Now, this is the power of fear and silence: In all those
years of her living on this Earth, I never heard the smallest inkling of
this story from my Grandmother, and we were very close when I was a
child. But my grandmother stayed with my parents the
last couple of years of this life and endured a prolonged bout with cancer that
eventually took her bodily life in 1973. Only in those last days,
apparently, did she dare to confide the story to someone, my
mother.
I
eventually contacted one of my aunts whose now 'deceased'
husband was the child who had also witnessed this event, according to
Grandmother. She had never heard this story! It makes me
wonder just how old -- or young -- he was. It may have been an
obvious communication between them at the time that both had witnessed
this, but maybe he was still so young that it just
did not stick as a growing-up memory, as things do when we accept them
unquestioningly. Or maybe he just never thought to dare share
this, even with his loved wife of about five decades, who knows?
I feel our
whole extended family/friends could have been enriched in a positive and
connecting kind of way from having known this and other such
stories. They deepen our bonds with each other and also with
our spiritual beingness.
That said,
this also is an excellent example of why it's particularly powerful to
convey these kinds of events with those who are close to us, with whom
there is a deep bond of familiarity and love. First, you know each
other so well, you know clearly when one or the other is speaking from a
personal integrity you trust implicitly -- or not.
In this
situation, I had a close bond with both my Grandmother and
my mother. I knew each of them to be quietly religious and
impeccably truthful. I'm not saying this to convince you of
the veracity of the story. Rather, the point is, because I knew
each woman so well, for me, there was absolutely no question of
the authenticity of this as my grandmother experienced it and my mother
later told it.
It changed
something in me as a member of this family to hear this story
from them, whom I know to trust. Even if I
had not been so minded to believe what the story implies -- that a
Higher Power, a disembodied being spoke to my relatives, that my
grandmother was miraculously made well -- even so: I would
always be left with the blessing of doubt! The seed would have
been planted, and at the level of genuine self honesty, I would never
quite be able to explain it away.
What if, on
the other hand, one or both of my relatives had not been
characteristically people of great integrity? Bottom line,
regarding others' incidents of this nature: it
is never a matter of the person who shares the story; it's always the
meaning and significance the listener derives from it. On the
one hand, it could be that the listener is totally unconvinced or
skeptical, even though the story is the truth as the experiencer felt
and observed it. And it is also conceivable one's life may be dramatically affected in the manner
indicated by the "Aftereffects of EHEs,"
even if the story is a fiction. Now there's an intriguing
thought!
