his arms around me. He nodded his head and winked with a half-smile, a characteristic of his in life. He telepathically conveyed to me this message: “Everything you believe in life after death is true; I am really happy.”
I can’t stress enough here about this telepathic message. It came across to me so strongly, it was as if I heard him say the words. But he didn’t have to speak. This type of communication in the spirit world is often relayed by people who have had a near-death experience.
I must insist here that this was not a dream I have never forgotten it after all this time, and I can recall it at will, something I can’t normally do as I don’t visualize very well. That vision gave me so much strength that I think without it, I may very well of chosen suicide myself. Even though I did believe in life after death, I was so distraught. I just couldn’t accept that Gary was gone.
Fast-forward to the next year, on my birthday. I awoke a 4 a.m., and my room was filled with the exquisite scent of Jonquils, my favourite flower. There were no Jonquils in the garden or anywhere around at this time. You will recall, earlier in this book, my love for the Jonquil.
A few years after Andrew and I had split and I had my own villa, I was in bed asleep. I woke up at 5.30 a.m. with my pillow saturated from my tears. I had cried was because I had a lucid dream which, to this day, I can still vividly recall. I woke up knowing and feeling I had been with Gary; I just knew he had visited me again.
The following is an account of my dream that night:
I am a pallbearer again. There are five coffins. I feel strange that there should be five coffins, as there are five of us left in the family.
It’s weird that my dad and my brothers Kevin and Eamonn are in the front pew. There are other pallbearers, but I can’t recall who they are. Two rows of people are sitting on the altar, including my mother, who looks young and happy. Gary is standing up in front of them. He looks exactly as he did in life, wearing a white T-shirt half hanging out of black jeans. He still looks so scruffy, but the main difference is that he looks so happy -– he looks truly elated.
I’m crying because I have to take these dead people up to be cremated. Gary starts jumping with joy, and the rows of people behind him, even my Mother, joins him – they start chanting with their arms in the air. The start shouting, “Bring those coffins up here baby, bring them up because they are about to know happiness like they have never known before.”
Gary is still jumping with joy, and I realize that the dead people are so lucky to be going home to paradise. Dad is crying. I deliver my coffin to the altar and sit next to Dad with tears in my eyes, too. I say, “Don’t cry Dad, don’t cry! I just saw Gary up there, and hetold me that life goes on.” I woke up in the wet pillow but I knew I had been talking with my brother again.
I have had many other little signs from him since, and nothing, absolutely nothing can change my belief that this life here is just a school. Like any school, sometimes it can be tough, and yes, we fail at many exams, but the rewards for being a loving Human Being will be given to us at the end of school. The day we die.
# # #
The next time I saw Gary in spirit, he came to me in a dream. I don’t often remember my dreams -- except for any I have of Gary.
I was going through a hard time in my life. I had been suffering terrible pain from a root canal, abscess and a condition called TMJ, which is extremely painful. The pain was nearly unbearable. I remember thinking I would rather die than suffer pain like this day and night. I was not able to eat, I couldn’t work, and I cried a lot.
One morning I went downstairs and screamed at Ron, by this time my boyfriend, to take me to the hospital. I ended up staying there for 12 hours on strong painkillers. The pills didn’t stop the pain, but they made me drift in and out of sleep, which at least gave me some relief. They diagnosed me with TMJ and also put me on medication for epilepsy.
Before I was admitted to the hospital, I had some physiotherapy on my mouth, which my dentist thought would help. On the way back from the physio, I decided to buy myself a pet budgie. I felt I needed a pet. I am not a fan of birds being left in cages, so I decided to train mine immediately to it could perch on top of the cage. It only took a few days for this bird to learn to stay on top of the cage.
A week after I bought Coyote (the budgie), I had a dream about birds:
There were a few birds all lined up, and they were quite scruffy and dirty. Then I saw the most vivid picture of Gary’s face. It was like seeing him in person. He picked up one of the dirty birds and held his face against it. The look on his face was one of pure, unconditional love. I realized that he was showing me that though the bird was dirty and not as pretty as the others, it didn’t matter; he loved the bird unconditionally.
In the meantime, back in the hospital, I was terrified. What if I had to live the rest of my life on these drugs, which were making me feel drunk? They didn’t really help the pain. The very next day I rang my dentist, sobbing in pain. I was on Panadol Forte, Valium, and the epilepsy drug, but still the pain wouldn’t go away. It was a Saturday, and the dentist advised me to get myself to the surgery and he would come in on an emergency basis to treat me.
Ron was out at the time, and he also had my car keys. I couldn’t reach him by phone. I was absolutely distraught. The dentist was two-and-half kilometers from where we lived. This happened to be a good thing, because I was in no condition to drive anyway.
In the end, I stuffed some very impractical shoes on my feet and ran down to the dentist. Again, I was in unbearable pain, I was wearing slip-on shoes, and I was heavily drugged. I remember ringing my mother as I was running, and she was naturally worried sick about me. All I can remember her saying to me was, “You are so much like your father!”
I arrived at the surgery in this state. I remember the look on my dentist’s face, waiting outside for me. He was totally shocked to see his patient running toward him.
He injected an anaesthetic into my gum, and the pain left immediately. He said if the anaesthesia made the pain go away, then he was sure it was an abscess. I made him pull out the tooth, as it was at the back of my mouth. I couldn’t go through another root canal, as I had done a couple of months previously. I knew I couldn’t go through another ounce of this kind of pain.
My mum had rung Kevin, who arrived to take me back home. Traumatised but happier, I decided I wanted to go for a coffee with him, and sat there with my mouth full of bloody gauze, so happy to be pain-free. Actually, I think it was totally off my face with painkillers and not acting very sensibly. I just remember feeling so at peace and so happy that I no longer had to endure this indescribable pain.
I stayed with Ron for a few months after this episode, but I truly wasn’t happy. Today we are both on different journeys. Our time together was meant to be, and we had learnt from each other, but the time came to move on. We have remained very good friends. Ron was a catalyst in my life and helped me grow.
One of my favourite quotes reminds me of how Ron gave me the courage to fly:
“Come to the edge,” He said.
They said, “We are afraid.”
“Come to the edge,” He said.
They came. He pushed them…..and they flew.
-- Guilluame Apollinaire
