Bound as we are by physicality and its consequences, we can only begin to imagine the nature of being in the realm of spirit.  From the very first channeled writing Scott had communicated the illusory nature of both space (referring to the perceived separation so real to me) and time, two defining aspects of the human experience.  Those aware and conscious, yet not encumbered by the limitations and bulk of the human body, apparently experienced vision of a different sort.  And in that perception, time as we know it seemed to play no important role.

Time after time, I was to receive glimpses of insight through Dee and others that at first made little or no sense, but later ripened in time.  I was therefore often coached to simply "pay attention," wait, and remain aware if any given message remained cryptic.  One such incident arose during this session with Dee.  Giving voice to a burning question carried within me since Scott’s passing, I asked "Dee, is there anything I can do for Scott?  To somehow help him out where he is now?"  As always, I longed to somehow show him my love, to do anything I possibly could.  She replied quickly and firmly "No, but there’s a lot he can do for you.  See, you need to understand that he’s now in a much better position to make things happen for you than he was when he was here."

She suddenly laughed, as if at a private joke.  "He said there’s nothing anybody can do for him now, nothing.  He’s saying, you can’t even polish his soul!"  We both laughed.  "This one’s got a sense of humor," she chuckled.  "Yeah, he’s being funny.  He’s pure soul now, and he says you can’t even polish that!"  I smiled, thinking to myself "Yep, that sounds like Scott all right."

At the time, because neither of us understood the full import of Scott’s strange statement, we simply took his words as frivolous and playful.  And that had been enough.  Only several months later, however, was the missing piece of the puzzle revealed, leading at last to the realization that the seed of the message had ripened in time.  I received a phone call from a friend who had lost his life partner, Warren, shortly after Scott’s passing, who stunned me with the announcement that "Paul, I heard from Warren today."  Since my friend (like so many of my others) had been lovingly supportive and polite, but highly skeptical, the words surprised me.  In short, he had been led by an odd chain of circumstance to purchase a c.d. by musician Loreena McKennitt titled the mask and mirror, and after listening his heart had become convinced beyond all doubt that two of its recordings represented a clear communication from Warren.

McKennitt works by seeking out musical inspiration for her recordings through focused research and study of various places and times in history, in this case fifteenth century Spain.  I had not yet heard the album, and my friend and I talked about content and context and spiritual contact.  As the unexpected conversation evolved, I shared with him parts of the manuscript bearing on the mystery.  When I mentioned the line about "polishing my soul," he quickly cut me off.  "That reminds me of something," he trailed off.  "Hang on, let me go grab it."  When he returned a moment later, he read me the following stunning language from her liner notes Introducing the cd, and amplifying her concept behind it:

I looked back and forth through the window of 15th century Spain, through the hues of Judaism, Islam and Christianity, and was drawn into a fascinating world: history, religion, cross-cultural fertilization… For some medieval minds the mirror "was the door through which the soul frees itself by passing"…for others the pursuit of personal refinement was likened to "polishing the mirror of the soul."

 If I could rely upon one certainty based upon my conversations with Dee, it was that she was no medieval European scholar.  No, the words had been Scott’s alone, and their message entirely clear.  "I am complete at the moment, thank you," I could now understand his peaceful reply, "you need only attend to yourself and the task before you.”  Or, put another way, “Tend to me by taking good care of yourself.”

To  Chapter 24

AS my heart stirred with David's words and the unexpected intensity and direction of our conversation, my first thought was "Maybe we should stop this session and continue it later at home.  That would be a better place, and there's all kinds of things there that he touched, that he imbued with his love.  What could there be here?"  The office now surrounding me suddenly seemed a very foreign land, operating in a language irreconcilably different from that of my heart.  I momentarily panicked as I glanced around, opening one desk drawer after another, desperately seeking out an object that might open the door for communion.  "I'm not sure I have anything here," I said.  "Oh, yes you do," responded David.  "Look there to your left."  Suddenly, a sense of serenity and calm fell upon me as I remembered.  "Of course," I thought to myself, a smile crossing my face as I reached down to open the bottom drawer on my desk's left side.  "He's right.  I've got just the perfect thing right here."

    In the excitement of my discovery, I didn't even stop to think "How did he know that?"  I seemed to be caught up at the moment in some strange and greater flow, and his suggestion felt completely natural.  Reaching into the drawer, I pulled out and began to unzip a small, cheap plastic plaid-green toiletries bag that had belonged to Scott, and been used by him years before to carry his prescription drugs, etc. on his travels.  For some reason unknown to me, perhaps a sentimental attachment, Scott had never thrown the battered bag away after he acquired nicer, more useful ones.  It had somehow made its way to the art deco studio we bought together in Miami Beach as an art studio and guest apartment, and I had found it there a month or two after his death.  On that day, I had been delighted to find that the unassuming bag contained a treasure far more valuable to me than any gold.

    In the days following Scott's death, stripped of my life's meaning, I eagerly sought out signs that he had been here, evidences of our existence together.  His absence seemed more palpable, somehow more horrifyingly real, than my memories of the time we had been given to share.  In response to a condolence letter I'd received from one of his students, I wrote back telling her honestly that I had lifted up the chairs in the home, pushed the sofa out of place, looking for signs of him.  Though my desperate search yielded me only loose change, a couple of the blue plastic caps that had topped his infusion syringes, and one or two loose pills, at least these objects reminded me of what had once been.  These items may have been insubstantial, but they were still evidence.  Nothing I could ever find would conceivably quench my longing for him, but I nevertheless had to try.

    One of those difficult days I had retreated from the office to the Miami Beach art deco studio we'd kept nearby, exhausted and weak of heart, seeking the respite available only in a nap.  As I awakened from my restless sleep, it occurred to me that I had not yet searched the small apartment for signs of him.  Wandering into the bathroom, over to the closet, pulling open drawers here and there, I earnestly continued with my quest.  Taking my time, I reached out to touch and pick up a book from the place he had set it down, pondered a mysterious bunch of keys, was saddened by the running shoes now gathering dust in the closet.  I paused to consider the shirts he had left hanging on the rack, no longer of any use to him.  Though I pulled them toward me and buried my face in the fabric, hoping to capture his scent, all I could smell was dust.

    It was then that I noticed the glossy green bag, sitting immediately to my left among the shadows of a closet shelf.  "Ahh," I said smiling, grabbing the treasure and returning to the sofa for a leisurely cataloging of its contents.  For a while I simply sat holding it in my hands, realizing that the anticipation of that moment, the vast world of possibilities opened up by its mysteries, were far more precious than anything I was likely to find within the bag.  Finally, slowly pulling open its zipper, I found within an empty pill bottle, an ancient toothbrush, a few other small items, and a piece of folded cream-colored paper.  My attention was immediately drawn to the paper, moisture-stained and worn smooth, and I pulled it out of the bag.

    As I unfolded the paper, its deep creases suggesting many openings and closings, I realized that I held within my hands a treasure.  Here, in a blue ink faded almost to invisibility, were the directions I had given Scott over the phone to find my home for our first date.  This piece of faded, creased paper took me right back to the first days, a time made joyful and new in the sharing of magic.  At the time we met Scott lived in Fort Lauderdale, some thirty miles north of my Miami home, and taught at Piper High School in West Broward County.  From the very first night we both recognized that an extraordinary connection had been made between us, and an easy conversation of the heart begun.  After that meeting, not a day passed without some form of sharing between us.

    For the next few days, until the following weekend, we talked over the phone.  We finally made plans for our first date: Scott would bring down his beach stuff and a change of clothes, and plan on staying for dinner.  I was then living at home with my parents, and had given him these directions to come and find me there on that gloriously sunny Saturday morning.  Now, as I sat on the sofa in the studio examining the unfolded page, studying Scott's handwriting, I could think only "Wow."  I had sought artifacts, evidences of the love we had shared, and this was indeed a special one.  How had this exceedingly fragile artifact even survived through the years?  Scott must have treasured it himself, I realized.  As I turned it in my hands, seeing that he had written on the back the song lyric "You make me so very happy," my imagination was given free rein.

    What hopes and fears had burned within him as he penned these words six years before, and what were his thoughts as he carefully folded up the directions for safekeeping at the end of that conversation?  Had he paused for a moment afterward, just savoring, a huge, sweet smile on his face?  Had he been aware, even as he wrote down my words over the phone, that he was embarking upon a great journey?  That he might truly have reached at last that long-awaited threshold of his most glorious dream, the only one that really mattered– that of finding the one with whom he would really share the love he had to give? 

     Knowing him as I do now, understanding the depth of his longing to both give and receive that love, I've no doubt that he had.  Something deep within him, far deeper than all knowledge, had known joy and sung in celebration.  In those days, I imagined, a strange peace had befallen him, leaving him breathless and full of wonder, quieting his doubts and fears.  On a level of the soul, he had been asked to take up yet again an ancient dance.  What could he say, how could he respond, but with a resounding "Yes!?"

    Sitting there on the sofa that day, feeling richly blessed, I knew that I held in my hands a treasured piece of Scott's heart, an important fragment of his story. A heart, and  story, that had through God's sweetest grace become my own.  On a deep level, I recognized that my finding this "document" was no accident.  For reasons I would never know nor need to, Scott had brought this bag here and left it for me to find.  The symbolism was clear, and the promise of its message unmistakable.  I held here in my hands a true spiritual gift.

 "Don't be afraid," its message quietly whispered to me.  "Just as you were there for me, reaching out to show me the way during that phase of our relationship, I will now be there for you.  Our journey together has only rounded a new bend, and (you'd best believe!) I will lead you exactly where you need to go.  Wherever you go, there I will be also.

Trust on me, my love.  Trust in yourself.  Trust, period.  You will find your way home."  

To: Chapter 47

"Blessed?" Thank you no, I’ll pass. That’s one club I sure don’t want to be part of. Yet I am, for I have loved, and loved well.

“His mother loved him dearly, and used to rock him to sleep with her trunk, singing to him softly the while." The Story of Babar

The greater the love, it seems, the more intense the sadness at its loss, the sharper and more various the shards of its ruins. There are no words for the whole experience, really. Those suddenly left bewildered in that desolate landscape wander within the shadows of a night that seems beyond the cycle of coming daylight, and thus unnatural and out-of-place. They are "mad with grief" in the words of the late great Paul Monette, and beyond real consolation. They are paying the price of their love.

The wicked hunter shoots Babar’s mother  The Story of Babar

THEY are having an experience, truly an ultimate experience, but it makes "the rest of us" uncomfortable because we have no idea what is to be done. It’s not like we haven’t suffered grave losses of our own, often in the same deaths. It’s not even really that we don’t understand. The challenge may be more that we do. And we are utterly horrified.

So we start watching the calendar and making pragmatic assessments as to "stages of healing," we pass along to one another books on "Death and Dying" and "Grief," we consult the experts and think about whether to start them on medication, and when. We love these lost souls so dear to us, and feel their pain. With all of our hearts we want to help them, to really reach them. We pray to see them back to their old selves, really enrolled in life again, to want to be here. Yet we have no clue how to help get them there. All we find at hand are cliches in clusters, misunderstandings, and judgmental pronouncements that may be easy to pass, with the best of intentions, yet serve no useful purpose.

The Human heart must rate high among the most mysterious of things. It is strong and deep. It is amazingly resilient. And utterly fragile.

I have lived through it myself. In a very real sense, when Scott took his last breath that morning I died too. At least the "me" I had always known. A new journey had begun, birthed in pure mystery and thus one of great power, that is still very much always unfolding, taking shape. Along the way I have come to understand that some part of my purpose is to help others lost in grief, those inexplicably "left behind," those now feeling as pain the love that should have died along with their beloved, but (most cruelly) did not.

"Oh, Paul," she wrote me in one of her beautiful, nearly illegible letters from California, "You really can’t know what it’s like." My first reaction was to bristle, ever so slightly. "How can she say that?" Then, I settled down and stopped to listen to the thought she’d expressed. I realized, "That’s true, I really cannot." Each experience of grief must be unique, exactly as much so as the relationship that gave it birth. So I wrote to her and said, "That’s true, Carol. I thought about what you said, and you are absolutely right. If each love is unique, and they certainly are, then so must be a survivor’s experience of its loss." "But for that very reason and in that same sense, Carol," I wrote," with all due respect, you cannot ever really understand the nature of my loss."

And it seemed true; it seemed to address her unspoken cry. This is the way it is. We are all in the experience, together and alone. But as I see it, It is love that led us into this mess and it is Love that will see us through. I feel more than I see, and know more than I understand. But this I see, feel, and know.

"Blessed are they that mourn," he said. Blessed how?? Maybe because this is the human plight: the highest and best that we can hope for is to be left utterly heartbroken. Because the greatest dream that guides and lifts us is that one day (and may it be soon, we pray) we will find the one that will complete and fulfill us. Yet we cannot, need not, really forget that all things are temporary, and that as a matter of certainty death will part us, sooner or later. Is it not insane to give ourselves over in love, fully and without reservation, knowing the rules of the game? Part of us pales and gasps Yes!, while another deeper, more ancient voice says No, it is all right. It is in love alone that we are to seek our salvation.

Relax: we have no choice. We are here to live, not engage in a decades-long preparation for our deaths. If we are only here for a while, let’s not keep fear as our chosen companion. It offers no real safety, anyway. And it cannot keep us warm at night, or give us a reason for awakening with gladness unto a new day.

Prospect Park, Brooklyn ________P. Crockett

BLESSED are they that mourn, indeed. For they have not only loved, as in past tense. They love still, though they may be enshrouded in pain unbearable with no hope visible on the horizon, and have no idea what to do with their love. My God! How they love. And their longing is not in vain. It may be heard in Heaven like the most sweet, soft kind of music. Received as a parched flower bed drinks in the falling rain. Received as a prayer.

But for those that mourn, especially, Heaven or anything remotely like it can seem impossibly far away. It is for these people, the lost and love-scarred, it is for myself and for you that I have told my story. I have written a book about my journey of life and death, about finding and losing my soul mate, and then (much to my astonishment) finding him again, forever.

It is a story about healing, and the presence and everyday involvement of angels. Its essential message is Listen to your heart: it will tell you, sure and certain as your heartbeat: Love never dies. Follow love where it leads you, holding nothing back.

This is what we are here for, and somehow, some way, all shall be well. Maybe not exactly the way you might imagine it (but then again, what ever has been?), but still, all right. I have learned that Death ends a life, but not a relationship. And holding on to that assurance in your heart, still and small, can change everything.

If you are still here, you’re not done. Listen to your heart. Do not be afraid.

Listen. What is it telling you?

To Chapter 1

Carrer Verdi (Barcelona)      P. Crockett

AS time passed I sensed the power of the path opening up before me, but also knew that my old life and many of its guiding assumptions had come to an abrupt and final end.  Assuming I’m meant to still be here, I thought to myself, where am I supposed to go, and how am I to spend the many slow hours in each day?  Suffering seemed real enough, but in most other respects I was simply going through the motions day after day, step by tentative step.  Deep in my heart I felt the importance of acting as if life mattered, carrying on in the ways closest and most important to my heart.  I was still here for a reason, and was not to waste my time.  And so I survived by seeking the support of the friends who loved me, and diving into my painting.

Key West Lighthouse 1990.  Splashed onto canvas two days after I’d received my life-changing diagnosis. In a sense, the colors you see here are my most defiant battle cry against a shroud of virulent darkness that seemed to have somehow made its awful way back into our garden, and was now at my throat. It knew only cold hunger, and hunted its apparently random prey with ruthless efficiency and serpentine stealth. For some years, the enemy lacked even a name. Yet it seemed to know all about ours.

The world itself might not have changed in the three days before this road-trip with my friend Justin down to Key West, during which I sat out by the pool at the Lighthouse Court bed & breakfast and did this painting. It might not have changed, but my perception of all within it had shifted suddenly and rudely a full 180 degrees. Everything seemed sickeningly in motion. In this emerging realm new to me, framed by a succession of canvases, the exactness of form, line, and hard-edges no longer really mattered as they once had. My artistic quest was now entirely different.

In retrospect, I was now engaged in a hunt for the Garden as if my very life depended upon it. I saw no choice but to live within the towering shadow of one great gamble, with the very highest of stakes. It was mine to lay upon the table all that I had, or ever even might, in service of one big bet. I needed to know, the consequences be damned, whether the promises made in the beauty of the natural world were still good.

If not– if the ancient dance of light and shadow itself stood revealed as but a cheap and faintly amusing parlor trick– if even color and light most majestic veiled only thinly an underlying corroding stain of Darkness, and had been already tainted to the core by the Horror, then all was forever lost, and I could not pretend. This was no rigged table, and the world no kind of safe place. But nevertheless I was alive, and the inquiry itself helped sustain me. As never before, Color equaled life. Blessedly, I had no place else to turn.

I HAD begun painting seriously following my HIV diagnosis in 1990, and found a freedom in the solitude of my artistic process that eluded me elsewhere. Often with Scott by my side, I would pack up my paints, brushes, etc. into a large, well-used backpack slung over my shoulders, carry my tape player with me, and seek out the beaches, mangrove swamps, tropical hammocks, and other rare and sacred places in South Florida not yet laid low by the hand of man.

Coconut Palm Lullaby   2012   

Painting was sometimes a struggle, and the anxiety of the blank canvas with me often, but there were times, blessed moments, when the colors were splashing on just right and I was really getting it. Lost in a process having little to do with the conscious mind, I was capturing nature’s beauty and in the process seeing it as for the first time. Such peak moments refreshed my soul and carried me far.

Ibiza   1993  A world suddenly on fire, everywhere I turned

THE Wednesday following the Friday of Scott’s passing, my entire being weighted down as if somehow lost on a distant planet of much heavier atmosphere and feeling only dull pain where my heart had once been, I headed out with my paints as a leap of faith. Sitting outside listening to the tape Scott had made for me, splashing paint on the canvas as tears ran down my face, I captured in intense swirling color a wall overflowing with lurid bougainvillea, a tropical sky in motion above. On the bottom right of the painting I painted in light blue, lavender, golden yellow, and magenta the words My Dear Scott I will always love you. "This one’s for you, baby," I thought as I completely broke down and cried there on the street. "They always will be."

Love Never Dies 1996    P. Crockett

FROM the very beginning, I felt in the deepest part of me a need to honor and celebrate this man, and the mystery of our love.  It was during times of such remembrance, it seemed, that the clouds parted somewhat and I felt most alive.  In the month of May, I dedicated myself to the project of preparing in Scott’s honor a quilt panel to become part of the Names Project in San Francisco, California.  I had heard that a showing of the complete quilt, perhaps the last one possible as a result of its monstrous hugeness and constant growth, was scheduled to be held on the Mall in Washington, DC the following October.  I felt it important that Scott’s panel be a part of it, and read that a deadline of June 1 had been imposed in order to guarantee inclusion in the display.

Scott and I had been stunned by the quilt’s visit to Miami Beach only a couple of years before, and he had volunteered as an assistant during that exhibit.  Each six by three foot panel eloquently documented the pain of yet another soul lost, and the overall effect was staggering.  To me, as majestic the project and joyful some of the panels, the exhibit as a whole cried out of an anguish beyond measure or depth.  My sadness turned to rage as I was brought to tears by one panel after another, finally leaving me only numb.  My mind raced with painful questions.  Why had not Reagan even spoken the word during the first several years of the epidemic, turning a blind eye as all these good people suffered and died?  How could that precious window of opportunity to save lives have been lost?  And how long would we all be paying the price?

I had no idea what form Scott’s panel was to take, but I knew that it had to be beautiful and had to express our love.  In struggling to find a concept suitable for this enormous task, I came across a copy of the invitation I’d painted just weeks before to a party planned in celebration of our sixth anniversary.  It was to have taken place on Saturday, March 9, and we were to have flown out the following afternoon for a pilgrimage to Mississippi, where Scott had planned a long-awaited reunion with the college friends he dearly loved.  Our plans were changed by Scott’s death on the morning of March 1.

When I’d shown Scott my first sketch for the card, he smiled with pleasure.  He had one reservation, however.  As he studied the colorful image, he’d said "It’s great!  I love it.  But do you really think we should include that hospital panel on a party invitation?"  Returning his questioning look, I replied "Yeah, I thought about that.  But I really do."  Pausing a moment, I said "Honey, think about it.  It’s a big part of our experience.  How can we leave it out?"  "O.K.," he’d agreed, "Let’s go for it!"  On the bottom of the card, underneath the images, I exuberantly scrawled the words SIX YEARS  TOGETHER!  In the face of Scott’s illness, we had known deeply and fully that each new anniversary was a real cause for celebration.  This one was not to be.

As I undertook the project of the quilt panel, I became fully engrossed in priming and then painting the large canvas panel, acquiring the materials, sketching out the drawing and the panel’s composition, and marking out the spaces for the text.  On the top of the panel, following his name, I planned to paint the dates of his birth and death.  First, I painted in light blue the day of his birth, Sept. 27, 1959.  Then, as I began to outline for painting the date of his death just below, I broke down. 

March 1, 1996 was just a date, simply a collection of letters and numbers, yet it seemed to suddenly slap me in the face and sting with its awful finality.  Though to others it might signify little, simply another day on the calendar, to me it drove home hard the point that Scott was now forever gone.  Since his body had been cremated according to his wishes, the canvas laid out on the floor before me was the closest I would likely see to a tombstone bearing his name.  On some level, I suppose, the creative endeavor of bringing the panel to life was healing for me, but I had to stop for a while.  Crying from my gut, I suddenly saw through the intensity of my focus on this new "project" and felt it all meaningless.  Filled with rage and pain, I stood back for a moment and realized with horror "My God, I’m making a quilt panel for Scott!" That was something I’d never wanted to do.  Yet here I was.

"What does this really mean?"  I thought to myself, storming off in frustration.  "What difference does a damned piece of painted cloth really make?  Is this any kind of substitute for having him here?  What was I thinking?"  After the shedding of many tears, I finally came to some peace with an understanding that the quilt was just the quilt, and each of its panels commemorating a life, just a panel.  It was what it was, nothing more nor less.

The Angel of Death and the Sculptor, from the Milmore Memorial.  Funereal sculpture in marble, 1921.  Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

Yet it was also a most personal tribute, and one I had to make and to share.  Scott’s memory, and the love we had shared, had to be celebrated.

In a sense, that was what I then lived for.  As sung by John Lennon & Elton John:

"Whatever gets you through the night,

       it’s all right,

  it’s all right."

Rooftop   1990

To  Chapter 15

Yes we had many great times didn’t we love but what you need to know my dear is that the times are not over In your deepest heart of hearts you and I share communion

        –Scott, November 1996    Channeled Writing

FOLLOWING Dee’s suggestion, and Scott’s instruction, I continued reading carefully through his voluminous writings. He had indeed left a rich legacy in the written word, and some of his writings seemed to speak immediately to me in my current state of affairs. I first became aware of one special communication as I watched a video that had been made the day of the memorial gathering. After people had been given an opportunity to speak publicly and the eulogies delivered downstairs, the video camera was made available upstairs for anyone who had more to say in private. Scott’s dearest friend, Laura Beth Slobin, read to me from a letter he had written her early in 1993. What I heard took my breath away.

Laura had played a unique role in Scott’s life, throughout its phases. Originally a student in one of his English classes, their relationship blossomed over the years into one of deep friendship, creativity, and mutual inspiration. He took vicarious pleasure in her creative leaps as she moved to New York City to pursue her talent for writing, and in the adventures she found there. In two of the peak experiences of his life, Scott traveled there to act leading roles in plays she had written. I had never seen him more joyful, nor alive.

I am deeply biased, it’s true, but believe me when I tell you: the man could act. He really brought a stage to life. And all the world was his stage.

Visiting Laura in Amsterdam

Finally, the two co-authored a play called Aftershocks, an autobiographical tale reflecting the relationship between an HIV-positive schoolteacher painfully coming to terms with his disability and a former student dealing with shakeups in her own life, starting with an earthquake that had destroyed her home. Essentially the play dramatized the give and take of an evolving creative relationship, and during the months of its writing ideas and e-mail correspondence had flown back and forth in a frenzy of mutual creative inspiration. Now, on the video, I heard Laura read an excerpt from one of Scott’s letters.

Exactly when I was most thirsting for a message from him, these words reached me for the first time.  Inspired by the scene in the movie Parting Glances (a pioneering film of the AIDS genre) in which the character Nick creates a videotaped "will" to be played as an impish “message from the hereafter" following his death, Scott had been moved to instead dash off this "script"as a message left for me. I’d had no idea:

I wanted to do this now while I still looked good…not as good as I once did of course, but I suppose that is the nature of the "problem"…anyway…HI, here I am…and you know I never have thought that I would spend any time at all at 33 years old making a last will and testament…but then 33 seems to be a good year for that…Jesus was 33 when he was crucified…Alexander the Great was 33 when he was felled…I’m in good company…Ugh! But death has a tendency to demand profundity…When I take stock of my "stuff" I realize that I have collected more experiences than tangible goods…and I think about so many people who have touched me and impacted me and loved me…boy that list goes on…and all the people I have loved, if only for a night or an hour…the experience has been a sensual one…Obviously, right!…Paul, honey, you have been the most sensual…you know my stomach still goes flip flop when I even think about your body and your smell…It’s kind of stupid really but you make me giddy…I can’t imagine my life without you…It has been such a completing experience…Those moments lying in bed at night before we drifted off to sleep with your leg thrown over me and feeling the rhythm of your breath…it was always so safe and comfortable…like you…my gift…You’ve had all of me and continue to possess me even now…

I found the entire message comforting, but the last sentence especially haunting. Was he now telling me that the spiritual fruits of our relationship continued, reminding me that our journey was still a two-way street? In my heart, I felt that indeed he was.

Despite the recurring dark anguish in my life, it seemed that as my path unfolded I was being given message after message, clue after miraculous clue, a key to every lock, just as I was ready to receive and to use them. I suppose spiritual awareness, like grief, is a process into which one must grow, sufficiently vast to require time for processing and for healing. A few weeks later, on a day that I very much needed to hear the message, I found the following entry in Scott’s journal, dated March 19, 1990. Written shortly after our meeting, penned during class at his teacher’s desk in the classroom he had showed me with pride the weekend before, his thoughts had wandered back to the memory of that sweet sharing. In a free-flowing language of love that I now heard with new ears, he wrote:

Your consciousness pervades and when I look at the floor I see that your spirit remains and smiles up at me and beckons and I come and I look to the corner where you stood and again you are there and pull me into your arms and the room fills with wind and we are linked by the kinetic message of our psyches and the physical embodiment of commingled truth and the impression of your body lingers and tingles…knowing we could renovate the past to a glistening reality in the present and buy the memories of a house to become a home and live happily ever after amen

In this new and rich world of poetry and love messages from the hereafter, neither time, place, nor distance played starring roles. With no regard whatsoever for boundaries, our love for one another appeared to continue unabated. But if we did continue to haunt each other with our waking dream of love, I began to wonder, what was the reason? And where would it ultimately lead us?

To  Chapter 16

         — Scott, February 1988, Journal Entry

SUDDENLY only the moment existed, and though quietly spoken her words boomed within my soul. "I've never seen this before," she said in wonder as I sat in stunned silence, my heart quickening. Leaning toward me across the table, looking deep into my eyes, she said "He's on the other side, but he's also really here, I mean right here with you. But yet he's so very much at peace. It's almost like he's been given special dispensation to do that." She paused just a second, catching her breath. "He hasn't let me alone since I started working on your chart. His energy is unbelievable; he's like a big kid, and he really really wants to get through to you. He wants to talk to you. He wants you to know how happy he is! There's so much he has to say!"

"He hasn't left you for a second. The two of you are twin flames," she continued, "traveling together on a journey of the soul with no end." Her words, for the first time in years, jolted my memory as to the similar message I'd received ten years before in St. Petersburg. But her next words shocked me deeply. "Long long ago," she said, drawing in a breath, "the two of you agreed to the timing and circumstances of his death for a greater spiritual purpose. His transition was necessary so the two of you could work together to fulfill the plans you both shared for the world. It was necessary for the growth of your soul and his. He wants you to know this." My mind reeled at the idea, and instinctively rebelled against it.

How could I, hopelessly embroiled in the tangled barbed wire of grief and struggling to seek him again with every fiber of my being, have played a role in "choosing his death?" My mind raced back to the series of afflictions he'd endured over the course of time, ranging from the maddeningly irritating to the excruciating to the terrifying. His suffering had been real, Goddamnit, and the very idea that I'd played any part in its cause both infuriated me and disgusted me beyond words. I knew I was treading far beyond any path I’d ever before traveled, and was trying my best to keep an open mind. But still! The whole idea just made no sense to me at all. No one had ever loved life more than he. How could it be that he, of all people, had "chosen" a life-destroying disease leading only to suffering and then death? I found the entire concept absolutely incomprehensible.

Nevertheless, I was intrigued. Part of me even then realized that I didn’t generally get so worked up over nothing; an idea or hypothesis that clearly lacked substance rarely bothered me. (Who would have time for that in today’s world, in which delusional beliefs are so integral a part of our cultural landscape?) In a sense similar to the way one “sees” an object by radar, the intensity of my resistance (most annoyingly!) alerted me, at the least, to the likely presentation of an idea of substance, or a proposal, right or wrong, true or false, that I had no choice but to reckon with.

"This is something really special," she went on, oblivious to the conflict raging within my being. "Usually, when someone has lost a loved one, the spiritual message they need to hear is 'move on,' because the departed has started on a new journey, and has his or her own work to do. But this is something completely different. It's like the two of you are on a joint mission. He's so right here with you, so much a part of your path, that the language of 'letting go' doesn't even apply here. The link between the two of you is just too strong. Letting go is not part of your task," she said. "This is a connection that can never be broken. You are together right now, unbelievably so, and Scott is so very excited about the places you have to go together." A beautiful smile lit her face as she spoke. "I just get this childlike feeling of glee from him. He's so happy to be finally getting through. And there's so much he wants to tell you!"

Both Denise and I were transformed by the experience. She had never before been so vividly "haunted" by a spirit, and was initially intimidated by the experience. She hadn't known exactly what to think. "When I sat down to work on your chart," she told me, "he was coming through so clear, he was so there, that I wasn't even really able to focus on you at all. Right away, I knew it was him. His thoughts were coming through, like loud, and all I could see was the connection between you. He has such power to be able to stay here, to do that." She paused a moment. "He chose me because he felt that I could relay the message to you in a different way, one you'd understand. He wanted to bring things 'down to Earth,' so to speak. He's really been dying to reach you. Have you heard from him in other ways since his death?"

Sitting across the table from her listening to her words, watching her lips move as if in slow motion, I felt as if I had once again passed into a dream, one both beautiful and somewhat bizarre. I had met this haunting woman just once, sharing only a brief conversation, yet we were now sharing a language of the soul that only began with words. As I smiled and began to answer her question, I once again thought "Now which of us is haunting which?"

"There's so much he wants to tell you," Denise repeated as if in emphasis, seeming both thrilled and somewhat desperate to convey the energetic immediacy of Scott's message. Though I, bogged down in pain and separation, had been deaf and blind to his presence, he had boomed through to her through sheer force of will. He had done whatever was necessary. For some greater spiritual purpose, in an expression of divine love, he had set out to reach me and succeeded. He had yet again broken through. "Yes, indeed," I smiled as I thought to myself, recalling Dee's promise, "There's always a bridge to connect the gap."

"We should get together and do some hypnosis work," she suggested as our meeting wound down to its end. "I'll take you to a place where you can be with him. It shouldn't be that hard; I mean, he's right there. And he has some things he wants to tell you, face to face. He wants to relieve your doubt."

Listening to her words, I knew that no real choice lay before me but to follow the path emerging.

To: Chapter 34

Never far away  always as close as your heart.

Scott, November 1996, Channeled Writing

The Artist's Home at Night P. Crockett

ONE of the best things about going on vacation, I have always felt, is coming back home and seeing familiar surroundings in a new way.  After passing time in new places, eating and sleeping elsewhere, I find comfort in the warm embrace of my home, again enjoying the company of my quirky cat, Priscilla.  After Scott's passing, people not knowing any better asked "How can you keep on living in the house that the two of you shared?"  Though the question remained unvoiced, I sensed they were often thinking "How can you sleep in the bed he died in?"  Such questions, though well off the mark, helped clarify my thinking.  Scott's death had forever changed me, immediately and completely turning my life upside-down.  Hit hard with the lesson that nothing is permanent, the ground beneath my feet suddenly turning to quicksand, I found great comfort in the familiarity of our home.

The Artist, at Home.

In an absurd world, suddenly stripped of meaning by the loss of my heart, I felt grounded by the history behind each object surrounding me.  This sofa here, that lamp over there, that dusty silver flask and Katchina Doll resting up on the shelf, all whispered to me with quiet messages of comfort.  Here were the tangible reminders of a life we had built together, the love we had shared.  Our beautiful 1938 Spanish-style home, built in a gracious style of architecture now faded into the past, had provided a fairy-tale backdrop for the unfolding of our story.  We had brought it to life with joyous dinner parties, a constantly changing kaleidoscope of art work, countless celebrations, and the laughter of friends.  During those same years it had been consecrated by our struggles against illness together, and become a sanctuary and refuge from the overwhelming world that went on outside its walls.

Suddenly alone in a world I believed to be without Scott, I became painfully aware that moving anything in the home, or putting it away, might erase a sign of his having been here.  The food sitting in the refrigerator was left over from meals we had shared.  My dear friend Michael Daigle had arranged immediately after Scott's death to donate his extensive drugs and infusion supplies to those in need, and for the first time in months the home was stripped of medical equipment.  While folding the laundry the week after his death, I felt punched in the gut and nearly fell to my knees as I realized that I was putting away his clothes for the last time.  For months afterward, I could not bear to bring back downstairs a plastic measuring cup sitting atop the file cabinet in the library, one I had used to bring up ice cubes to help cool his raging fevers.  Finally, Michael quietly returned it to the kitchen.  Noticing its absence a few days later, loving Michael for doing this, I smiled wistfully and thought "Yes, it's time."

True, this was the house in which Scott had battled illness, and finally died.  But we had also enjoyed here the richest fruits of life, good food shared with friends, music and laughter, the physical expression of our love and lust.  Through hard experience, the unrequested baptism by fire of Scott's passing, I had learned what some of my friends did not yet know: that death is integrally bound up in life.  Death was indeed a sacred experience, one of great power, but so was each living expression of a love between souls.  This was no place to mark off in my memory as "sacred ground" and move elsewhere, but rather one made more holy by the completeness of the experience.  This, I could sense Scott telling me, was the place to live and to keep on living, part of the rich legacy left for my growth and enjoyment.  Though he was now free in spirit and no longer needed the comfort of a roof and four walls, he realized that I very much did.

BACK from the West Coast, so glad to be home, I lay on the library sofa that Sunday evening allowing my mind to wander back over the miraculous spiritual journey of the months before.  Wherever I traveled, it seemed, Orlando or Washington DC, Mississippi or Seattle, Scott walked with me.  Though still burning with longing for communion with my beloved, in the spirit and thus aggravatingly invisible to me, even I in my thickness could no longer doubt his presence.  As promised, his death had indeed not ended the relationship, but simply initiated a new phase.  I had been provided with numerous "peeks behind the veil" and thus been comforted, but still had no clear answer why.  Did a greater purpose underlie his actions and messages?  Where were we heading together?  Could I be sure that I was on the right path?  The continuing refrain again arose: What was mine to know?

That evening, grateful for the comforting presence I felt in our home, a long journey behind me, I sat down at the computer and wrote him.  "Honey I just got back from my Seattle/ San Francisco journey and it feels so very good and so very magical to be back in our home.  I just lit a candle and looked at your picture and I am just thinking that you have been in touch with me as much as is right right now but who knows what the future will bring?  You were so with me God bless your soul getting through to all of my friends and sharing your love your big old heart how can it be that such deep rivers run underneath the surface of our lives here on Earth?  It is almost too much to bear to think of it."

"Yes baby I don't really have any doubts anymore about your presence or your love or your involvement, it just keeps on changing, and here we are six months down the road.  I guess we are in a sacred time aren't we and the only thing I feel for you is love love that increases that grows in intensity with the passage of time that's OK because I am pushing the envelope as I say in your being so very much with me.  You have always taught me to love and you continue to do so."

"Do you want to come through?"  At that moment, a chill running through me, the following words flowed out in response.

Tired and full of love, I gratefully sank into the comfort of my own bed and fell into a dreamless sleep.

To: Chapter 42

…Leake Street lives and to come together again and rebond and join and conjure memories of past trips to present realities and we smile at the knowledge of our eternal communal oneness…it will live again we will and you and I will go together to be reunited.

                                                                                 –Scott, April 1990, Journal Entry

Sioux Camp. Paintings by George Catlin.

LATER that evening, in the small living room of Jeff's apartment, I watched him prepare the space for a journey.  He had made and decorated with paint, leather, and feathers all of the implements used in the ceremony by his own hand, investing them with the sacred energy of his intention.  Dean, familiar with the ritual, sat ready in a nearby chair with a small leather drum and mallet while Jeff began marking out the space.  Jeff fluidly moved around the borders he had delineated on the carpeted living room floor, moving from side to side as he stepped and occasionally twirling about.  Shaking a rattle as he went, stopping to offer prayers in the four directions and intoning a Native American chant, he rhythmically shuffled around its borders.  The soft glow of numerous flickering candles provided the only light in the deep shadows surrounding us. Watching this surreal scene unfold before me from across the room, I found myself thinking "This is right up there with the bizarre experiences of my life." 

Jeff was obviously sincere, intent on his focus as he sang and moved, but I found his actions somewhat ridiculous.  Trying to keep an open mind, recognizing that he was making this journey for me as a gift, in friendship, I nevertheless found these reflections of ancient culture jarring in this modern Seattle apartment.  "Could Indians have completed these rituals," I pondered cynically, "had they been indoors, in an apartment complex, surrounded by a t.v., mountains of stereo equipment, and a computer?"  Irritated by the harping quality of my wandering thoughts, aware that I was not mentally present, I feared that I might be missing a valuable opportunity.  "Shut up with the noise," I coached myself. "Relax and give this a good try."

Just about then, Jeff stopped his motion and turned to me.  "Come on in," he invited, "and lay down right here."  Looking up at me from a kneeling position as he patted a place on the floor, he repeated "Right here.  Just make yourself comfortable.  There is nothing you need to do.  Just try and relax, be present."  "O.K.," I said, doing my best to surrender to the experience.  "How will this work?," I heard myself thinking as I lay down, "What will happen now?  What if nothing happens?"  Quiet, I reminded myself, just try and "be here."  At that moment a thunderstorm of self-doubt drifted in with its torrents of acid rain, and a distracting inner war began to take shape.  "This shit's for the birds," one voice attacked, while another responded weakly "Why not give it a chance?"  "I can do this, and it could be important," affirmed one voice, while my inner bitch replied snidely and devastatingly "Give it up, loser."  And so on. 

The above voices may be dramatized just a bit for dramatic effect, but the seeds of conflict lie within us all.  As I finally waved the white flag on the great "non-fight" within, my mind began to still and my heart open up to the experience, in whatever form it might take. Just then Jeff laid down immediately next to me, almost touching, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.  Slowly, in a pulsing and monotonous rhythm, Dean began gently pounding on the drum.  Jeff lay quiet next to me, his breathing slower and deeper as time passed.  He must be descending into the underworld and meeting up with his helpers, I thought as I waited.  Suddenly, he softly said "he's here." 

Eyes closed, Jeff then reached over and laid his hand on my chest.  I felt a chill, like a current of energy, pass between us.  As in a dream, his slow, soft words hung in the air, drum beat in the background, as he narrated his journey.  "We're walking up this road.  It's dark, and there are trees surrounding us on all sides." "It looks like a rural area.  At the end of this road, there's this big old house.  The house is empty.  No one lives here anymore."  My God, I thought to myself as he spoke, he's describing Leake Street. 

Thinking back, I realized that I hadn't mentioned to Jeff  anything at all about my recent visit there in any of our conversations. "A lot of the windows are broken," he said, just as if he were there, looking around.  "There's a porch along one side of the house.  We're going in now."  After a few moments of silence, he proceeded to speak.  "We're standing in this empty room, on a dirt floor.  It's dark in here, but there's a little light coming in through the windows.  He's pointing to a book, laying there open on the floor.  It's a big, thick book, it looks really old, bound in brown leather.  He's pointing to the pages.  They're densely filled in," he continued, "with typed and handwritten words."

"This book is a gift for you.  Its words are full of energy, full of power, and it is meant for you."  After a moment, he continued.  "Scott's picking up the book now and lifting it above your head.  Now he's holding it with both hands, and bringing the book down into your head.  It is becoming part of you.  It is something that you are meant to have." 

Even as he spoke, my mind raced with questions, the endless possibilities in interpreting this dreamlike message.  I knew he was talking about Leake Street, but what was the meaning of this book?  Jeff's description of handwritten text brought to mind Scott's journals and the treasures I had found there, reminding me of Dee's message, "He wants you to listen to the words."

"He's smiling," Jeff said, "and turning around to go."  Then, as if in closing, I heard him ask "Do you have something for me to give Paul?"  After a moment, he said "Tell Paul that he's a Snapple."  I laughed.  "What?"  "That's what he said.  'Tell him he's a Snapple.'"  The journey was over.  After a few minutes, Jeff brought himself slowly back to consciousness, and we discussed the experience.  I told him that I had no idea what Scott's closing message to me had been all about.  Maybe he'd been just playing.  Jeff thought it over.  "I get the strong feeling," he concluded, "that that was just a throw-in, an 'O.K. since you've asked,' kind of thing.  The heart of the message had already been communicated.  Maybe he was just making a joke about your thirst for communication?"

I really had no idea about that, but did feel that an important connection had been made that evening.  For some reason mysterious yet fully laden with power, Scott had led Jeff back with him to Leake Street, retracing once again the steps of the powerful journey made the month before.  Although like any dream the vision is laden with abundant possibilities of interpretation, including validation of spiritual companionship and sweet reassurances of homecoming at last, the spiritual gift I feel closest to the heart of its message relates to one great and good: the unfolding of the book sharing our love story of the spirit.

For the first time, but by no means the last, Scott had guided me strongly toward the writing of this book.  How much more literally could he have, through Jeff's vision, "put the idea of the book into my head?"  A seed had indeed been planted in my mind, one later cultivated by additional communications from Scott, ultimately bearing fruit and becoming manifest in reality.  The result is now in your hands. From his vantage point, breathtakingly free of limits, Scott then knew what I did not: that numerous inner doors would fling open for me, many crucial connections be made, during the writing of this book and the telling of our tale. 

He knew that the story of our ongoing communion must be told for reasons as huge of the needs of the human heart, for purposes larger by far than either of us individually.  As always, guiding me forward in love, he had provided an important key in the journey spread out before me.  Still another cornerstone had been laid upon my strengthening foundation. The next morning I left for San Francisco, where I spent the second week of my vacation before heading back to Miami.  Probably figuring that I deserved some time off, and had in any event been given a great deal to digest during my days in Seattle, Scott left me in peace during my stay there.  It was just a vacation.

To: Chapter 41

The Road to Terry’s P. Crockett

I am so grateful, God, that you have taken me along this path…and that everything that will happen in the future will happen like it will for a divine purpose and that I am part of that divine plan and that there is an inner light in me that shines forth that envelops me and those around with love…

Scott, March 1990 Journal Entry

FOLLOWING my arrival in Seattle, Jeff had told me about his friend Terry Muir. Like Jeff, he viewed life as a spiritual journey, and over the years had studied the teachings and spiritual practices of different gurus. "He's done some really good work," Jeff said, "and plus I think you'll really like him." Accordingly, he had made plans for the three of us to get together for conversation and a beer at Terry's place later that week. After dinner on Wednesday evening, only hours after meeting with Thunder Cloud, we began the drive up the steep, narrow hillside road to Terry's apartment. On our immediate right grew a deep forest, tangled and lush, the sharp angle of its upward growth reflecting the steepness and height of the slope on which it had thrived for unknown ages.

As we continued our climb, the headlights bouncing before us fleetingly illuminated a rich range of forest colors often hidden in nighttime shadow, shades delicate and robust, mint green to light gold to deepest emerald. Despite the "rank and file" thickness of the entangled forest wall, a few branches had broken through and arched graciously overhead, delicate foliage gently surrounding. To our left, the headlights cast into silhouette the row of grand old trees perched defiantly on land's edge, marking the hill's sudden and steep plunge into the depths of the valley stretching out far below. This lower realm remained always hushed in its distance, and inky black against the nighttime sky, but the higher we climbed the more it seemed as if the twinkling city lights sparkling so abundantly below shone just as the stars above.

At the very end of this street, surrounded only by forest, sat Terry's apartment. Quite a sight, I thought as we got of the car, starry sky above, the abyss waiting just beyond the road, the warm yellow light of the home's windows framed liquid in blue darkness. Opening the screen door to his porch, letting light pour out into the shadows, he warmly greeted Jeff and shook my hand in introduction. He had recently broken his foot and hobbled stiffly, his left foot in a cast. Sinking gratefully back into the comfortable living room sofa, he invited us to grab a cold beer from the refrigerator. He was a professional musician, I learned, and his huge cello and a music stand, sheet music flung about, filled one corner of the room.

Terry was easy to like, a soft-spoken and intelligent man. In that comfortable setting, beer in hand, we fell into a discussion about life, great mysteries, and matters of the spirit. He spoke of some of the lessons studied under the gurus whose framed pictures decorated the walls, and the three of us compared notes on our journeys. In a rambling, easy discussion, we talked about the experience Jeff and I had shared that afternoon with Thunder Cloud, the infinite variations on the theme of a spiritual journey, and the purposes of meditation. In a very short time, it seemed as if we had known each other for years.

And we were about to share an unexpected and powerful experience. "The most effective meditation I've found," Terry told me in the course of our conversation, "is the 'I Am.' That's the one that will really put you right in touch with yourself." At that point, I didn't make the connection between his words and those I'd heard from the psychic in St. Petersburg almost exactly ten years before. "What you do as you breathe in and out, finding your center," he explained, "is to take all the 'labels' that you might identify yourself with, all of your defining characteristics, and just toss them all onto a great big pile. Give 'em up. Take 'Paul the lawyer,' then 'Paul the author,' 'Paul the man,' then 'Paul the gay man,' and so on, cast them all on the pile. And then see what you have left. The deeper you're ready to go, the more you'll be willing to give up."
"And finally," he paused, "what is left?" He casually looked my way as if he may or may not have been expecting a response, but none was forthcoming. I found the idea disturbing, almost agitating, and told him so. I quickly retreated to my intellectual mind. "That seems useless," I complained, "like peeling away the layers of an onion and not getting anywhere." I was proud of my accomplishments, proud of the reputations I had earned over the years as a man, an attorney, and an artist. I was proud of having been Scott's lover, and proud of carrying his memory. If I'd acquired all these qualities through hard experience, paid the high price required by many of these facets of my life, should they not remain part of my spiritual search? To my ears, Terry's "meditation practice" sounded like self-sabotage, even self-annihilation.

I now understand that the practice of which he spoke was oriented not towards the casting aside of one's essential identity, trivializing life's hard-bought lessons and discarding precious experience acquired along the way, but rather toward freeing oneself, coming to understand how much more we are than any of the labels or limitations we or any others might have attached to ourselves. The core of the practice was not nihilism, but rather a stripping away of the tawdry baubles that serve only to mask our true glory. I also see more clearly now another reason why the idea so offended me on such a visceral level. Only months before I felt that I had lost Scott forever, and been able only to helplessly stand by as each of his unique qualities and the totality of his wealth of experience was sucked into an infinite black void. And before that all of Rob's attributes had been similarly lost to the world, and a host of others' as well. Terry's innocent suggestion reawakened in me those layers of pain, carried unaware.

Standing in the Shadows of Love P. Crockett

"HOW COME Scott's on the other side," I fired back at him in frustration, "and he gets to keep his personality and I don't? That just doesn't make sense." Gentle Terry, somewhat stunned by the ferocity of my reaction, sat quietly for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. Picking up on the tension in the room, Jeff turned my way and interjected with the suggestion that "You might want to think about just giving it a try to meditate on the words, 'I Am,' and see what that does for you." He paused for a moment, glancing quickly over at Terry and then back toward me. "Maybe the feelings will follow."

At that precise moment, time suddenly seemed to stand still. Jeff's body seemed to visibly sink down into his chair, his body loosening like a marionette's and appearing to vibrate, his eyelids fluttering. The air in the room suddenly turned radiant and golden, taking on an almost liquid texture, or that of a thick cloud. As an intense and undeniable energy filled the room, I felt almost unable to move, my entire being vibrating. On one level, I thought "What is going on here?" On another, all I could do was experience the wave now crashing over the room, catching up the three of us within its powerful wake. I could recall experiencing this level of energy only once before, during the phone conversation with Daviea just before the first channeling on Easter Sunday. As within a dream, I looked toward Terry and Jeff and saw them, impossibly far away, vibrating but at the same time frozen in place. Ordinary perception had been turned on its head. The colors, textures and sense of depth I'd always known had suddenly fled, leaving in their stead a bizarre tableaux that might as well have depicted a different dimension, vibrating intensely yet nevertheless fixed in the flatness and distance of a sepiatone photograph.

As if in slow motion, Jeff turned his head toward me, eyes half open, and slowly said "Scott is standing there by you, smiling. He's put his hand on your head." Just then I seemed to sink deeper within the chair, surrendering to the overwhelming energy now vibrating strongly within and all around me. Speaking from within his vision, Jeff continued. "He's trying to reach you face-to-face in order to remove your doubt." Even as he spoke within that waking dream, I heard echoes of the exact words I'd heard from Denise Molini a few days before back in Miami Beach. "You and Scott chose this path, and are living out your plan." After pausing for moments that seemed an eternity, he went on. "He will heal you. He will show you the love that is in you, and he will help magnify it. You will come to understand, and then you will be. You will then see together what will happen from that. You will understand what is happening, and be free."

Though the occurrence seemed to last hours, possibly a lifetime, only a few minutes had passed by the clock. The air within the room was once again clear and still, and Jeff's eyes suddenly opened. He knew that something powerful had transpired, but had no memory of what he'd seen or the message he'd conveyed. Indeed, we had all been so physically affected by the energy in the room, the pure power of the presence, that the verbal messages seemed almost secondary in importance. At times, words can indeed be cumbersome.

We talked a little afterward, but all somehow knew that the evening had run its course. Shortly thereafter we hugged Terry, said our good-byes, and headed back home for a good night's sleep.

To: Chapter 39

On a day like today I affirm with you vows made to God to raise me to my greatest good and emit my inner light to you to bathe you in my peace and fill us with our spirit and reflect divine order on the disorder of our past and know the traveled path has led to present perfection filled with love and ever daily knowing right and truth and we.

                                            –Scott, March 1990, Journal Entry

"O.K., now, this might seem a little strange," said David, "but you're going to need to listen carefully to what I tell you and follow my instructions exactly." "No problem," I replied, ready to follow him into this new realm. "Paul, is there a small mirror just behind you? I think it's framed in wood." "I don't think so," I said, swiveling around in my office chair. "Wait a minute, maybe this is what you're talking about." I looked at the small, free-standing wooden picture frame in which I'd placed the last picture taken of Scott, noting my faint reflection in its shiny glass. I loved the image, snapped by his brother during our last weekend visit to his home, though it was only months after his death I was able to look at it without crying. It captured a moment, terrible in its sweetness and simplicity, of a life now forever gone. 

It's a sunny Florida winter morning in West Palm Beach, where we've headed for a short, casual road trip along with our friend Hal Boedeker (on the L). We have enjoyed a simple breakfast together and are preparing to head back home. We are just playing, genuinely happy to be together, and my left arm is wrapped around Scott's chest as I pull him close to me.  His battle with illness has taken us on a long and difficult journey, but he feels good that morning and is happy to have been able to take the trip and spend time with his brother. We are fully conscious of each other's love and are savoring the simple moment. As Scott grins at his brother, his sweet expression reflecting a tenderness and honesty I I'd come to rely upon, I'm pulling him to me and licking his right ear with a dramatic flourish. It's been a long journey, but a beautiful one, and no two people could be any more easy together, nor deeper in love. We have dearly earned our joy. After his death, the very joy and simplicity captured in the image hammered down my despair like a rusty nail, and held me down, hard.

That part of me, it seemed, the part most alive and in the moment, had died along with my beloved. Nevertheless, the shot captured his essence beautifully, and a simple light moment made sweet in the sharing, and I eventually brought it into the office to enjoy as I worked.

"You might be talking about this little picture frame," I said to David. "Yes, that's it," he replied. "Just what we need to bring him through. All right, you ready?" "Sure," I answered, part of me standing tentatively on the edge of another daunting cliff, as usual. "O.K., now put your left hand behind the left side of the back of your head. Think of it as kind of tuning in to a signal. Now tilt your head a couple degrees to the right." As I followed his directions, full of curiosity but also feeling vaguely ridiculous, he said "That's good. Just a little more to the right, please." After a moment, he continued. "That's fine. He's there, and ready. He's holding on to the left side of the frame of that photo behind you. Now you turn around and put your hand on the right side, and we'll have a completed connection."

At that point, David's voice changed in its tone and cadence, and he slowly spoke the words I'm here with you. A moment later, he said I love you, and then It's different than you think. Try not to think about the other side in terms of like where you are. "Interesting," I thought to myself, recalling the words from the first channeling, "It's a little hard to describe but everything is different but I am so much the same and I'm so very much with you and I always will be baby." "Could that be coincidence?," I wondered. "I guess the ideas are general, but they are exactly what was said in the letter."

David's next words, spoken quietly, immediately took my breath away and shut off my mental noise. You know I've been there with you, he continued. You knew I was there with you that morning when I was standing by the side of your bed. You were awake, and you knew that I was there. You called out to me, and I heard you." "My God," I thought, "he's really bringing Scott through! He's talking about the visitation in Washington." It seemed to me confirmation that the language he was using sounded almost exactly like Dee's words foretelling the experience, "…he's showing me that he was there with you…and you were awake, you knew he'd been there with you."

Intense emotion flooded through me as I listened to David's words, bringing to mind the ecstasy of that sacred experience and again making it new. In that blessed moment of communion, the walls of painful separation had all come crashing down, leaving no barriers between me and my deepest heart's desire. In sheer joy I'd breathlessly called out "Honey!!," and been reawakened by pure energy to the dream of my "regular life." But, just as Dee had foretold, I had known he'd been with me. And, in a sense, I was left more awake after the experience than before. I was forever transformed.

Now, my breath was taken away by the implications of David's message. Not only had Scott been with me that night in Washington, and heard my heart's loud cry, but he was here with me now in my South Beach law office. I felt that he was speaking directly to me, but this was no dream. This time, the afternoon light shone bright outside my office windows and I was fully awake. If a dream state had once been required for communication, it seemed that was no longer the case. Was this "progress," or the natural unfolding of our journey together? If so, where would it all end, and what could it all mean? As David continued, I wasn't given much time to ponder.

You are afraid, he said. You're still afraid. Let go of that. I will be with you for a good long while. You'll see a lot in the next few months, David concluded. You will be seeing signs. I'll see you in dreams. David spoke on, with words that cut me to the heart but which I've now lost because I was left stunned by their impact, and been unable to take notes during the session. Within a few minutes the trance state had come to an end.

"What just happened?," he quietly asked. "What do you mean, 'what just happened?,'" I replied in a bewildered tone. "I don't remember anything from the time I asked you to put your hand on the right side of the frame." Like Jeff back in Seattle, he apparently carried no memory of his words or experience while in the trance state. "David," I told him, "it was really amazing. He really spoke through you." I reminded him of the substance of his words, and discussed with him the mental links to the channeled letter that had been triggered in me.

I expressed to him my shock, and joy, at this unexpected Tuesday afternoon communion. At the end of our conversation, he said in closing "Paul, I'm really glad I could be of assistance. I'm sure we'll be talking again." "Wait a minute," I said, "how much do I owe you for your time?" "Don't worry about that," he replied. "I see my talents as a gift from God, meant to me to share. So there's no charge for this one. I'm just glad I was able to help."

"Thank you so much," I said gratefully. "David, you'll never know how much I appreciate what you shared with me today." "No problem," he said easily, signing off. "Good-bye, now." Hanging up, hearing the distant ringing of the office phones just beyond my closed door, the ordinary chaos of another day in the office, I turned to stare out of the window.