The Unseen Journey: A True Spiritual Journey Of Acceptance Of God's Perfect Plan

Author

PART I

SMALL STEPS OF

ACCEPTANCE

IT IS THE UNSEEN JOURNEY THAT MOVES THE SOUL FORWARD TO SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT AND FULFILLMENT.

1

SPIRITUAL GENETICS

THE TELEPHONE CALL

What is happening to my life? It’s February 28, 1991, and here I am sitting next to my dad in the hospital again. I have had to spend much too much time next to someone I love in a hospital bed this past year. The same overwhelming feeling of fear overtakes my every thought, as I mentally relive the horrors of watching my only sister, Sharon, die of lung cancer at the age of forty-seven. The heavy feeling in my heart turns to pain as I look at my father and acknowledge the seriousness of his continuing medical problems due to his emphysema. Tears begin to fill my eyes and I wonder if this will be the time he, too, would leave me.

There is a quiet knock at the door and the hospital minister enters the room. He is a kind, gentle looking man. However, as he speaks to my dad, his words make the blood in my veins run cold and every hair on my body stand up. I fight back the tears, but to no avail. His opening words to my dad are, Mr. Robbins, I received a telephone call from your daughter wanting me to share the Sinner’s Prayer with you. I asked, Who called? Again, he said, Mr. Robbins daughter. I asked him, What did she say? He replied, She wanted me to say a prayer with her dad. I then questioned him further, Do you know her name? He answered, Yes, she said her name was Sharon Doyon. In fact, he had her spell it for him. I started to cry, as did my dad. We informed the minister that Sharon had died October 13, 1990, a full four months prior to her telephone call.

The minister was very startled and visibly moved by my words, but he continued to explain that Sharon had told him that I was sitting in the room with our dad. I had just arrived in town and rushed directly to the hospital. Consequently, no one knew I was there yet! She informed the minister that we had been concerned with our dad’s salvation and asked if he could please help. As he continued to speak, it was as if Sharon was talking. He used many of the exact words and phrases Sharon and I had exchanged on numerous occasions, which expressed our concern about dad’s salvation. We did not know what had happened in our father’s lifetime, but he had nothing good to say about God or religion. He referred to Mother Nature for his spiritual comfort. I had promised Sharon, on her deathbed, that I would spend the rest of dad’s life trying to encourage him toward God so that we could all then be together again, forever.

Dad did not die at this time; I am getting ahead of myself. This is not the beginning; it is only one of many experiences in my life that has shown me who I am and what I believe my life journey will be as God reveals to me, in His unique ways, His will.

THE OUIJA BOARD

It would not be until the 1970’s that I discovered and believed there was, without a doubt, something, much more than I knew or could see, that influenced every part of our lives on our earth journey.

I never was one to believe or accept the mysteries of the unseen world. Although as I look back over my life, from my very earliest memories, I was exposed to them. My earliest recollection is from my dad’s mother, my Grandma Robbins. She was a kind, but not a very warm and loving person. In fact, as I recall, she was a somewhat coarse woman. Perhaps I construed her this way because she had worked for eight years as a cook for a lumberjack camp in Northern Michigan. I was not very old when grandma died, so I do not have many memories, although some stick in my mind very vividly. One unpleasant memory, which I could not imagine being tolerated today with my own grandchildren, was endured each Sunday when we would go to my grandparent’s house. As we walked through the door, we were handed a shot glass full of mineral oil and were not allowed to go any further until we had drank it all. You can imagine how reluctant my brother, my sister and I felt about visiting Grandma. This practice was limited to children only. To this day, I can remember hating having to drink this. We would close our eyes, hold our nose and swallow. I still have no idea why we needed to drink this, why our parents allowed it, or what the purpose was.

My grandmother was a great fan of the Ouija board. She died when I was nine. This meant I was very young when we sat on the floor together and placed both of our hands on the arrow that was supposed to move. She and I would ask the spirit world, through the Ouija board, questions while the arrow moved swiftly across the board answering yes or no or spelling out words. I know that I did not understand the concept of what we were doing. I am sure I thought Grandma was pushing the arrow around. In fact, for all I know, maybe she thought I was doing the pushing. She would become very excited at times with the answers and say the spirits are really with us today. I also did not know that the spirits were people who had died and gone on to another dimension, but I do now! I had always thought the Ouija board was a game. Well, believe me it is not! You will see, as my life continues, I will become involved with the Ouija board, bringing much dismay. Should you decide to play with an Ouija board and are bound and determined to invite the spirits through it, you should ask for only God loving spirits and pray these are the only ones who come through to you. Otherwise, you will invite all spirits and most often it is the so called bad spirits who want to come to you. Personally, I will never use or be around someone using an Ouija board again. I will explain this in more detail a little later in my journey.

My grandparents lived in a two-story house in Birmingham, Michigan. There was one room I loved to go into but was not allowed to enter without Grandma. She would say there were spirits in there and to never go in alone. I was not sure what she meant by spirits being in there, but I was willing to listen and do as she said just in case this was bad! The room had two small windows that allowed you to look down the street easily. Since we lived in a one-story house, this was very novel. However, the real fascination to me was the wind-up Victrola! Grandma would let me wind it up and place the needle ever so carefully on the record. Oh, how beautiful I thought it sounded. Grandma Robbins would sit in a small wooden rocking chair as we listened to the music. She enjoyed these times together as much as I did, but she seemed to constantly be watching around the room. Sometimes Grandma would abruptly get up and say, We have to go now. They are here! I, of course, never knew what she meant by this, They are here. Who are they? I did not see anyone, but I also was not interested in staying in the room to find out. If Grandma wanted to go, she was not going to leave me in that room alone!

I recently talked to my mother about this and she said she remembered this room very well too. She said it used to scare her to death. When my mother would walk past a room, particularly this one, with my great grandmother, Great-Grandma Long would say, Oh my, look at all the people in there! My mother said that if she could avoid this room, she certainly did. My mother also informed me that both my grandmother and great-grandmother attended a Spiritualist Church and would on occasion invite her to join them. Even though this frightened my mother, it also fascinated her as messages were relayed to various people from the unseen world.

IS LIFE REALLY DIFFERENT THAN IT WAS

I was only four when Great-Grandma Long died. The only real memory I have of her is that she wore a long black dress with big pockets. The reason I remember this is because each time Great-Grandma Long came to visit us, she always hid an orange in a pocket for my brother and me to share. My sister, Sharon, would have only been a year old when Grandma died, so we did not have to share it three ways. Great-Grandma would play a game of pretending not to have the orange, but we always knew it was in there. She was a nurse in a Catholic hospital and was a very kind person who loved children.

I also know that my great-grandparents, Grandma and Grandpa Long, raised my father from 1918, at the age of two, until 1926 when he was ten. He lived on their farm in a small Michigan community while his parents lived and worked at a lumberjack camp for eight years. While writing this, I am left with many non-judgmental but unanswered questions. I wonder, how one could leave their only child to be raised by their parents for eight years? I also question how difficult this arrangement between my father’s parents and his grandparents was for all concerned, especially as far as my dad’s life. My father was a warm and loving man with a wonderful sense of humor. Perhaps had his own parents raised him during his formative years, this would not have been the case. I am sure my dad had many of his life lessons learned because he was raised by his grandparents in his early childhood. Often we think things are not being put in the order they should or could be, but in the master plan of life, God will always put us where we should be at precisely the right time.

During this time in 1925, at the age of fifty-eight, my great-grandfather was run over by a horse and wagon and killed as he helped a neighbor move. My dad would have been nine at the time and, I am sure, this was a very traumatic part of his life. Having been raised with his grandparents since he was two years old, his grandfather was more of a father to him then his own father would have been. My father always had fond memories yet a sad tone in his voice when he talked about his grandfather’s death and how much he had loved and missed him.

Great-Grandma Long continued to live on the farm and raise my dad for one more year. When he was ten, he resumed his life with his own parents. After the death of her husband, my great-grandmother found she had to support herself. I am forever amazed at the pure human strengths God instills in each of us. She had to find a way to survive, pick up the pieces and move on. The loss of a loved one is probably one of the most difficult parts of life. I find she was a very courageous woman living in the 1920’s. She moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan and obtained her nursing degree. This was such an interesting part of my family discoveries. I never would have thought it likely for a woman in the 1920’s to go back to school at the age of fifty-four to pursue a career. It says a lot of her self-worth and perseverance. She continued her nursing career until her death at the age of seventy in 1944.

As my life journey continues you, will see that my great-grandmother will again become a very important part of my life, as she communicates with me from the unseen world. She has communicated with me since 1996, and identifies herself by her first name, Lilly. This has allowed me to acknowledge that it is indeed my grandmother who is coming to me, as she continues to be an integrate part of my life. Lilly continually conveys some of the most beautiful messages. It is very easy to read these messages and recognize her unmistakable writing style. It touches my heart knowing we are still together. This also illustrates, in such a beautiful way, that we never really leave one another but are only in a different form; that we continue to do God’s work as teachers, guides and guardians after we leave the earth school experience we are living.

We often think of the times in the past as being different from today. However, it seems it was not that different after all! In today’s society there are many children being raised by their grandparents or other caregivers. It appears this was the way it was over eighty years ago as well. Due to the huge volume of single parents today, as well as the necessity for two incomes, this has become a way of life to many families. The realities that society has to face are that this is a necessary part of life, which we often have little control over. Contrary to what we are told, I believe that placing our children in the partial care of others often enriches their life experiences in a way no other can. Many times parents feel guilty leaving their children in someone else’s care while they carve out a wage to live. When they look at the bigger picture, they will discover there is a reason for everything and much is to be learned and gained from this life experience for all. Parents, children and caregivers will be put in the position of finding parts of their own unseen spiritual journey and purpose through each other’s wants and needs.

Look at each part of your life as part of God’s master plan. Know there is a plan and a purpose to all parts of our lives, even the parts that seem devastatingly bad and not understood at the time. Reflect on your own journey and discover your own pattern of lessons. You may be surprised at what you see!

Unfortunately, I know very little of my dad’s life after he moved back home with his parents. I know they moved to Birmingham, Michigan where my grandfather drove a city bus for a living, which had to be quite a change from being a lumberjack. My grandmother cleaned houses for people, so apparently the need for two incomes was still necessary. I wonder how hard this adjustment was for my dad to again be living with his parents who must have seemed like strangers to him. Perhaps it was a welcome experience and change for him. Either way, he never said.

My father developed pneumonia shortly after moving back home with his parents. Things were very different in the twenties. Medical technology has advanced so much since then. Penicillin and many other antibiotics, that we now take for granted, did not exist at that time. There was nothing that would fight this disease so part of his lung was removed instead. This, along with smoking, was undoubtedly a reason for his emphysema and lung problems. The scar that was left on my father’s back would shock you. It looked like someone had hit him with an ax. In fact, that is the story he always told anyone when asked about it. If you were left today with such a scar, a doctor somewhere would certainly be sued. We should all thank God each day for our doctors and the knowledge attained to make our lives longer and healthier as they are today. I do wonder what new discoveries will be made in the medical field in the future. It is mind boggling to think and see how far medicine has come in our lifetime. The only other event I know about in my dad’s early life is that he was hit by a car on Christmas Eve at the age of thirteen and was in a coma for three weeks. I am sure this was not the best Christmas his family ever experienced, but by the grace of God, he had no permanent damage from the ordeal.

THE FORTUNE CARDS

As I continue to write, I am starting to see my own mother’s journey of acceptance making it possible for her to believe and accept all that has happened to my family and me. When my mother married my dad, she had to confront the unseen events through my grandmother and great-grandmother. She also had a similar situation in her own family with her Grandfather Innis on her mother’s side.

We would travel to Northern Michigan to see my mother’s parents, Grandma and Grandpa Sweet, on their farm. On the way, we would usually stop and see my great-grandfather who lived in a house downtown, in the same small farm community as my grandparents. He was a tall but frail man by the time I met him, but even so, he frightened me. As I walked into his house, it seemed dark, musty smelling and very scary. It always made me feel anxious, yet curious. Great-Grandpa Innis may have been scary, but he also held a special fascination to me. Great-grandpa always had a deck of cards in front of him ready to tell your fortune. He would insist you sit in front of him as he told you what your future held. I never believed anything he said. In fact, I thought he was probably crazy.

Now, as I look back and vaguely remember some of what he said, I wish I had paid more attention. Many of the things he said did indeed come true. He told me I would marry a man with blond hair and blond eyelashes. Why I remember this, I don’t know except perhaps because I was around fourteen or fifteen at the time and madly in love, as most teenagers are, with a boy who had dark hair. He said I would have two children very close together. I had twins, a boy and a girl, three minutes apart. I didn’t know he meant that close together! Also, that I would live in the south. I lived at that time in Michigan and had never even been out of the state. I could not even fathom this or anything else he said as being true. As it turns out my husband, Dick, is a blond with blond eyelashes. As I said, I have two children, and in 1983, my husband’s company transferred our family south to Jacksonville, Florida. These are all of his predictions I can remember, but how I wish I had known then what I know now.

It would seem my great-grandfather knew parts of my life plan before I lived them. Had I been able to accept what he said as the truth and acknowledge that there are indeed those who can see and hear the unseen world that others cannot, my life lessons probably would have come much quicker and easier. Our lives have a master plan. We can be open to it or push it aside. In the master plan of the parts of my life that I have already experienced, I have acknowledged that my life has been spent with God guiding me as I took small steps toward acceptance of the unseen world. Each small step brought me closer to total trust and faith in Him, which has enabled me to pass on His message of love and the true meaning of life everlasting in such a heartfelt way. I am amazed as I think back over the events of my life and how they have slowly changed every part of my being.

We are put into situations that we think just happen, but if we take the time to look at our life realistically, we find that each event is part of our master plan or should we say, The Master’s Plan.

My mother was never one to openly believe or talk about the spiritual part of her life until I started writing my previous book, Connecting Heaven and Earth. She, like many people, did not want to appear different by accepting something others did not believe to be true. I also think that the unseen world of spirit scared her, so she pushed it out of her mind as best she could.

I was hesitant to start talking about my own experiences with the unseen because of this. It is difficult having your own family, especially your mother, think you have gone off the deep end, so to speak. By writing Connecting Heaven and Earth and having her read it, enabled me to see a complete other part of my mother’s life I did not know existed. My mother is in her eighties, and as I think of our conversations since I openly started talking to her, I find it has taught me a valuable lesson in life. Our lives are here and then gone. If we do not communicate our lifetime experiences and beliefs, the generations to come will never really know and understand what their parents and grandparents thought and lived. There are parts of my mother’s life that would have gone unknown and what interesting parts they are.

My mother was raised on the farm almost as an only child. Her two brothers, Lyle and Jay, and her sister, Marie, were not born until after her fourteenth birthday. In fact, her sister was born the same year as my brother, so there is quite an age and upbringing difference between my mother and her.

My mother had a very hard childhood. Her mother, my Grandma Sweet, was ill much of the time with a goiter problem. She had to spend several days and nights about a hundred miles from home getting cobalt treatments. This was a very frightening time for Mom. She said her mother would be gasping for air, thinking she was going to die. She would fan her to help get air for her to breath. Even though my mother was only about eight years old, she had to assume the duties of caretaker of the house. She cleaned and cooked all the meals, which was a big job for a farm girl who already had chores to perform while trying to attend school. She walked to a one-room school about one and a half miles away, even in the snow or rain. The school was in session from 8am. until 4pm. and had approximately thirteen students attending it for all grades. My mother only attended school for about five years, from seven until around thirteen, but managed to acquire knowledge equivalent to the tenth grade. Smart mom! The greatest disappointment in her personal life dreams was the lack of more education. Throughout her entire life, my mother has continued to take classes of special interest or related to her work at General Motors before she retired. In her younger years, my mother wanted to be a beautician. She needed fifty dollars to attend the school. Her Grandma Sweet gave her duck eggs, but these never hatched into ducklings to sell. Then, her dad gave her a pig, the runt, to raise and sell. All she got for him was five dollars. She was not able to acquire the money needed to attend beautician school.

Times were very different when my parents were growing up. Some of the things taken for granted today were not available on my grandparents’ farm. When I was a small child, they had electricity in the house, but not when my mother was a child. I can remember going to my grandparents and having to hand pump water at the sink with a pail to catch the run off. We would have to empty the pail several times a day so it would not overflow. This, of course, meant there was no running water, bathtubs or inside toilets. We used an outhouse, large tub with hot water from the stove and hand pumped all of the water. It was such a thrill for my grandparents when they finally got running water pumped from the well and installed inside plumbing in the house. It changed the way they lived.

My mother had a rather lonely, sad childhood. Her father was a loving man. Perhaps due to her mother’s illness, there was very little love and support shown to Mom from her mother. To compensate for this, she told me that as a little girl she would always try to think of Santa Claus to forget her troubles. In fact, this went on almost every night for years so she could fall asleep and for a while, even after she grew up. Isn’t it strange what we do and what we remember about the sad parts of our lives!

When my mother turned fifteen, only one year after her first brother was born, she left the farm. She was expected to take care of and raise her brother as well as maintain the house for all members of her family. Mom decided if she had to take care of a family, she would start her own. How she finally left the farm was relayed to me like this. I was forking navy beans in a large eighty acre field one day and decided I had done all of this I ever wanted to do. I stuck the pitchfork into the middle of the field and said, I’m leaving. She acquired work as a maid and house cleaner for a friend of her uncle and never lived at home again. To this day, my mother considers getting off the farm and moving to the city as one of her greatest and bravest victories.

My Parents met in the Grande Ballroom in Detroit. It was a big fancy place in 1934. My mother even remembers what she wore the night she met my dad. Women often remember their clothing on memorable occasions, strange as this may seem to a man. She had on an ankle length turquoise dress with a slit in the upper back, and as they danced, my dad had his hand in the slit and on her back. Part of what attracted her to him was that he was a very good dancer. Now that I think of it, this is also part of what attracted me to Dick. Maybe there is more to dancing than we know!

My parents eloped and married on December 20, 1935. No one knew they were getting married. I know this was part of God’s master plan, as He joined and created love between two souls who had strong family spiritual backgrounds with wonderful openness to the unseen world. This marriage was part of the master plan for our family, and for me personally, which enabled me to understand God’s message so that I could pass it on to each of you. I thank God for this union, for He gave me a wonderful life and great parents to share it with.

My parents’ marriage took place during the great Depression of the 30’s, so life was very difficult. My mother worked as a maid and housekeeper, working six and a half days per week for three dollars. My dad worked for Fisher Body, a division of General Motors, and was paid thirteen dollars every two weeks. They had a house payment of fifteen dollars a month as well as food and other living expenses. There was very little money left over to make meals, so my dad would hunt pheasants and my mother would trade them for hamburger. Today, this would be the trade of a lifetime to many! My mother became very talented in finding ways to survive. I am sure everyone had to be creative during the depression years. We should thank God for the prosperity we have today. I believe that no matter how much or how little it seems we have, for most of us, it cannot be as bad as it was during those years.

Now is the time to look at your own family. Do you have a loved one who you should sit down with and really get to know? Not just as a parent or grandparent, but as a person who is also on his or her own spiritual journey. Ask, for it may surprise you, as it did me, what you will find out.

2

LOOKING BACK BUT MOVING FORWARD

LIFE IN THE 40’s & 50’s

I had what I would call a normal childhood for the times. We lived the first part of my life in Birmingham, Michigan in a small but nice home. I had an older brother and a younger sister putting me right in the middle, which I consider the perfect place to be now that I am older and looking back. It always surprises me what small incidences of growing up tend to stick in our minds. I often wonder if we have construed them correctly or, if as a child, they just appeared to be that way to us.

My brother, Larry, always seemed to be the favorite child and somewhat pampered. Maybe it was because he was a boy. Boys were treated different back then. Perhaps World War II had something to do with it. There were so many young men killed at that time. I am sure this would bring into focus the possibility that your son may only be with you a short time making each moment even more precious, or it could be because Larry was the first-born child.

As I grew up there were many occasions when I felt I was being treated unfairly as far as having to do extra chores for my siblings. I am sure many children feel this way. I remember one household duty I was required to do that was the most irritating to me. My mother would have me wash and iron Larry’s white shirts that he would wear to school everyday. This was the fad at the time. I very much resented this. I felt he was older and since he was the one who wanted them clean and ironed, he should do them himself. It did me little good voicing this to him or to my mother though. I also had to cook and clean at a very young age because my mother always worked. I understand all this now, but while growing up, it seemed I had to carry more of the household load than my siblings did. Of course, as life went on, I found this to be a blessing in disguise. It taught me to be a very strong independent and self-disciplined person, which is a trait that over the years has made my life much easier.

In the early years of my parents’ marriage, my father had a rather severe drinking problem and spent a great deal of time away from home. This could also have been a blessing in disguise. He was often a very angry person when drinking, but never toward his children. He learned to deal with his own fear, hurt and anger toward the world in general the only way he knew how at this point in his life. I believe this was part of my dad’s spiritual journey because he managed to stop his drinking and take control of his destiny early in my childhood. I have always believed that overcoming an addiction of any kind is the greatest accomplishment of the challenges God puts before us. So many life lessons become such intricate parts of this journey of finding ourselves again. It is a sign of truly moving forward in your soul growth when you acknowledge, heal and conquer an addiction.

I know there is a lot of controversy over whether addictions are a genetic disease or something self-inflicted but controllable. I, personally, believe addictions continue throughout families because the soul chooses to be in a circle of souls who are also working on this part of their own spiritual growth. Each generation involved has a step to show the next one of the consequences and rewards of conquering or succumbing to their addiction, no matter what it may be. Whether it is because of our genetics or not is unimportant. We are given our genetic background from our parents and those before them. God put these souls together in the beginning as part of His master plan to allow us to learn the life lessons that mold our life experiences as we continue on this unseen spiritual journey. In my opinion, this is part of God’s plan to accomplish, in the most efficient way, pure soul growth of understanding and acceptance as we heal our souls and move toward our completion with peace and joy for eternity

My family has faced addictions of one kind or another throughout history. Alcohol is the most prevalent and the hardest to conquer even today among some of our relatives. As I look at our family, it is surprising to me just how few are addicted today compared to years past. We have learned from past generations and do not want to repeat the lost life and misery it causes. We have heard or seen the cause and effect of this problem, and our souls have moved on.

I have no educational basis or way of doing research to prove my belief other than observing my family and others. Again, I know there is a reason for everything in God’s plan and this makes sense to me.

My little sister, Sharon, had a harder time throughout her life. As I look back, I believe her greatest unseen journey was forgiveness and acceptance of others’ shortcomings. She was born in 1943, at a very difficult time in my mother’s life and marriage. Sharon was an unplanned pregnancy, unplanned in my parents’ mind but all pregnancies are a part of God’s plan. This is another reason I feel certain people are born into certain situations and families, enabling them to learn their most difficult life lessons so their souls can move forward.

My mother was coping the best she could with a new baby and two other small children, ages three and six. She found, that due to the outflow of money on things other than necessities, especially from my dad, it was necessary for her to go back to work when Sharon was just six weeks old. This, I am sure, did not help the resentment she felt within her personal life. This could also understandably be transferred to what would feel like the cause, her new baby.

Being a parent is always a very challenging job. It is difficult for children to realize their parents are also people and have a life often filled with pain and suffering. Often, this is not realized and usually goes unseen through the eyes of a child until many years later when they are adults. Because of the initial timing of Sharon’s life, my mother was very resentful of the pregnancy and blamed the child for compounding her already hard and complicated life. This is not meant to imply that Mom did not love Sharon, she did, but she never seemed to give her a break like she did Larry and me. They were like oil and water, their thoughts and ideas of life did not mix. Sharon seemed to always be in trouble. She would do things out of pure curiosity and adventure. Our mother, however, would construe Sharon’s adventures as trying to be a troublemaker. Often parents look at a child’s adventure this way. I, myself, have been guilty of this with my own children. The child is not thinking of the consequences of his actions, only the discoveries and adventure as they explore and try out new parts of their world.

The pattern associated by my mother’s lack of acceptance was prevalent throughout Sharon’s short life. As an adult, she still was not accepted as living a good, hard working and productive life. Sharon tried to cope as best she could as she lived with her own set of personal problems. In spite of her accomplishments, she was always told to put forth more effort in her life. It was voiced that the hard times would not hurt her because she had to learn her lessons somehow. I never understood this aspect of my family with Sharon. Years later, during an intuitive reading, I asked about the possible reason for this. I was told it was because of a past life experience. Mom and Sharon had been in love with the same man and had fought relentlessly over him, with Sharon winning his favor. The resentment had carried over into this lifetime to be resolved. If I were to guess who the man was in that lifetime, I would say it was my brother’s soul. This explanation made perfect sense to me when nothing else ever did.

Approximately three years prior to her death, Sharon told mom that if she had done anything to hurt her, she was sorry and to please forgive her. Thereafter, she felt she had said and done what she was here to do and that she could move on, whether in this lifetime or the next. She felt she had fulfilled her own karmic obligation. It was up to Mom to forgive, or not to forgive, in order to release her own negative karmic energy. From my view, she did.

Many times, we cannot understand why our life is going in the direction it is and have no explanation for our difficult experiences. Throughout our lives, we will at times meet people who, for no apparent reason, we do not like. You should acknowledge these feelings and work toward the discovery of the reason you feel this way. Be receptive to the possibility that you may also be experiencing your own past life experience that needs to be worked on and resolved so your soul can move forward. Accept this opportunity as a gift from God to help you make discoveries the soul needs. Perhaps my sister and mother’s unseen journey will help you answer some of your own unexplained life problems and put then into a new light and prospective.

THE FIRE

There are three very early memories that so impressed to me that I have not forgotten them in over the sixty-five years since they happened. I was approximately three or maybe four years old when a neighbor came knocking at our door, shouting for us to come outside quickly. As we went out, I could feel the anxious feelings overcome me. I did not know what was wrong, but I knew something bad was obviously going on. Neighbors were screaming and crying as they gathered in the middle of the street, pointing to the sky. I remember looking up and seeing, hovering above our heads, a large saucer shaped object. Everyone was running around crying out, It’s from another planet that has come to destroy us. There is no way to really describe the pure panic of the evening. The object stayed only a few minutes although it seemed like hours to the crowd that had gathered. The UFO had windows all the way around it, with green lights showing through. We could see it very clearly as it slowly moved back and forth above us. Then just as quickly as it came, it was gone. I recently called my mother and asked her what she thought this was. She said she could not remember the details. In fact, she had forgotten about it, although she does recall the incident and how very scary it all was. She wondered how I had remembered it at all. I told her anything that would scare grownups that much will always leave a lasting impression on a child, and I certainly was impressed!

As an adult, on two different occasions, I again saw a UFO. I don’t know why they were put before me unless it was to help me understand there are unexplained events that happen in our lives. Once, while talking on the telephone with my uncle, who lived two houses down from us, we both saw out our windows an object in the sky hovering for about five minutes over the lake. It suddenly zigzagged and went straight up and then departed at a speed unlike anything we or the hundreds of other witnesses had ever seen. Several years later while living on the beach in Pensacola, Florida, I was in our Jacuzzi with two friends from Michigan. It was a beautiful clear evening and as we settled back into our seats to look up at the starlit sky, we were startled to see, just above us, an object with lights all around it. It was stationary as if hanging in midair for a few minutes, and then departed at an incredible speed. This incident also had hundreds of witnesses.

Another impressive memory was when I was five years old and World War II ended. Everyone was in the street laughing, hugging and kissing each other out of pure joy. There were shotguns being fired off into the air somewhat like people do today on the fourth of July. My mother said she was working the afternoon shift at General Motors when an announcement came that the war had ended. Everyone was told to go home, to be with his or her families. She said there was a street party like no one had ever seen before in celebration of the war finally being over.

When I was approximately six years old, our house was set on fire in the middle of the night by a neighbor who suffered from manic depression or a bipolar condition. This neighbor would walk up and down the street all night with her dog and an armload of newspapers. Insomnia