Pearl leans over toward Jordon as he, Emma, and Einstein talk tempestuously at the table they share with others who join them from pasts and futures… from their afterlives… from other realms and universes… in the Cafe Between Worlds.
Pearl:
Jordon, I want to tell you some things about my life. I know you have had a lot of pain and that your friend is still in serious condition after being shot by the police. And I know that I can’t really know your pain as a person of color in our country right now. But you and I have something in common. We live in the US now, in 2019.
And I’ve been thinking to myself that maybe some of us… could tell stories about our lives… so if you think you might be interested, I would like to start with telling you a story that mostly involves my dad. I’m telling you because, although there was pain in his life, I think you can relate and maybe the joy in his life can also touch you. There was also hope… and something more. I don’t want to say too much before I tell you.
Jordon:
Pearl, I would really like to hear about your life and about your father. My father was killed when I was 8 years old.
Pearl:
Wow, Jordon, you have something in common with my father.
Einstein, Emma, and Jordon settle into Pearl’s gaze as she is about to begin. The Obamas have moved over from their previous conversations… to join them.
Pearl looks out at the five who have gathered:
Ok I want you to feel as though you are in the story with me.
They all laugh but almost in a whisper…
Pearl takes a deep breath and begins:
My father looks into my eyes, as though searching for the mystery of my soul … because if he looks deep enough, he just might discover something that he could use for his Universe Matrix theory. He breaks his stare as he leans back into his recliner chair, placed in front of a propane gas heater that he uses as his fireplace.
His earlier married life, full of traveling around the world and houses filled with domestic helpers, swimming pools, and even guards … eroded over time as he stepped away from his corporate world, his luxurious spending, his affairs with women, and his wife of 33 years, my mother.
“I talk with Einstein, Pearl. I know it’s not really him, but it helps me think better. I’m working on my formula for gravity.” Dad’s eyes continue to follow me as I pull a nearby chair closer so that he can hear my voice without me having to force my words.
“Well, maybe you really are talking with Einstein, dad. “ I say. He responds first… not with words … with a smirky sideways smile.
“Well, I can’t bring myself to believe that I’m actually talking to Einstein, but it is fun to have my conversations with him.”, dad says and then continues. “Some times I just stop all conversations and go into a place where thoughts seem to disappear. This is where new ideas play with me. But I can’t seem to find that formula for gravity. I feel like I’m so close.”
He looks into my eyes again. Or maybe he is looking through them, like you do when you stare at those images that pop out of the page as you train your eyes to look into and beyond them, as though there is another world on the other side.
“I have a suggestion for you, dad. I know you don’t believe that there are Divine Forces, but you do believe in energy and that it is never really destroyed, right?”
“That is correct.” He smiled. “OK, I’m open. What should I do to find my gravity formula?”
“I knew I could get into trouble here,” Pearls says before she continues.
“OK, dad, go to that place where you stop thinking. Just be there in the silence. After that, look around, using your imagination, until you see two columns of light with an opening between them … maybe a tree or a doorway. Imagine yourself walking through this opening …. into … the Realm of the Unknown. “
I smile and continue. “ Now, imagine that a vast Universal Force is joining you in the Unknown. In the presence of this Force, call Einstein to come and sit with you. And have your conversations with him, there.”
“Ok, I’ll experiment with this and let you know what happens.” He says.
Einstein can’t hold back a giggling sound of delight.
Pearl smiles and continues:
A few months later, during one of my visits, dad told me that he had been working with that mediation that I gave him. His eyes grinned as he described how he and Einstein brainstormed together in the Unknown … and how he had received so much help with many of his mathematical formulas. And then Dad paused, with that wild look he can get.
“There it was, Pearl, as if out of nowhere … my formula for gravity, the one that works with both relativity and quantum theories … “ We both pause … time seems to stop … “We did it Pearl. We did it together!” Dad says. We laugh and roll around in our chairs. I yell out, “Wow!” Then Dad follows with another “Wow!”. We laugh until our eyes are full of tears.
My father, Bob, was an atheist, and he married a fundamentalist Christian – my mother. He met Lilly when he was 23 and she was 18, and they were married within a few months.
Bob, who had raven black hair and an innocent face radiant with intense curiosity, was always searching for the mystery in life. Lilly was naturally beautiful, more like an ocean beach. She retreated from the unfamiliar…
My father would leap with his curiosities, even at my mother’s expense. And she would get lost in her suffering, pain, and rage. They fought most of their marriage of 33 years, until their divorce… Yet in the between moments, mostly before my mother knew about dad’s affairs, they would sing and laugh together on road trips, and he would give her flowers and chocolates as he kissed her tender sweet and deep
When Dad was only 8 years old, his father took him aside one evening. He put a pistol in his hand and told him that he was passing his gun on to him. Dad was confused but he felt that his father must love and care for him, to give him something of such importance. He forced back his tears.
The next day, his alcoholic father killed his lover’s husband and then committed suicide … with that same pistol.
After his father’s suicide, his mother immediately sent him off to live with his father’s father, a country doctor… and his grandmother. When his grandfather wasn’t visiting his country patients, my father would overhear him talk about what a burden it was to have my father living there. His grieving grandmother would remain silent.
Eventually, Dad’s mother took him back to live with her and his sister, who adored him. His mother would soon marry a man who would sexually molest his sister and mentally molest his soul.
Dad quit school at 17 to get away and lied about his age so that he could be accepted in the Air Force, where he would become a navigator for bomber planes. He wanted to be a pilot but unfortunately or maybe not, without his glasses, the world looked like a convulsing storm cloud to him.
After returning from the war with 3 bronze medals, my father completed his GED and began college. His professors were so impressed with his mathematical abilities, they tested him and found that he had an IQ of 160. Although they had lots of plans for him, he eventually left to begin his own electronics store and later would continue his education, while he worked as an engineer who swiftly advanced into middle-upper management positions in the corporate world.
My father met Millie in his 60’s. He lived to be 85.
One of the many beautiful things about Millie is that she knows how to love you … You come to realize that there is nothing you can do to lose her love.
Dad not only healed from Millie’s extraordinary love … he came to love her that way too. He had never trusted himself to be loving. He was mostly a delightful but neglectful father, with outbursts of humiliating anger … for me and my two brothers, especially my middle brother.
But he became different … a new man … from having been loved by and having loved… his Millie.
My father and Millie, together, came to believe … that nothing could stop their love for one another. One evening, when my father was in a lot of pain, he promised Millie that he would be waiting for her when she died. I suspect that this was the moment my father let go of being an atheist …
Millie and I were with my father when he died. During his last few breaths, I felt a soft breeze of eternity … the kind that lets you know that everything is OK, that everything has always been OK, and everything will always be so … It seems to me that his soul moved through my heart, on its way out …
Before my dad died, I had told him that it would be so much fun if he would cause one of the lamps to flicker from the other side … so that we would have a connection, after his life. He had said that he would try.
I was alone and it was evening, on my first birthday after dad’s death. I had celebrated with friends over the previous weekend, and one of them had given me a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape, which was my favorite wine, as well as his. I poured a glass for myself and toasted to dad, letting him know that I wished that he could share a glass of wine with me. And I reminded him that he had not flicked the lights yet and that this would be a really fun time to do that.
I had a large Elestial crystal with a lamp behind it, sitting on a shelf across the room. The switch for that lamp is a disc that you twist around for the light to turn on. I looked at the crystal and thought that I really wanted to turn that light on, but I didn’t feel like getting up yet.
I closed my eyes and felt my dad’s presence. We both reveled in the joy as I took another sip of wine. When I opened my eyes, the light behind that crystal was on.
copyright © 2019, Lyn Marsh, Ph.D. all rights reserved. You may not reproduce written materials without permission from Lyn Marsh, Ph.D.
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