Thirteen years ago today, my husband died. I’ve described many times that impossible experience of hearing the last beat of a loved one’s heart. I’m not writing about that. I’m going to get to joy here, but a little background first.
Mike died September 23, 2012. On September 23, 2013, my sister told me about an incredible medium she’d heard at a Unity church in Florida. “You have to watch her video. Rent it online. Do it.” I did. My life began to change from that moment forward. I know Mike made that happen. Seriously, ON his anniversary date? (It’s like my little dog Boo having enlisted the assistance of my friend Jayne to make a video for me ~ exactly one year before she died.)
By 2015, I was better. I was friendly with that incredible medium, the result of something I wrote on her Facebook page. Again, I’ve told it before. But in 2015, she gave me Brenda Bollmann Baker. I’ve written about that as well. And though Mike took credit for nudging Suzanne to connect us, I’m pretty convinced it was always going to happen. Brenda and I were destined to meet in this go-around.
Then the rollercoaster of life took a screaming, hands-throwing turn. Brenda died and became Suzanne’s mediumship guide. That story’s been told too. But I’m not sure I’ve written as much about the last year of Brenda’s life. Major surgery, multiple rounds of a brutal chemotherapy, radiation, radiation, and more chemo. And it didn’t work.
She asked me to help her go through it, so I did. She was my soul sister and I love(d) her, then and now. I went to Phoenix for most of a year. It was as challenging as anything I’ve ever been through, exceeded only by Mike’s illness and death. Brenda had just about every side effect people can have from chemotherapy.
She was violently ill, with raging mouth sores, vomiting vomiting vomiting, explosive discharge from the other end. Her entire digestive system was on fire and in rebellion from the onslaught of the chemicals. She was exhausted all the time, and just when she’d begin to feel a little better, maybe able to eat a few bites and keep it down, it was time for another dose. She had a heart attack. She got blood clots in her legs. Her hands and feet went numb and then burned as if they were in flame. Her vision got wonky. She couldn’t think or pray or meditate.
We were in and out of the emergency room again and again those nine months of treatment. The particular occasion I’m remembering today happened on the eve of the fifth anniversary of Mike’s death. We were in the ER and she was in agony from blood clots in her legs. We prayed, I did Reiki, we sang an old Lutheran hymn from our tender years spent in that church. We prayed some more.
At some point Brenda was just low level whimpering in bed. Where was I? Unable to do anything to alleviate her suffering, I was huddled in a chair in the corner, a blanket pulled over my head and I was crying too. Cocooning was the only way I could find comfort in that unbearable situation. I desperately wanted to be away. I’d promised her I’d stay, no matter what.
I heard a little voice from the bed, “call Suzanne.” Good lord, why hadn’t I thought of that. We called Suzanne. Please do something? Can you help? Will Sanaya help? She did. They did. Within a minute or two of that conversation, Brenda and I both felt a dense, curtain-like energy come down and around us, bringing a deep peace. We quit crying. Her pain diminished. It wasn’t the ultimate solution, but it saved us in that moment, for that evening.
When I think of being in that corner, hiding under a blanket, desperate to escape what was happening to my friend, I can hardly believe that the next morning found us laughing so hard in her hospital room that the nurses shushed us (while laughing too, because we were hilarious together).
This life is like that. It’s sorrow AND hours later, joy. It’s tears AND it’s laughter. It’s a riot. A rollercoaster. A crazy ass bull ride. There aren’t enough ways to describe how wild it can be ~ and then not wild at all ~ in the space of hours. Sometimes minutes.
The only certainty I will bet money on is AND. It’s going to be this AND that. It’s going to be fabulous AND fraught. Divine AND devastating. Sorrow AND sunshine. It’s going to be all of the things that human life brings and the safety, the only sanctuary, is in coming to know without doubt that this isn’t the only thing. That knowing is where peace can always be found.
After the energy curtain descended, people appeared and I was able to race home to get Brenda the things she needed to stay. And in the midst of all of that, Mike delivered a single copper penny to me. That story’s below from an old Facebook post. I knew he was with us, but to see the impossible right there, gleaming under the fluorescents was another thing entirely. Especially because it had been so very hard, and it was so very much like his last days. For two years before he died, he went through a wretched hell very much like Brenda’s last year.
Here’s more about the joy part: in the depths of grief, in the hardest times, when our hearts are destroyed and the wounds still bleeding, it is enraging to be told that it will change. And it gets better anyway. People are resilient. Our souls are always on duty, and our guides and angels and loved ones on the other side are always nudging us toward healing from the worst of it. Laughter will come again. Joy will appear when least expected.
It really can be infuriating when we’re in pain to be told that it will get better, AND that doesn’t make it any less true.
It’s been 13 years since Mike died. He’s still present with me, though in what I think of as an advisory capacity. In the beginning, I could feel him even in the worst of my grief: a warm hand on my shoulder, the comfort of his invisible-yet-somehow-physical presence (crazy magic, that). I learned to hear him. We had conversations. I’ve had so many beautiful mediumship readings.
He’s never going away because that’s impossible, but he’s content to wait and watch and be my cheerleader. I’m so glad for that. And I’m so grateful that I no longer need constant outside assurance that he’s here, though never a day goes by that I don’t think of him many times throughout the day.
I don’t need that because I know.
I used to hope. Then I believed. And now I know, which is certainty and assurance. He’s still here. We’ll be together again. He’s content to wait and to watch.
I’m listening to a Nessi Gomes song on repeat these days. It’s part of a breathwork practice I’ve been doing for a while now. These lyrics from Hold My Hand always snag me.
It will be over soon
Hold my hand
It will be over soon
When the nights will meet the day
And the day will melt the night
All our fears will fade away
All our darkness will turn to light.
And when that darkness turns to light, we’re Home again. Back with the ones we love, this life just a memory. I’m as happy as I’ve ever been today, and still, I can’t wait. ❤️
*********
And some magic with this post… I am getting ready to clear out of a dog sit with my precious little Wesley. Since my Boo died, I take care of other peoples’ dogs to fill that dog-shaped hole in my heart. This house is one of those lovely new — spotless — white houses. It’s gorgeous. There’s nothing extraneous around. As I’m loading up my things, there on the bathroom counter is this… A recreation of that night in Phoenix. Oh Mike.🙏🏻
An Unexpected Mystic 
Good Bless you Lynette. Mike must have been quite a guy. 💚 I know he loved your laugh. We all do! 🌱
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He was. So sweet and kind and open-hearted. He could make me laugh like no other. Thanks for reading, Babette. 🙌
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Thanks for this sharing today. You got me crying and hugging myself and sending love your way.
It’s even extra-special for me because this day is my Hubby’s birthday, also ‘gone’ since 2020. I keep the one shiny penny he gave me here on my desk beside the heart-shaped stone he made sure I found in the yard. I love the gifts: Improbable, significant, sweet, easily overlooked or dismissed, yet oh, so sacred.
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Well Marilee, this made me teary. Those little gifts, like breadcrumbs in the forest of grief leading us to healing. I am so glad you know too. Bless you. And thank you for reading. It means a lot to me. (And happy birthday to your sweetheart!! It’s a birthday. It’s a death day. This revolving door of earth life. When I finally go through it again, it will be the last time I do human. Done.❤️)
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Lynette, this is simply beautiful!I love th
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Thank you so much for reading. Bless you.
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My 24-year-old son passed in 2016. In 2018 I was connected with Suzanne as well and she was fabulous. It lifted such a weight off of my shoulders.
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She has been that gift to so many of us. I’m so glad you found comfort in her certainty and knowing. In AA, we used to tell new people struggling with the idea of a higher power, “believe that *I* believe, until you can find your own.” Suzanne not only believed, she *knew* and that made all the difference. Bless you, Allyson. Thanks for reading.
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You are a gift. Thank you.
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Oh Michele, YOU are the gift. Thanks for reading, dear one.
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Thirteen years. That makes me…pause. I’m approaching the 2nd anniversary of my husband’s death – he fell quietly and alone on a Montana hillside, near our rural home. Search and rescue personnel, neighbors, family…and he was found the next day. I’m certainly better than I was during those shell-shocked November days. I’d been following Suzanne and Sanaya for years by then, almost as though I was being prepped for this great, all-consuming loss. There were and are signs from him, and there was and is a knowing. But that ache is part of my life now, part of my every day. It’s ok; I’m ok. This…life. Sigh.
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Yeah, I kind of wondered if that would be discouraging to some people. I know we all deal with grief differently, and I have friends who have been widowed, married, divorced, and married again in the space of 13 years. That’s not my way. Mike was my one and only. The shock of that, oh my. In my widows’ group, we used to discuss which was worse: extended illness, suffering, death v. sudden, unexpected death. As you might imagine, we each wanted the other’s experience. But that is so very traumatic. Hoping, praying… devastating. I do know this. Yes, 13 years. You’ve two out. In my experience, the second year was the absolute worst. It got better from there, but year two was when it all got real. Suzanne’s work is a gift. I’m so, so grateful. AND I still want him back. I’m so sorry for your loss. 💔
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I just found out today that a friend suddenly lost her husband/soulmate yesterday. Your words of comfort and optimism are well-timed, Lynette. Right now as we sit with her grief, I’m sure she can’t even begin to imagine a more comforting future. But when the time is right, these words of yours will surely help me help guide her toward that. Palpable love. Thank you!
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I’m so sorry to hear that. Sudden is devastating. Yeah it’s pretty a common response that when our hearts are broken, the suggestion that it will get better creates an almost irresistible urge to administer a throat punch. In time…
Thank you for reading, my friend. It means a lot to me. 🙏🏻
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Another beautiful missive. Im struck with how much Brenda had to suffer. It’s hard to reconcile, isn’t it?
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It is hard to reconcile and I’ve been working on that for years now. Why so much suffering for some and virtually none for others? Karma would tell us the suffering is earned from bad deeds, but I’ve arrived at a different theory: we do life again and again, not because we’re forced to, but because we have (ultimately) joyful, enlightening, creative experiences in this art studio of life. (I am also deeply informed by my tortured mother’s assurance that, “even in the hard times, my soul was rejoicing.” Lord have mercy, really?? Her hard times were very VERY hard and yet she said it ~ and it’s been proven to me over time that she meant it.) So why the suffering? I don’t know if you’ve read Wolf’s Message, Suzanne’s book about Wolf Pasakarnis, or seen the documentary about his life? Wolf was deeply troubled in life, schizophrenic, he struggled, A LOT. And yet when Suzanne brought him through, she said that he was the of the highest vibration that she’d encountered to that point. How to rectify that? Serious suffering and yet a master spirit? WHAT IF the lives of trials and suffering are actually chosen because of the richness of the experience? Although past lives / future lives don’t make sense in the big picture of no time, no space, that concept of one life after another IS part of the earth experience. And it is the long experienced crusty old souls who choose to partake in the more challenging lives. It’s not punishment, it’s not a redo because of some past misdeeds (again, no past, just now). It’s because we would be utterly bored by the typical little primrose path kind of life. After 1000+ times of doing earth, give me some challenges!! (I know I said that at some point, but LORD, what was I thinking??) Our souls know that all is always well (even in the hard times, rejoicing). Our souls are entirely unharmed by anything that occurs here. Earth life is a story and we are each experiencing it solely to discover what it’s like to live human life as the Lynette story or as the WildlySuperb4e82ac1219 story.😍 No suffering is permanent, no trials or challenges affect us in any realm beyond this one, except in allowing us more understanding, more experiences, and we hope, more love. Thanks for reading, WSb4e82ac1219, it means a lot to me. (And sorry for the book in response.)
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Thank you, thank you, for your very generous response, which is how I’m coming to understand it, but sheesh, it’s heart-breaking to see the appalling suffering all the same.
I have read and seen Wolf’s Message. And many, many NDEs, and follow Suzanne (of course!).
I listened to Christopher Bach being interviewed recently on Sounds True by Tami Simon’s. He has a profound perspective from his lifetime of experience and research.
Thanks again, Lynette💛
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Wow, that’s such a thoughtful and generous-with-your time response.
Thank you.
Barbara Chevalier barbchev@gmail.com 0417 24 00 26
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Lynette, I’ve been getting to know you from watching Suzanne’s vlogs. It is warming to the heart that you still honor your strong connection to Mike.
I’m 21 months from the death of my partner. The first five months I was totally shut down sitting on the couch playing video games to occupy the time and my mind and heart. He did not pass easily, and had never even told me he had a terminal liver condition until it became evident that the progression could no longer be hidden. It was 2 months of raw nerves until it became clear his journey was coming to an end. My father had died 2 years before, and my mother 10 years before that. Someone once said the time it takes to grieve isn’t the same for everyone and for my mother’s passing, it was many years. I am glad that something motivated me to start living again after my partner’s death, but it continues to be a journey that continues.
As a bit of a late-bloomer I’m beginning to honor my spiritual connections. Spirit has always been near me, but I am now blessed to be able to connect more completely, thanks to Suzanne and her team.
I wish you much love and peace,
Rick
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I am so very sorry for the loss of your love, Rick. It sounds like a truly dreadful time after an awful surprise (what? Where did liver failure come from?) and a rough passing. Mike’s death was very complicated too and though he was ill, it was largely due to medical mistakes that he left when he did. Grief is hard enough, but when there are “extras” like we both experienced, it’s even more of a challenge. I will say that from my experience, sticking with Suzanne’s work and other evidence-based spiritual teachers can be very, very healing. Have you heard from your sweetheart? Had a reading? Thank you for reading, and for sharing your heart here. ❤️
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I am soaking up all of the spiritual learning I am able. He visited me in a dream, but just once. I’ve heard from guides, and two angels in meditation and dreams, but not him. I’m sure you realize the financial hardships after the loss of a love you shared mingled finances with. I do what I can afford, but sadly, a reading is not an option for now, as it is with many other courses and such. Still, there is so much available to learn from.
Sending energy,
R
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❤️❤️❤️
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I love your writing and learning more about Mike and Brenda. Thank you for sharing yourself so beautifully!
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And thank you for reading, Luna. ❤️
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It’s good to be back catching up. I’ve been in a cloud or fog since my husband passed Sept 16 2024. I have had pennies in curious places with year date of importance, recently my husband has sent me ‘snowberries’ a term we used in life to get each others attention . It started when I misunderstood the word ‘Snow buries skiers’ and queried what snowberries taste like! Got an eye roll from my new husband at the time. Well he is still getting my attention with the term popping up in knitting patterns and paint colors ! Thanks for sharing on Brenda. I love the stories and the connections with Suzanne. Love you. I guess life will sort itself out- I’m looking for direction, income and will trust it will be revealed!
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