Chapter One
"Death in London"
June 16, 1981
I never thought I would die in London. I am, part of white light—like being in love on a summer's day with the sun shining and feeling no separate reality. It is everything and it is me. There are no words for it, only the indelible image—like a child being loosely covered over by an eggshell-white satin blanket in a state of loving laughter, but without the identity of the child. It is like listening to music and being at the point where all that exists is the symphony, and I disappear for a moment to return startled that I had even lost touch with those around me. The only perception is the joy of being enfolded by so much love without any fear. There is no separate self, no ego, no world, no struggle, no breath, nothing but the feelings ached for in a lifetime. The light is not a visual light outside, but love, permeating everything to the point where whatever I was on earth no longer exists and may never have. Were I on the earth, I would be sobbing for it is all I ever wanted after all. It is what I sought in the love of my mate, the mountains, my children, the surf, the sun—anything I loved with complete abandon. It is not that I cease to exist but I am plunged into a soft, warm lake of all encompassing compassion and joy and welcomed home. There is no future, no past, and no now—only the brilliant, soft, internal light and there is no I, only feeling.
Then, the scene changed completely to a physical experience. All of my senses returned in a heightened state. The light was gone and replaced by the frenzy of the physical body and senses. Light was harsh and visual and so very different from me—so outside. Blood was cursing through my veins and I could actually feel the rush of blood with my body as it entered each capillary, I can feel my hair sprout out from its follicle. The incredible force of the entire earth's gravity pulled this body, I had abandoned, and would not relinquish its hold with an overwhelming power I could not fight so I lay motionless forced against the cold, hard table on which my body had been placed. Sound was almost unbearable. I could hear my breathing and the rush of air to fill a physical body I was associated with, but not in. The smell of the lumber in the walls and the sense of the dead trees was there mixed with the odor of medicines and human sweat. I think that this is must be what it feels like to be born—harsh, cold, and loud. I looked up and caught the eyes of a dark-haired woman in a blurred white dress looking sadly at what she thought was my dead body.
She gasped, "Oh my God ! She's alive!" The woman yelled to others in the next room . A young intern rushed in and began telling two others blurs dressed in white what needed to be done. Then there is a flurry of activity and several people gather around and began working.
I can still see that room today . It was mostly white linen, white walls with a very flat sienna painted on the ceiling and bricks somewhere. The walls were without names in my mind—only flat, blank spaces in a place without any feeling. The empty spaces in the room were a giant hollow air storage warehouse and it was very cold. I remember thinking that seeing with my eyes was a conscious decision and looking out into the room. I realized that seeing was happening in my mind of which I was not yet a part. It is all a holograph with figures moving in space as though I were somewhere else. It was like my senses preceded the rest of me into the room. but I was not quite ready to return. it was like there were three stages to dying: the death with the white light, the stage where the individual as a loving spirit has not yet returned and can experience this plane of existence intellectually, and the stage at which the individual is entirely part of the world.
The doctors in the Kingston Hospital, London had told my young sons I had died not ten minutes before after they pulled me out of our rented Mini, a very small British car, in a brutal head on collision with a Mercedes Benz. The accident had happened in the early evening, in the rain, along busy, British return-home traffic. I was on a frenetic trip trying to show my two sons, 14 and 13, that I could have fun even though my world at home in Alaska had just fallen apart a month earlier. My sons and I had begun a tour through England and drove back from seeing Stonehenge that day. I found out later that there were exhaust fumes in the car and that I had passed out as the car swerved into the other lane. My oldest son, Chris, had been in the front seat and his left arm and leg broke upon impact. My son, Tim, rode in the back and only suffered bruises. Thank God for the British medical staff! They worked quickly and at the same time made sure that they not only told my children that I was alive, but brought them right back from an adjacent room to see me.
The staff wheeled Tim in first. I had to turn my head slightly to see him. I could catch him out of the corner of my eye. He literally burst out of the wheelchair when our eyes meet and stood for a moment to be sure that what they said was correct and then beaming sat back in the chair with the nurse behind him, At the same time, two male nurses pushed Chris in on a metal gurney and pulled it adjacent to my table. He murmured, Mom!" and tried to get up for a hug, but then fell back overwhelmed by the pain of his own injuries. I was still in that second stage immobile like a paralyzed witness until I felt this emotional connection to my children. My relationship to everything in the world, up until that moment, was distant with a motion of its own. The moment I saw the sons I love so very much, the rest of me flooded back in. Whatever I am as a spiritual being separate "came back" from my death in London and found herself in great physical and emotional pain. At that moment, I knew intellectually that the reason I returned was my children. Little did I know that there was that I had come back for an even greater job than being a mom.
The significance of this dying was to impact my life in ways I can still barely comprehend. I was changed forever and spent the following year yearning to return to where I had been during my death. Intellectually I was here and unwilling to return to the white light experience because of my children. My father had died when I was ten years old and part of me did not want my children to miss me as I had missed him.
The medical staff took my sons back to the adjacent rooms and I could feel them leaving. I desperately wanted to get up and care for them, but I couldn't move. A dark, young male in white and an blonde attendant female appeared above me. The light above their heads gave almost them halos. Gently the doctor said that I had a large tear through my temple area and that they were going to sew it up. They numbed the area and I could see the curved needle out of the corner of my eye as it rhythmically pierced and protruded from the flesh. When they finished, the male murmured something to the female and left my peripheral vision. She dutifully sat nearby keeping watch over me. She seemed like an angel, the membrane between life and death was so thin for me. I know it was her job, but here she was guarding someone from another country whom she didn't know as though she were a loving family member. She was, at that moment, a physical presence I could hold on to in my mind like an anchor to keep me with my children and from returning to the white light I wanted with all of my heart.
I drifted off and when I awoke I was in a small room with high windows. I could not move well, but could see bricks outside the window and thought I must be on a higher floor or I would be seeing trees. The bed was a black, narrow single cot with white linens in a Spartan room with high ceilings and a nightstand. It must have been late afternoon since the light was beginning to dim. I drifted in and out of consciousness barely aware of my surroundings.
I did not know that my sons' father, and ex-husband, Walter Rodgers, flew in from Paris the next day. He was an ABC Evening News correspondent, at the time, and the network let him come to London as soon as he found out about the accident We had married fourteen years earlier when we found that I was pregnant with our first child, Chris. The six year marriage was stifling for me and the memories of the verbal, emotional abuse he deemed the norm still haunted me. Ostensibly, the custody and divorce was granted on the grounds of his adultery, but we both knew that one day, I could take no more and just left. That was all. I never looked back. He and my mother hated each other and in retrospect, rightly, my mother was committed to saving me from this man. I looked up and saw Walter's face. His dark eyebrows twisted with concern, but the non-sequiter nature of what he said surprised me.
Out of the blue, he walked in the room, looked down at me, and "If it hadn't been for your mother, that marriage would have lasted."
I realized that I had not seen him since our divorce and it was as though time had not passed for him. I didn't have any idea of how to respond to this opening remark and could only believe that it might be his way of expressing concern. I didn't care. I was too weakened at the moment and only cared what had happened to our children. I asked him if he had seen the boys and he said,
"They have Chris upstairs. He has a broken femur and right arm. He is going to have to stay in traction on his back for a full month, Patty. What the hell happened?!
I could not stand it. I cried out loud and grief for my optimistic, joyous son overwhelmed me,
Walter did not react.
Then he said, "Chris will be okay. He just asks about you. Tim is a different story. I had to set him in a bed and breakfast next to to the hospital. The people are very nice but distrustful of Americans. They assure me that they will take good care of him. The hospital had to discharged him, you know. He really wasn't hurt, so they couldn't just keep him here."
I didn't know. No one had told me.
"He's going to be okay there. He can come see you as often as he likes."`
But, he couldn't.
"I can only stay a day more. The network needs me and you know how it is. I have to get back."
His job had always been his greatest love and it was competitive. The network dictated the terms of his life and he had to do whatever they wanted or they could always find an ambitious young journalist to replace him. I knew what the pressure was like. I had experienced it vicariously for the duration of our marriage.
We visited briefly and then he left. I watched him as he turned and said goodbye. Physically he had not changed. He was a about 5'10", two inches shorter than I, with wide shoulders and long arms, He was dark, like his alcoholic father, but had almost liquid expressive eyes, and as he spoke, it had always charmed me that the corners of his mouth turned down no matter what he said. He was quick to laugh, but with humor that was biting, sarcastic, and devastating. I was grateful he had come for the boys' sake, but had always felt discomfort in his presence and especially now when I was defenseless. The next few days passed within the protocol of the British socialized medicinal system. I would lie in my little bed interrupted only by nurse's care and the irregularly and unannounced visits by a neatly dressed Doctor in a frock coat with an entourage of three or four interns. They would walk in together. Then doctor would stand at the end of the bed and explain something to those who had surrounded me on either side. They never looked at me, but kept their eyes on the doctor the entire time unless he specifically directed them to look at a particular part of my anatomy. He would say something and then they would murmur respectfully in reply. He, always a he, would move to the side of the bed, examine me, say something to those around him, and then the entire party would leave.
I tried to talk to them. I would ask. "Excuse me doctor, but what were my injuries in the accident?"
The doctor would let out a nervous, "Herumph." and look away. No one in the entourage would speak.
"Hello, If you would not mind too much, could you tell me what happened during that accident I was in. I don't remember it too well."
No response.
"If you could, could you at least tell me how long I will be hospitalized." I was beginning to feel like a character in a Peter Sellers movie.
There was uncomfortable movement in the entourage and then they
walked to the door and on out.
"Please, come back. I have just a couple more questions."
"Okay, you can come back now."
"I said you can come back now."
In a quiet frenzy, I rang for the nurse. She came in quickly.
"Yes, what can I do for you?"
By then the doctor handed off information regarding my care of to her and she repeated what he said. At no point in my short stay at the hospital was I told by a doctor anything regarding what was going on, not that I didn't try to ask again the next time they came in to examine me.
I found out a few pieces of information from the nurse but lacked a direct explanation. They had thought my neck was broken, but it was not so. It was damaged. I had broken several ribs, separated my clavicle from my sternum, and had suffered severe lacerations to my head including the temple.
The rest of the time I lay in my bed thinking and worrying about my children and trying not to think about the events that led up to the accident, but then the florist delivered roses from Robert Stange and a note that said something to the effect that he was sorry about the accident, but was enjoying his life. I stared at the flowers.
I couldn't believe it. He was sorry about the accident, but he was enjoying his life. Enjoying his life? He had found out about the accident and sent a small bouquet of flowers? I could not believe what I was seeing and hearing—again.
He had said just a month earlier at a time when we had been living together for a year that I thought was happily, "This whole relationship was for revenge. I wanted you in a position where you had lost everything and you have, your house, your husband and your children. I've done what I wanted. I'm leaving now. I never divorced my wife and have bought her a house in Cour D Alene, Idaho and am going to work for Sohio. Good-bye,
Pat."
Then he had walked out of the door.
I had lost my speaking voice at the time for three days and had spent the last month trying to regain myself and now the accident and now the flowers reminding me of Robert.
I had reached bottom.
I had no illusions, no courage, and no escape left. I could no longer seek optimism as a source of strength. I had to face a chasm of fear and sorrow so great that the ends of my fingers tingled and hurt and breath came hard.
Chapter Two
"The Unraveling of a Robe Well Woven"
I could hardly remember what my life was like before Robert Stange pierced it like a dagger.
The best word for the state in which I was living before Robert Stange and the events that led to the accident was contentment, but not quite complacency. I carved a life out of the things I loved best. I lived in a beautiful log house that my second husband, David, and I built in a naturally wooded piece of land twenty-five north of Anchorage, Alaska. The property sloped down sharply to a rushing stream called Peter's Creek in the small suburban community of Chugiak. The windows of the log house David and I built looked out through an eight foot porch onto the regal Chugach mountains. When we built, David and I had carefully placed the house so that the view could be a part of our daily lives. In the course of the day, I would wander to where the view was best almost subconsciously and check the moods of the mountains. Mountains had so many dimensions—physical and spiritual. Sometimes they would shroud themselves in thin veils, sometimes stand bright as a teenage girl getting her picture taken, sometime topped with the frosting of a new fallen snow, but always mysterious and creating for me the emotion of beauty. I was to learn by the events that followed that beauty is an feeling that I did not understand nor appreciate until I lost it.
And there was David, my work, and the kids. It was like I had chosen from my experience those things that I enjoyed most and created the total environment in which I lived. David was a wildlife biologist. I had grown up in Montana and had always loved the out-of-doors. Even though David grew up in Indianapolis, his first trip West cemented his love for the natural world. We had met again after being college sweethearts, and since his greatest love was the land, we had courted like animals, climbing mountains, canoeing streams, hiking beaches. David had been a Christian Science chaplain and after his stint in Vietnam returned to Fort Lewis south of Tacoma, Washington. He was completing his obligation to the Army the first six months of our marriage, a year after I left Walter, then began the first study of the Black Oystercatcher for a master's degree form the University of Washington.
As soon as David was out of the Army, we bought a 36 foot sailboat, a slough called the "Spray," with the excuse of studying the sea birds. We used the boat to do census studies and lived aboard her for two years. David had always been my friend and many times in our relationship had been very patient with what I wanted, but that is another story. Suffice it to say that I had never occurred to me, in spite of whatever challenge came along, that I would not be married to David forever. He was my husband, but more like the friend who was there for whatever reason, like the seasons, varied but always there and had been so for seven years
So there was David that was part of my contentment. Then there was my work. We had chosen to come to Alaska deliberately. I married Walter when I was a junior in college had had never finished my bachelor's degree. While David went back to school to complete his master's, I earned my own B.A. and teacher's certificate. David worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife offices in Anchorage and I worked as a teacher.
I had read the Foxfire books by Elliot Wiggington. My dream was to do a similar program among Alaska Native students. Then when David and I moved to Anchorage, I opened a newspaper and what did I see but an ad for a teacher for a "Foxfire" program with Alaska Native students? I took the job, left my husband in Chugiak, and boarded in Bethel for six months . I taught Yup'ik Eskimo students English and flew ninety-six students to the small, remote, traditional villages from which they had come scattered across western Alaska. The students collected legends, stories, and how-to do- it articles. When the students returned to Bethel Regional High School, as it was called, they translated their stories from Eskimo to English and laid out their stories for publication. We published a book called Kalikaq Yugnek, 'the book that comes up from the people." After the Job in Bethel, I returned to David and to the Anchorage area and found job with the Indian Education program in the Anchorage School District working with the traditional Native people I loved. The script had been written by me. I was doing what I wanted and was acting out a script called, "Fulfillment of Dreams."
Then there were the kids. I had custody of my two sons, Chris and Tim. I had my sons with me and I adored them. I would the kids walk to the excellent, new Chugiak Elementary school down a birch and conifer tree-lined road and up the knoll . The kids had their favorites as they walked—the cat they liked, the trash can at the Sadler's furniture store where Chris got a waterbed for his tree house, the friends that would join in the early morning school trek.
So there I had it all. I had my husband, my work, my children and at last the home of my choice. What could go wrong? The unraveling of the robe well woven is not an easy task.
Chapter Two
"Now I See Through a Glass Darkly"
The destruction of the living garment and my contentment all began with a completely unexpected phone call. In retrospect, I'm not sure that we don't choose our pain and perhaps our individual path to redemption as well as our contentment.
It was dusk and the light was filtering through the windows of David and my home giving the logs a golden hue. The boys then 11 and 12, were upstairs doing their homework. David was doing finishing work on the wall of the living room.
"Pat, there is a phone call for you," David called out.
"Who is it?" I asked.
"Some man who said that you might not remember him. Interesting, huh."
"Fine, give me the phone."
"Hello, This is Pat."
Then a voice I did not recognize came from the other end of the line and said, "I called your mother and she said you were in Anchorage. I couldn't believe it. I am Bob Stange. There is no way you are going to be in Anchorage without my seeing you."
I know that I was silent too long trying desperately to remember who Bob Stange was.
"You don't remember me, do you?"
"I'm sorry. I don't," I said.
"Do you remember hitchhiking with me in Yellowstone and then my coming through the University of Washington? I worked in the kitchen when you were waitressing at Old Faithful Inn. The tall one. The one who asked you to marry him sixteen years ago."
Then it hit me. Yes, I had waitressed at Old Faithful Inn when I was eighteen years old and there was a seventeen year-old who was 6'10" tall working in the kitchen. He was thin and I remember thinking uncharitably that he looked like a tree with ears. He was dark with heavy eyebrows and a way of pestering me unmercifully. He had a terrible crush on me at the time, but I had no interest in him except as a hitchhiking partner. I was taking a mountain climbing class in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and like so many of the summer help, I needed someone to pair up with while I used my thumb for transportation. He was more than willing to come with me. I wondered why we did not get rides at the time, but later realized that few people were willing to pick up a 6'10" man and a 6' woman no matter how desperate they looked.
Consequently, Robert and I spent chunks of our time by the side of the road visiting about the meaning of life and batting an occasional mosquito. Finally someone would stop and stuff us in on top of their camping gear in the back of their station wagon or sit us in the back of their pick-up truck..
Robert Stange was surprisingly bright and insightful during our talks—slightly cynical but could stay on track in a debate . I remember I had taken the "Grand Inquisitor Scene" from Dostoyevski's Brothers Karamazov arguing that everything was basically good by degrees and that there was no evil and he had such a crush on me that he didn't exactly refute it, but deftly skirted around it questioning my premise.
At the time, I obsessed with my first love, Tony Foust, and had no interest in Robert except as an intellectual sparring partner and hitchhiking help of questionable sorts.
Then two years later while I was a student at the University of Washington, I received a call similar to this one. Out-of-the-blue phone calls must have been his forte.
"This is Robert Stange. I have a ring in my pocket and I'm on my way to Alaska. Will you marry me?"
Just like that. "Will you marry me?
He said later that I laughed, but I didn't. I responded as I was tonight. I could not, for the life, of me remember who he was and there was a long pause.
He then interjected something about Old Faithful Inn and tall and rescued me.
"Oh, yes, I remember you. You just caught me off guard."
He then had interrupted and asked again, "Will you marry me?"
I didn't know what to say, so asked him if he could come over to the dormitory I was living in, McKee Hall, and talk about it.
He said, "No, I can't. My plane will be taking off in an hour and I have a one way ticket and $12.00 in my pocket. I couldn't even pay for a cab to your dorm."
He then mumbled something about having to leave and hung up.
I spent the rest of that day shaking my head in disbelief. I would think about the phone call and then then mumble something about it not being real and then go on. It was a dream and like a sliver in a hand, it really was not part of me, but I couldn't remove it easily.
Now, sixteen years later, it was deja vue. Later I was told that sometimes you repeat experiences so that you can get them right.
"Yes, Robert, now I remember you," I responded.
"So when can I see you?"
I replied, "I'm married, Robert."
'Bob."
"Okay, Bob."
"Yeah, your mother told me about David. I have the name right, don't I?
"Yes."
"Yeah. I'm married too. So what? So when can I see you?"
"I don't think you understand what I am saying, Bob. I might not be a good idea."
"I think I said that there is no way that we are both going to be in Anchorage without my seeing you."
"Well, if we met as friends, then, maybe okay. I didn't mean to be rude, you know. You have put forth a lot of effort in finding my phone number. I'm sorry. "
"Good. You know that the Log Cabin Bar on Muldoon near the Glenn Hiway? I'll meet you there at 6:00 o'clock tomorrow. Good-bye."
And that was it—no visiting about what had been going on for the last sixteen years, no discussion of children, family, home. I guess he had found out what he wanted from his conversation with my mother. I just did not know what to think. I could simply ignore the call and not show up. He had been so rude and so inconsiderate of his wife, but I had said I would and so I told David about the call and drove to the Log Cabin Bar the next day.
The bar was dark with a log bar to the right of the entry way. Small round tables to the left of the door cosied around the small dance floor. I looked around and say no one as tall as Bob so decided to sit at one of the round tables near the dance floor. I was relieved and decided if he didn't show up, I would leave and then when he called again, I had my excuse. I would say that I couldn't see him and that would be that. End of story.
As soon as I resolved this in my mind, a tall, full figured man dressed in a gray, three pieced business suit got up, drink in hand and began walking toward me. I remember thinking this must be Bob Stange, but he didn't look anything like the person I vaguely remembered. He stopped at my table and sat down next to me.
"Pat?"
"Yes, I'm Pat" I guess I didn't look the same either.
"I'm Bob Stange."
"Bob Stange. I'm sorry, I really didn't recognize you." There I was, apologizing again."You really have changed."
"So have you. You're heavier." The thing about him was that he was a man of very few words—-biting, sometimes true and, definitely few—enough to catch a person off guard but not leave them entirely speechless, enough make them say dumb things, though.
"Really? I hadn't noticed." Was that ever a lie!
We talked for a while the way adults are supposed to about what had been happening over the last sixteen years. We discussed our relationships, children, jobs, normal human behavior between two people married to two other people—courteous, polite, distant. Just right. He had a wife whom he referred to as his "mouse wife" and two young children. He had worked as a bouncer at the Montana Bar on fourth street when he
first arrived in Anchorage and then gone to law school because he said I had told him that someday I was going to go to law school and he did not want me to best him. He had worked for Alaska Construction, a construction firm that had built the multi million gathering stations on the North Slope oil fields during the Alaska pipeline. He was working now as a vice-president of sorts of the same company.
Then Bob made me do the unexpected. Out-of-the blue, he leaned his massive body across the distance between us, placed his hand at the back of my neck, pulled me to him and kissed me. He held on through my initial shock until I found myself responding to him. I was more surprised at myself than him when I finally let go. I was dumbfounded and just catching my breath when he got up from the table and simply said.
"You WILL see me again."
I drove the entire twenty -five miles back to Chugiak engaged in a dialogue with an imaginary Mr. Bob Stange sitting next to me. I was telling him things like, "Dream on Mr. Stange. I will NOT see you again, Mr. Stange. Not on your friggin' life, buddy!
But, eventually, I did.
Chapter Three
"In my Father's House Are Many Mansions"
Five days after arriving in Kingston Hospital, London, England., I was ambulatory and desperate with worry about Tim in the Bed and Breakfast. I was able to be discharged from the hospital and moved in to the room Walter had found for him. Walt was right. The room was very close to the hospital. As you left the emergency room of the large brick hospital and crossed twenty feet of lawn, there was a red brick two story house that served as a bed and breakfast. Our room was at the top of narrow hallway as you came into the building. Tim helped me up the steps. The owner and his daughter had their living quarters in a small area on the first floor and both were extremely wary of Americans. I seldom saw them except when it was time to pay the room rent. With my injuries, I couldn't blame them
for shying away.
Tim was very happy to have mom back. He and I took my things to the room and immediately went back to the hospital to see Chris. It was almost like picking up pieces—first Tim then Chris.
I asked Chris about what had happened.
"Oh, it was not so bad, Mom." But, I knew that a broken femur was one of the most painful experiences a person can have.
"Not bad."
"Mom, I'm okay."
"What did they tell you?"
"The nurse said that I have to stay here for a month like Dad said. They put pins in my leg. Dad says that he will send books for me to read."
My heart was aching beyond tolerance. Every minute seemed like a hollow space ripping me apart that could not be filled with anything. How could Chris have so much hope when mine was gone? I loved my sons completely, but, for the first time in my life, I was like the living dead. I presented the person they loved as mom, but something inside was different from the mother they knew.
Time passed in slow motion. Tim went back to Washington, D.C. to stay with his father. I stayed long enough to heal so that I could travel, but could not stay with Chris for the month he was in the hospital and flew back to Moscow, Idaho to my sister, Gretchen's home. The overwhelming guilt of leaving Chris behind in the hospital coupled with the events that led up to the accident were not enough to create the complete depression I was experiencing. I simply did not want to be here, but knew I had to be. I wanted the love I felt when I died. It was as simple as that. Being here as a person was intolerable pain and there was nothing I could do to fight it.
My sister was horrified when she saw me. She tried everything she knew to cheer me up, but nothing could be done. Life was only motion. Gretchen and her husband, Kip, had planned a bicycle trip through the San Juan Islands and invited me along. I agreed to go, but could not hide my pain. We rode for four days and I could hardly breathe without crying, much less be my old self. I could not get my mind off what Robert said when he walked away or my children. I called Chris as much as I could, but could not always get to a phone and England was so far away. Finally, after cycling around Orcas, Lopez and San Juan Islands, we returned by ferry to Anacortes and the mainland.
I turned to Gretchen after I picked up my car and said. "You and Kip go on to Moscow. I'll make it over in a couple of days."
"Don't stay here, Patty. Please. You need to be with others now."
"No really. I'll be alright. There are just some things I need to take care of."
"Like what, specifically?"
"Nothing, really. I just desperately need to be alone right now."
"Patty, you don't. I am so worried about you, I'm almost as desperate as you are. Patty, if you want to know the truth, I've never seen you like this. I'm actually afraid for your life."
"Gretchen, what makes you say that?"
"I just know. Promise me you won't attempt suicide. I know that sound far out, but I don't know how to say it any other way. I mean just that. Promise me. That is the only way I will leave you here."
"I promise," I said.
She was not reassured, but I promised enough that finally she gave in. She said later that she never prayed so hard in her life as that night when she drove the 350 miles from leaving me off at Anacortes, Washington to Moscow, Idaho.
I found a cheap motel right away.
I had never harbored the fantasy of suicide, but that night, my sister knew exactly what I was thinking. I was in an emotional pain as severe as the broken femur my son had suffered and there was no relief anywhere. I could see no other way out. Not even my love for my children was enough to stop me now. Nothing was. I would lie to my sister, do anything to stop the pain—anything. Robert was right. I had lost everything. I didn't care about anything. I really did not want to take my life. I just wanted the pain to go away. I wanted to go to the place I felt when I died. I wanted to find just a minute's peace.
Teilhard De Chardin, a 19th century monk and philosopher once wrote that, "Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God." I was without God. There was no joy.
I remembered at one point in my relationship with Robert we were talking about life in general and he asked me if I could have anything, what would I want"
I said, "You really mean that? If I could have anything at all?"
"Anything."
"The truth is that what I want will sound funny to you."
"I'll try to contain myself."
"Well, you know the phrase from the Bible, 'Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. I really never again want to see through that glass darkly. I want to know. I don't want to guess that a given philosophy or credo is the truth. I want to know what the truth is with certainty. I want to know who this "I" is and what I am doing here and I want to know why it all is the way it is. I mean it, Robert. If I could have one wish, truthfully that would be it. In a sense, I would see God face to face."
Now, ironically, there I was in my motel room. I had been where I most longed to go, if only for a moment—a cosmic window with the answer to my sincere prayer. I had had my moment when I did not "see through a glass darkly" and I saw something wonderful face to face Two months earlier I was ecstatically happy with this man I loved for a year and a half who I thought loved me and asked that I be able to experience what I did in London. Here I sat without Robert, but with my wish granted. Who would have ever thought that once my prayer were answered, my only thought would be to end my life.
That night was endless. I was Jacob wrestling. I was every archetype of those who had lived before me in every tragedy written and struggled and writhed attempting to circumvent the ancient will to live with the need to end the pain. I survived. The pain remained.
I drove on to Moscow, Idaho the next day, but the struggle was obvious to both my sister and her husband, Kip. They knew I hadn't swept, but more importantly, that I was in the battle of my life. Kip made the most off-the-wall suggestion had heard of. The amazing part of it was that it lead me out of the valley of the shadow of death I was caught in. Were I at any other point in my life, I would have shunned both the idea and Kip for some time, but I was struggling just to find a reason to live just one more day.
He said, "Patty, I want you to try something. I know it will sound strange, but my mother has been reading about it. Kip's mother, Dorothy, was a very bright, loving woman who was the stable, caring source of inspiration for the whole family and her community in California as well. Her family and eventually, community learned to depend on her. At one point, she had been chairman of the Rose Parade in Pasadena, She had spent a lifetime seeking the divine in the human who was competent beyond her gentle demeanor. The private side of her life had been a crisscross woven pattern of attending churches like Christian Science while reading everything from the Tao to Jane Roberts, The Coming of Seth. Her husband, Harry, Kip's dad had become enmeshed in Scientology and although Dorothy had supported whatever her husband sought, she also had a practical side and to her Scientology was simply too expensive.
"Okay, Kip, whatever you say." What I meant was that I just didn't care. If he had told me to run in front of a bus, I would have done it because I didn't care. The most bazaar suggestion, at that time simply did not matter to me. I would do it without thinking.
"Patty, I want you to try automatic writing. Maybe you will get some answers to what is going on for you."
"Right."
"No, I mean it."
"Fine" Then there was a long pause.
"Kip, Fine. I'll try anything. How do you do automatic writing. I don't mean to put your idea down, but it is nothing people do every day and I don't believe I had that in school."
"I know. I know. Mother says that you have to meditate envision a white light first then holding a pen, just rest your hand on a piece of paper and let it move. Don't lead it, just let it do whatever it wants you to do. If it says something intelligible, just find out what it has to
say."
"Okay. Right. Just find out what it has to say." Another long pause.
" I have a question, Kip. What is "it" that is talking?"
"Don't know."
'Oh, that helps."
"No one really knows, Patty, It could just be your subconscious. I don't know. Mother said that it has helped her and I respect her, you know."
We all did, so I decided if Dorothy Eder found it helpful, I might just find it helpful as well.
That night, I followed Kip's instructions and the writing began right up. I may have been the most surprised person on the planet. I let out a almost audible yelp when the pen started to move It simply took over and my hand followed wherever it led. It was very serious and began its story right away. I was fascinated and spent almost the entire night involved with the messages that were coming through. Every time the writing would present an idea that I liked and I would think that I would direct the pen, the writing would stop and wait until I let the pen lead again. It was almost like dancing with a confident partner who would not let you do any of the leading.
And the messages were nothing short of amazing to me. The writing began right away to explain why I was in the emotional pain I was and why Robert had done such a terrifying thing to me. The writing almost took on the role of a caring parent.
I have never been an advocate of reincarnation, but the first thing the writing said was that this was just one plane of existence and that the roles that were being played by me and those around me were carryovers from another life and that my relationship with Robert was a very old one. It said that not everyone is an advocate of reincarnation because many have never experienced this plane of existence before, but I had only twice. It said that Robert had been a theological student in the later middle ages. I was married at the time to the individual who was my mother in this life. I was much younger than my husband and a "young spirit" but very spiritual and at the time also very beautiful. Robert had met me and had fallen in love immediately much as he said he did when we worked together in Yellowstone Park in this life. We saw a great deal of each other and eventually in an unguarded moment had become passionately involved. I became pregnant and when my husband heard about the relationship, he became completely enraged and had killed me. Robert could not survive the grief and died young. My husband avoided being brought to justice through the aid of two of his best friends. Those friends came back in this life as my mother's brothers, Wyman and Swede. My father in that life who was a minister, tried the rest of his life to prove my husband's guilt, with no success. My father in that life came back in this life as my sister, Gretchen. The writing said that we had all come back together in this life to work out that relationship and that my mother had to give me life in this life since she had taken it away before. The remarkable thing about it was the story was that if you knew the people involved, it would all fit. My mother was very close, particularly to those two brothers, and whenever she did not want to face anything, even with her own children, she would say that she was going to tell Wyman and Swede what was going on and that they would take her side. My sister, Gretchen, had been on a life-long crusade for the truth and was always to the point of turning others against her. It was an obsession for her. And then there was my relationship with Robert. Who would ever believe in "love at first sight?"
I finally awakened the next morning late and told Gretchen and Kip what had happened. I told them how skeptical I was, but that I was going to try it again tonight anyway.
My sister, Gretchen, especially surprised.
"I was your what?" she asked.
You were my father. But when your really think about it, Gretchen, you have been inordinately protective of me and you know that quest for justice, you have.
"But, Patty, I am your big sister. (She is two years older than I.)
"Not by much."
"Patty, that is just stupid,
Then Kip chimed in and said, "But Gretchen, it can't hurt anything. Look at her. She is more at peace anyway.
He was right. I could not wait until the next evening to explore further what would be said through the automatic writing. There were two things going on: first, I was surprised at what was being said and fascinated by the messages, and secondly, for the only time since Robert had declared that the whole relationship had been for revenge and that he was leaving on May 18, there was the only sense of peace I had experienced. It was only there when I was using the writing, but it was like an oasis in a terrible storm.
The next night was much like the first except that the teaching was less specific and more universal.
I don't know why I thought the writing would happen only at night, but the wait had been long until I was alone in Gretchen and Kip's living room without distraction. The first thing that came though with the automatic writing was that it continued where it left off with planes of existence. It repeated that this was just one plane of existence and then surprised me with reading my mind. As it said planes of existence, I had envisioned crossing geometric planes that I had had in analytical geometry in high school.
It said, "This is not planes as you envision, but rather, horizontal and vertical and thus the symbol of the cross.
Well, pick me up off the floor!
Then it went on to discuss time saying that linear time is a constrict and that what was actually happening was cosmic time.
It repeated that I was a young soul and said that Robert and I were soul mates. It said that soul mates do not necessarily have an easy time nor are their relationship idyllic. Sometimes one encounters a soul mate that is a teacher by adversity. However, the sexual relationship is heightened.
It said, "In soul mate relationships it does not really matter who is male and who is female. The Tarzan vs. Jane relationships are more for those who do not have a soul mate relationship thus the distinct male and female roles are intensified."
The writing then said that part of what had happened to me was so that I could fulfill my own destiny.
It said, "You will use the writing for guidance and would be led to make money so that I could write the books you need to write in your life.
It went on to say, "Many of the things individuals pursue in this life were decided long before they come to the earth. The earth is a school that the individual chooses for specific lessons. Those lessons which are essentially spiritual in nature are not easily defined with the language you use since so many of your words are geared to the experience here and not the larger picture of the spirit.
It said, "For example, your journey had much to do with truth which is a general term, but still recognizable.
That really grabbed my attention, since so in so many of my relationships, the central theme had sounded much like what was being described.
I, then, assumed that the books the writing was talking about were the books I had researched most of my adult life. My grandfather on my mother's side had built one of the first two buildings in Bridger, Montana, a saloon frequented by Calamity Jane and Bill Cody. I had researched five of the families that had settled the Clark's Fork Valley in Montana in the late 1800's and wanted to write their stories—especially from the point of view of the women involved. So the writing would lead me into a position where I could write? Fine. Whatever it said was fine with me.
The writing then said I could write at any time and that I would learn to use the white light meditation more frequently. It said that in three weeks I would have a job on the North Slope oil fields in Alaska, that I would work there for three months and then go to Jackson, Wyoming to write the books. It said that I would be carefully led the entire way, but that I needed to get started the next day. The next morning, I told Gretchen and Kip what had happened the night before and about the work, the books, and the guidance. I thanked them for my stay, packed the car and left that afternoon for Jackson, Wyoming. I had pulled money out of my teacher's retirement so had money to travel with. It was a good two days drive to Jackson and since I still assumed that I could only do the writing at night, I drove during the day and then rented a motel and explored the messages in the evening.
TEXT OF MESSAGES
The second night I pulled into Jackson, Wyoming. I was writing in bound notebooks by then and pulled over just outside of town for direction. If I were questioning the validity of the writing, and I was, I became a believer by the events that happened next.
The writing said, "You will now go to the Silver Dollar Bar and you will find a person who will have the house you will live in while you write to books. It will be a man and you will get his name and phone number."
I parked the car and went into the Silver Dollar Bar. The music was blaring and the room was crowded except for an empty stool at the bar itself. I took it. There was a woman seated to my right and a blonde, friendly man to my left. I do not remember the pretense by which I wrote down his name and phone number, but I did as I was told then left. Out in the night air, I told myself that I must be crazy. This stranger couldn't have a house that I would live in after I came back from my theoretical job on the North Slope of Alaska that I would get in three weeks, but I kept the name and address and found a motel.
The next morning, I had an urge to try the writing during the day. By then, the writing had taken to drawing elaborate pictures that were barely recognizable until they were almost finished. So the writing began and an half hour later a picture was done. I had begun to ask questions. I would write them down and then the writing would respond. Out of the blue, in the middle of an answer to a relationship question, the writing told me to go to Wilson, Wyoming. I looked at the map and found that Wilson was a small town six miles outside of Jackson. I drove out the this charming little western town, and passed a particularly pretty log house on a side street. I pulled the car over to continue with the writing process.
The writing said " The house that you liked is the house owned by the man at the Silver Dollar Bar. You will not make an offer on the house until August 15 at which point you will offer $400.00. You will move in October 1."
Now that was getting specific, but I tucked the information away. One of the most remarkable things about the entire experience was that I followed what the writing said. I did not believe at the time that the events predicted would happen, but when I was writing I felt comfort. When I was not writing, all I experienced was pain.
The writing then said, "Your work in Jackson is finished. You wish to see your mother and you may, but you can only stay for one day because you will need to return to Alaska."
My mother lived in Red Lodge, Montana, a day's trip through Yellowstone from Jackson. I arrived the next day.
There is something about hugging your mother after going through a great trauma. She had a certain comforting smell and felt warm and good. They say that baby animals can identify their mothers by their smell and I felt no different. I knew my mother. I take after my father's side of the family who are all tall and my mother has finer bones, but I could have recognized her hug with my eyes closed. He body was frailer than mine, but with a certain tinsel strength that said that she was my anchor. I told her that I only had one day with her, but I really wanted to finally learn how she made such great pickles. Without any further adieu, we zipped the 28 miles over to Bridger, Montana to gather the famous Clark's Fork cucumbers and dill and pickled the entire evening talking and working. I took my pickles with me. I tried to stay an extra day, but it was as if there were a time frame for what was to happen so I left as directed, drove to Seattle with a brief detour to my sister, Gretchen's, to drop off some of the pickles and flew into Anchorage.
On the plane, I asked where I would stay and the writing responded that I would be staying at Kay Fanning's house. house for two and a half weeks until the job on the North Slope materialized. I balked. Kay was the owner and editor of a large Alaska newspaperI barely knew Kay. She was owner and editor of the Anchorage Daily News and the only way I was at all acquainted with her was that my son, Chris, had been a student of hers in
Sunday School. In addition Kay had a certain status in the world. She had been married to THE Marshall Fields and widowed before meeting Larry Fanning, the owner of one of two of Anchorage, Alaska's newspapers. She was a wonderful woman, but very distant. Her stepdaughter, Judith Hunt, and I were good friends, but I hardly knew Kay. Now I was supposed to call her and ask to stay with her for a significant length of time while a theoretical job materialized with the guidance of automatic writing? This was almost too much for the complete act of faith in which I was engaged. I argued with the writing, but it simply said, "You will see that it will be all right."
So I called. My friend, Judith Hunt, answered the phone. I told Judith what had happened and was happening with the writing and all she could say was, "Great."
"Great?" I asked.
"Yes, Pat. Kay is out of town for the next three weeks and I am housesitting while she is gone. I would love the company. Please, come right over. One proof down, five hundred to go!
The writing had me contact Robert on the North Slope and ask him to get me a job. In two and a half weeks the job came through. I had been hired to organize machinery parts as a member of the Teamster's Union. All it had taken for Robert to get me the job was one call to Jess Carr, the head of Teamster's 959, Alaska. I was to be a warehouse person at the "Cold Storage Pad" on the Sohio camp.
Now for the house in Wilson, Wyoming. At the airport, I told Judith about the Silver Dollar Bar directive and said that it would be hard for me to make that call on August 15 from the North Slope and I didn't even know if the man owned the house and asked her to make that call for me. She agreed and I boarded the plane for Deadhorse, Alaska and the Sohio Oil Fields.For anyone, the experience of the legendary North Slope cannot be imagined. The region is flat as a calm ocean with a color scheme that includes mandantory blues and purples everywhere: in the clouds, the sky, the terrain, and almost the very air. The summer is light twenty four hours a day, but though it is midday, it has a dark, sullen tone to it. Everything is in miniature and if there is courage among other life forms, it has to be among the flowers and plants of the north that weather the storms of winter and live for this too brief period of light. Human beings look so obviously like the intruders. Everything else in the landscape is very careful to blend in except the megolythic boxes the oil field worker use to protect their vulnerable flesh against some of the most extreme conditions the earth can produce. Everything else on the North Slope is unprotected. It is the protected ones that remain the most obvious against the land.
The Sohio bus dropped me off at my new home, Sohio's Construction Camp One.
I almost settled into the dorm life the "routine" of my new job, if that is what you can call it in this surrealistic world. Sohio's Construction Camp One accomodated around 400 persons with only 15 of them women. In the morning, I drove a whisteling, rowdy group of men to work in a school bus. The men reminded me of middle school wrestlers out on their first trip out of town. They flirted and chattered like ducks to and from work. The rest of the day, I organized machine parts for the thousands of vehicles that are used in that totally artificial environment.
Bob called as soon as I arrived. He wanted to see me, but I was terrified of him. The hypocracy, deceit, and cruelty of the situation repulsed me. I ached for the comfort of his arms around me, his closeness, the rhythm of his breathing, everything I had grown to need for my own survival, but I faced an insurmountable wall between us. Before I had felt only love toward this man, now all I could feel was fear of his power over me and the pain of his rejection. I only wanted to see him to ask him why he had deliberately hurt me as he had.
My only comfort was the writing. I wrote and sought guidance whenever I was not working my coveted twelve hour days seven days a week.
On August 16, I received one of the most remarkable calls of my life. It was Judith Hunt.
She was almost shaking as she said, "Patty, you are not, just NOT going to believe this. I called that man at Jackson, Wyoming as you said yesterday,"
I had completely forgotten about the August 15 call.
I thought, "Thank you, Judith, for remembering."
Judith said, "Patty, I don't believe it myself, but the man from the Silver Dollar Bar that the writing directed you to, DOES own that house you saw in Wilson, Wyoming. It is his house and he uses it as a rental. And there is more.
That alone was enough for me.
Judith said, "Patty, he said that he was surprised by my call. HE was surprised! He said that the people who were renting the house had given their notice just three days ago and told him that they would be moving out at the end of September. Good God, Patty, Can you believe this?! He had had no chance to advertise the house for rent yet and no
one else knew that the current renters were giving their notice and then I call and offer $400.00 per month and say you want to move in October 1! Get this, the rent was $390.00 a month. The writing was $10.00 a month off. Man, you are sitting at a job that you didn't have three weeks ago that the writing predicted. Isn't that enough? I didn't tell you at the time, but I thought, Judith, there must be something to this writing thing when you got the job. But now this. Listen to me. Have you ever thought of playing the lottery with this writing stuff?"
There was a long pause, then she said, "Patty, I am shaking!"
SHE was shaking?!
