I was born in Bossier City, Louisiana in 1965. If that seems like a long time ago, well it is (of course, that's relative to whoever may be reading this). I happened to be born there instead of Dallas because my father was stationed in Louisiana at that time during his stint in the service. It was a source of amusement for Melinda and a few others throughout my life. I can remember my grandfather Helsley often greeting me with "Hey hippie" when I was in my early teens, as I had long straight hair at the time. When I turned 14, I was enrolled in a private, Christian school and I had to cut my hair. To my best recollection, the first time I saw grandpa with my short hair, he greeted me with "Hey Cajun". Even though he was a gruff person, it seemed as if he said it with a slight twinkle in his eye, the greeting being more a term of endearment than an insult.
In my heart though, I've always considered myself a Texan. Other than the first year or so of my life, my entire existence has played out in this great state. Honestly, until I decided this year to move to Arizona to be close to my parents, I just assumed that I'd eventually die here. But life is full of curve balls and it rarely goes according to plan, which is summed up nicely in my favorite lines from the Twenty One Pilots song, House of Gold.
Oh, and since we know that dreams are dead
And life turns plans up on their head
I will plan to be a bum
So I just might become someone
Even though Texas has been my home for over 50 years, I've recently come to the realization that my spiritual home may actually be Missouri, because the Show Me State attitude is congruent with my natural state of mind. As a child, I was raised as a Christian, but through the course of my adult life I continued to question what I was taught to believe. Faith is not something that comes easily for me, if at all. I believe in what can be observed, measured and categorized. So while I still believe that something bigger than ourselves exists out there, the details of such an entity are unknowable in this life. Admirably, many religions have attempted to put the unknowable into a box complete with a pretty bow, however none of them have a monopoly on the truth. When we arrive at the other side of this life, we may find the truth to be an amalgamation of ideas from various faiths.
For those readers that are Christian, please do not take offense, as I'm not attacking your faith. I sometimes wish I still believed in God, but that's not likely to ever change. Nor should you be concerned for my eternal soul. Any being that would design humans with intelligence and independent thought should be happy that those gifts were used to ask the deeper questions, regardless of the answers each person arrived at. If there is such a being, I can only hope that I will be judged by what was in my heart and not by what I may have believed regarding their existence.
With my skeptical nature in mind, I want to tell you a bit about my experience with my sister, Cissy, when Melinda passed. Cissy and I were out of touch for several years. There was no particular reason that comes to mind other than we both had our hands full and we just rarely talked. Several years ago, I became aware through Facebook posts that she had become a Medium. With all apologies to Cissy, I shook my head at that for a long time because I had no belief in such things. If the subject came up with a friend, I would say "she's into crystals, rainbows and unicorns." I never let Cissy know about my feelings because I would never want to hurt her. Little did I know how wrong I was about Cissy and how large a part she would play in my dealing with Melinda's death.
On February 11th at 10:48 pm, about 24 hours after Melinda's body was wheeled out the front door of our house, I was sitting with Melinda's mother Jean and her uncle Paul at Jean's house. Still in shock and full of questions over what had happened, we did the only thing we could, which was to gather together and provide comfort for each other. If the following account seems disjointed, it's because I'm simply following the order of my conversation with Cissy. Also, I'm skipping through to the parts that pertain directly to the point I want to make. I retained all of our texts because they mean so much to me, and were so integral to the way I was able to deal with Melinda's passing.
I received a text from Cissy saying that she had people from Melinda's family coming to her the night before. She kept seeing an uncle and a father waiting for Melinda. Melinda's father David was estranged from the family, but we did know that he had died years before. Also, Melinda's uncle Jimmy passed in the mid 90's if I'm remembering correctly. Another piece of information Cissy shared with me was "I have already been communicating with Mindy and there wouldn't have been any time to save her body she went quick like a split second." Weeks before I knew the cause of death, Cissy was letting me know that any guilt I might feel for not finding Melinda sooner was misplaced and that the outcome would have been the same. The single biggest issue I wrestled with in the wake of that night was wondering if I could have saved her.
Then Cissy told me she saw an image of a man with a full beard and a hat on. I only met Melinda's grandfather, Frank Woerner, a handful of times before he passed many years ago, but if I were to describe Frank to someone, those are the two iconic attributes that I would share. In the middle of our text conversation, I was sharing information with Jean and Paul. I then found out something from Jean that I hadn't known before (or perhaps had forgotten). Melinda's maternal grandmother had passed at age 49 from a cardiac infarction. I shared this with Cissy and she said "Well I asked actually and was told stroke. But this stuff started in the head so what comes next is chain reaction. She went so fast she was in her body then out like someone flipped a switch", reiterating the suddenness of Melinda's death and the lack of control I had over the event.
Later in the conversation, Cissy asked me who Ann was, saying she was "quite the woman", that Melinda kind of looked like her, and that Ann said that she was Melinda's grandmother. As it turns out, Ann was actually her great grandmother, but because Melinda's actual grandmother died so young, she was raised calling Ann her grandmother. Looking at pictures of Ann, we all agreed that they shared a resemblance, especially in the nose. According to Jean, her grandmother was fiercely independent and outspoken, and so "quite the woman" is certainly an apt description. In fact, Ann was her middle name and Jean and Paul weren't sure at first exactly who Ann was. They were sure it was Jean's grandmother, but her middle initial was wrong on the Ancestry family tree, which confused the issue. While we were in the middle of discussing the matter, Cissy told me "I'm being yelled at now. Y'all better figure this out." I found a picture online of her grave site and we were able to reconcile facts with memories. For the record, her great grandmother's name was Willie Ann Kindred, and Melinda's middle name came from her.
Jumping forward to February 15th, Jean was at my house and we were going through clothes, looking for something for Melinda to wear for the viewing. I was again texting with Cissy and I expressed my concern that I couldn't find Melinda's wedding ring, and I felt like it was important that she wear it for the viewing. Cissy hadn't been in the house for several years, but she remembered Melinda's makeup table and told me I should check it for the ring. Jean and I looked through all the drawers and on top and came up empty. Then Cissy told me it would be on top of the desk on the left side. Jean and I doubled our efforts and again failed to find the ring. Disappointed to fail at what should have been a simple task, I moved on to other things. The next day, I decided to look again. On the top of the table, on the left side, sat a box full of rings. The day before, I remember looking through that box, but I had not completely emptied the contents. Once I did, I found her wedding ring among the many other rings she had, right where Cissy said it would be.
I could offer even more examples of how Cissy's insight hit the nail on the head during our many conversations, but I feel like I've shared enough to hopefully convey a sense of her gift. And it is a gift, at least it was for me. Nothing will bring Melinda back to me, but what a comfort it is to know that *something* exists beyond life here on Earth, and that she continues to shine like the beautiful star she is. I don't need to fully understand or know the details of that existence to appreciate the fact that I will see Melinda again, whether we're together in some version of Heaven or floating around the cosmos, taking in the beauty and wonder of the universe. To the skeptics like myself, I don't believe because I need to or want to, in order to cope with Melinda's death. I choose to believe simply because the evidence is compelling to me. My sister knew details about family and things that would be impossible to guess. I look at it this way. If there's a supreme being that created all we see, then granting people the ability to communicate with the other side would be trivial.
Compared to where I was two and a half years ago, I find myself in a much better place now. That can be attributed to a variety of factors. Certainly, support from loved ones has played a large part in my recovery. Grief counseling, along with my blog has helped me exorcise some of the guilt and pain that crippled me for so long. But I want to give special consideration to Cissy, without whom this process would have been much harder. I love her not only as my sister, but as a healer, because she was there for me every step of the way with information and insight that helped me see things as they really were and not how I chose to remember them. For that reason, among many others, she is priceless to me. She has, and is, a gift. Thanks, sis.
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