Wednesday Night’s Evening of Connection in Wilmington

A loving husband danced to show his physical strength and agility was back after a long illness. A grandmother held her teacup from a wheelchair in her daughter’s living room expressing gratitude for the love and care she received. A young father finally said what he couldn't say in life. And a grumpy ex-husband, who spent his final years cooking canned food for himself , somehow delivered the most liberating message of the night.

Wednesday's sold-out Evening of Connection at Belle Vue was exactly what these evenings are meant to be: surprising, emotional, funny, and deeply human. Hearing from loved ones in spirit who all shared their unique essence and personal messages as evidence that life continues after death of the body.  It was the last messenger, the heaviest one, who stopped the room.

He came in showing me he was a grumpy, woeful man.  He showed me he was cooking Frank and beans on the stove in a stark kitchen filled with fluorescent light.  In the living room he watched TV in the dark eating his lonely dinner.  He was a man alone, feeling punished by the world. His ex-wife had one word to describe him: Eeyore. The room laughed because it was so exactly right.

She had loved him fully for twelve years and it passed right through him. She had finally walked away. He came back to answer an unspoken question she’d carried for years.  He said, “I’m glad you left me.  I was never going to change.  I never would have left you. But I knew I was holding you back. By leaving me, you saved me from the guilt of holding you back.”

We all felt bad for him, not being able to receive love or appreciate his life.  But he heard my thoughts and replied to me, so I shared it with the group. 

“Don’t feel bad for me.  I needed to go through that.  I got all that miserable stuff out of the way. She showed me what it looks like to be authentic and free. When I come back, I want to be more like her."

She had spent years wondering if any of it mattered. He came back to tell her it mattered more than she knew.

This is why I do this work. Not just for the evidence — though that matters deeply — but for the moment when someone finally gets to put something down that they have been carrying alone.