Laura is my love, my wife, my companion, and my best friend. When we met almost nine years ago, somehow I just knew without question that we would love each other beyond infinity to the end of time. It was the kind of love that people dream about and search for all their lives. Yes, it was that kind of love that burns into the breath of forever.   Our love quickly transcended, there are no words that could ever describe its intensity or its depth. Still, after years when I hold her hand and look into her eyes, no one else anywhere exists. Her grace causes any room to glow, I am still today in awe of her presence. We often smile at each other and say, “Always, forever, and only.”  I sat back and leaned on my pillows, how I loved the comfort and peace that I could always feel in our home. For me, it is a very safe place, one of solace. Yet, suddenly, I couldn’t feel the peace even here, where I had always bathed in its glory.  My mind faded to my recent memory of my last visit with a therapist, Dr. Angela. I recalled her last words to me, “Cathy, you do not suffer from any form of mental illness. First, I want to give you a test, a written test to see if what I think is going on is accurate. The questions are going to feel a bit off the beaten path, just answer them from within you. This could be a very revealing test that may really help your life”. I replied, “Why not, it can’t hurt, and might be a bit entertaining, sure.”

I took the test, it was indeed strange. Questions that seem to fit ESP, there were pages and pages of questions. It took well over an hour, but I wanted to cooperate, so I took the test. I gave it to the receptionist and it seemed as if I waited a very long while, before the door opened and Dr. Angela walked in, smiling like I had never seen her do before, she almost glowed. She looked like a cat that had caught the prize mouse! “Well,” I said breaking the silence, “am I mental or what?” I laughed, but only to relieve my nervousness.

“Oh no,” DR Angela said, “On the contrary you have an intelligent, strong and sound mind. However, you do possess gifts from the times of old, precious rare gifts.” She gathered my full attention as I questioned, “Gifts?? What gifts?” Cathy, she continued to explain, “don’t you know? Don’t you realize that you are an empath? I can see and feel more power in your spirit and your aura that I have seen for a very long time. Your presence is saturated with it. Perhaps your inner sight and imagination adds to its mystical magic f you will, from lack of a better phrase. This test confirms what I had suspected from the first time we met. You can get a total of 36 points, this is a psychic tests and guide to know what level of magical power you could be experiencing. Cathy, you scored very high, a 31.”   I raised my right eyebrow in disbelief, and by this time I was not questioning my own sanity, but the good doctors! Dr. Angela could see my reaction and smiled and said, “You are a door of mystery awaiting its key.” She realized I could not bear one more bit of information at this point, and knew it was very troubling to my spirit and understanding.   So she reached to touch my arm and stated, “All of this will take time for you to process, let’s break and continue with this on our next appointment time.” The moment she touched my arm, a powerful vision settle right before my eyes. One that I shall not ever forget.   In that one minute, time seemed to be frozen, as I saw myself clothed in full armor of the old biblical times. I held in my right hand a mighty sword. Behind me stood a legion of angels, I could hear their wings fluttering in the breeze. Then as quickly as I was taken into that vision, it ended. I blinked my eyes for a few seconds to make sure I was even awake.

Quietly I stood up and said, “Yes, Dr. Angela, that is a good idea, perhaps the next visit we will talk about this further, but I think I need to go, for now.” I walked to my car in a hazy fog. I sat in my car, lost in the past hour, I am not sure how long I sat there, and I just know it was a while before I could slide the key in the ignition. Finally, I made the trip home, still pondering on the discussions that took place at the doctor’s office.  I thought, what will I do with all of this? How can I block the many voices that invade my ears? Does this mean I am a freak? Or perhaps a mutant from the inside?? I always knew I was different, but never this different! Displaced maybe, but this feels as if I am not even from earth! How will I, how can I even begin this journey? What lies ahead from here? I knew one thing for sure, if I told anyone any of this they would think I had fallen off the deep end of the pool and hit my head!! I mean, come on!

No, if I am considering taking this journey, I must travel it all alone. Yet, what about Laura? I was going to have to tell her, we have not ever had a secret from each other, and she would instantly know something was bothering me. She would ask about my doctor’s visit, she always does, because she cares, and I knew I could not lie. I had a special discontent for anyone who uttered any level of lie, and I could not lie to my sweet Laura anyway. Oh yes, I had to tell her, but how? How was I going to tell her all of this without her thinking I had gone on a permanent vacation!

That evening Laura came cheerfully in the door from her day of work. She smiled at me and said, “Hi baby. So, how was your appointment today with Dr. Angela?”   My emotions suddenly burst into tears. Without a word, Laura quietly sat beside me and waited for me to be okay enough to share the events of my day with her. We rarely spoke cross with each other, let alone ever argued. Our home and relationship is what most people dream about and search endlessly for. The kind of love we shared, most would say it was too good to be true, yet for us, it’s a reality. For Laura, were my dream and my reality all at once. We would love each other until the end of time, and without conditions. This had always been our way.

Slowly, I began to unfold the events of my day, of my appointment. Laura listened carefully to every word. When I had finished telling her about everything, silence filled the room, it seemed like hours, when only a few moments had actually passed. We both just sat there, surrounded by the hushing air and the beat of our hearts, you could almost hear.   Finally my nervous chuckle broke the silence as I said, “I know, oh yes, -- ahh, I do know!” We both laughed. She opened her arms as I melted there, as she gently spoke to me, “I always knew you were gifted.” Laura whispered. “Gifted?” I exclaimed, “you mean cursed!” Then Laura’s positive way came into play as she spoke with energy, “Now baby, this could be very good! Right? I mean she said no mental illness, right?” I gave her a weak attempt of a smile, and replied, “right.”

She wiped my tears from my wet, blue eyes and I rested my head gently on her shoulder. Oh the world always seemed perfect there, in Laura’s arms. One thing that was constantly certain was that she always believed in me.

A few months earlier, I had started to learn Hatha Yoga. It was for the five spine surgeries that had failed. I have a degenerative spine disease. You hear a lot about degenerative disc disease, but mine was the whole spine. It slowly is crumbling bit by bit without any known way to stop its progress of devastation. I had tried every type of treatment or therapy that I could find.   Each day the disease took a little more out of me, for there was nothing that could be done to stop the disease. But, by this time, I would have settled for the horrible pain and a few symptoms to be lessened. The last few years my condition had grown much worse, along with my other issues, my arthritis, my high blood pressure, my heart disease, and the list goes on and on.

Yet, my stubborn nature refused to give up. I knew it was not my time to leave this world, not yet, anyway. I would continue as long as God saw fit. I began to notice that the yoga was really helping me feel better, more than just my body, but also improving the way I saw things from the inside. For the last several years I had been taking some powerful drugs to help me survive the pain, the agony of my weak limbs.

The doses of morphine were being increased more and more. That was until yoga touched my spirit. Its guiding meditations taught me many things, especially how to focus away from my horrible pain that constantly haunted and invaded my body. I found the passage to my centered peace. When my body and spirit were consumed with chaos, it would be yoga that would guide my way back to my heart, and help me find my balance within.  My yoga instructor, Irma, was incredible. Yes, she just knew things without being told, amazing things, specific things about me and my past, things that was impossible for her to know. Things I had not told anyone. She seemed to have a looking glass into my hidden past.

I was in awe of her, there was some connection between us, I could not explain. One thing, I was not aware of is Irma would be a major key in opening Laura’s mind to see more than she could taste, touch, or feel, like most are bound to see only within these measures. Laura would soon see a much deeper reality. That night, I softly spoke my hearts prayer:

“Lord, please guide us to those people who will shed light on our path that you have us to walk. Open our eyes Lord, let us truly see. I ask these things in the name of Christ, Jesus amen.”   I lay down beside Laura who was already sleeping. Laying my head on my pillows, I closed my eyes and smiled, for I knew the dawn would bring many new things, new challenges, and most of all -- new beginnings! As I woke up the following morning, I realized I would have some in-depth research on first what an empath truly meant. I began reading all the books I could find, listening to all the tapes I could locate, and began searching the vast knowledge that was on the Internet.

My research took me to how to be a beginner in exercising its gifts. Laura was trying so hard to join in my enthusiasm, but her understanding was not complete enough to muster up the excitement within her. Yet in time she would come to a better understanding, and I have always found it easy to have faith in her. I knew that God would direct our paths in this journey, I had no difficulty in believing that.  A couple of weeks later, Laura had told me of her desire to spend some time on our ranch up in Northern Arizona. We had a 40 acre ranch that was located about five hours away. We had purchased it a few years earlier so we would have a place to get away, and for the wild life to be able to run free and safe.

Our ranch was in the middle of the desert, raw land never lived on, and it was miles away from any living area. We held in our hearts an endless love for animals, so we bought a block of land where animals could always roam safe. Time grew closer for us to take that long, pleasant drive to our ranch. I was out watering our plants by our house and placed my hand on the car to rest for a moment when a vision sparked before me.   I saw our car break down in the middle of nowhere as we were driving to our ranch. We had no way to contact anyone for help, we were totally stranded. I heard these growing whispers that said, “Do not go. Stay home!” for our safety, as I was certain of what I had seen, I finally had to just tell Laura what I knew to be true, I was sure of it.  I told Laura all of what I had seen and heard, and that we should not make this trip, not at this time. She laughed it all off, thinking I was merely being silly and probably I worried too much. Time passed, I tried several more tomes to urge her to cancel our trip. Each time she really felt I was just worrying over nothing. After all no one can get a glimpse of the future, I mean really!

Out of real concern, for I was totally convinced of what I had seen that I finally told her, “Laura, I just can’t go, and I will not under any circumstances go, and if you feel you really need to go, you will have to go alone.” She became very frustrated and said, “well, all right! If you feel that strongly about it, we will wait and go some other time. Besides if you go when you really are against going, we wouldn’t have any fun anyway,”   At last! Yes at last she agreed not to take this trip that I knew we would soon regret. I knew she was merely humoring me, but I didn’t care, as long as we did not go, not this time anyway.   Two days later, our car broke down so severally, it took a repair shop over a week to fix it. Yes, we would have been stranded in the middle of the desert. I watched Laura transform and change right before me, she realized I had gotten a glimpse of things to come somehow. She started to believe that I could see, and did not again, question my visions, my second sight ever again. This helped Laura to open her mind to other possibilities, to see the unseen.

I began to take a closer look back into my past, there in the dark corners of my mind. In my teenage years I remembered some of the instances where I knew what was to come without any way to explain how I knew. One month before my uncle died when I was barely 16, I had a very vivid dream.   In this dream, I was in the back room of my mother’s church playing, it seemed to be something like a family reunion. I saw him clearly dressed in his brown suit and noticed the print pattern on his tie. I said with excitement, “Look everyone! It’s Uncle Hugh! Everyone look!”   No one seemed to hear me, my voice fell upon deaf ears. Uncle Hugh looked right at me and began to speak, “Please Cathy tells everyone I didn’t mean to die, I just didn’t mean to, I had not been sick before, I am not sure what really happened.” As quickly as he appeared, he faded away.

I woke up and gasped, “Oh my God, Uncle.” I dismissed it as a very bad dream. A month later, my uncle died while talking to his doctor. At the funeral I noticed that he was wearing not only the brown suit that I saw in my dream, but that very tie I had noticed. Was God trying to prepare me? Or perhaps I needed to help someone else to deal with uncle’s death. Had I failed? Oh, dear Lord, I knew a month ago, and I did nothing! My teenage heart was wrapped with grief.

Eight years later, when I was at work, I heard a very strong voice that said, “Go home! Your daddy (I was a real daddy’s girl) is going to die, go home! Go home NOW!” I was widowed a few years earlier, and had a daughter four years old, that adored her grandpa, I was going to take no chances, and so I rushed home as fast as my car could take me. When I got there, my mother, grandpa, step grandmother, and daughter were gathering around dad.

My dad, just got home from the hospital, the doctors told him he could not work any more, not one more day that he must completely retire. My dad lived for his work, he knew no other way. I looked at my family and softly told them, “Why don’t all of you go out to eat and visit a while, I will stay with daddy, really, it’s all right.” They quickly accepted my offer, and left for their favorite restaurant.

I talked to daddy a little while and then went to my old bedroom to write and to meditate. The walls in that house were paper thin, so I knew I could hear if he needed me for anything. Then that sound that haunted me over the years happened. That single breath that traveled through the walls, that last breath.

I walked into the living room to check on daddy, he was on the coach, his eyes fixed, he was gone! I had heard his last taken breath! I screamed, “NO DADDY!! Novo, not now, not with just me here! Dadddy, pleassseeeee NOOOOO!!” I sat down, I was in shock, and then dazed I picked up the phone and dialed 911. I barely remember my words to the police, “please help me, my daddy is dead!” I knew all the places where my mom ate, so it was not difficult to find her, and I urged her to rush to the hospital and I would meet her there.

My mother ran up to me, tears streaming down her face, she was terrified, panicked, yet I could not comfort her. Finally my mothers words came as she said, “Is he???” I said what must have seemed so cold, but inside I was dying myself, in a monotone voice, I said, “yes mother he is dead.”   Slowly I brought my memories of the past back to the present. I began to wonder, what this voice was, I have heard all my life, telling me things and giving me instruction. Was it God? Was it evil? Could some gifts have the power of a voice? Would I ever know, or perhaps would it stay a mystery?

Fear gripped my soul as I remembered many events that tried to warn me of the future, they seemed to be endless.   What profit could there be in knowing a bit of the future before it happened? Somehow, I knew these things at times seemed like a curse instead of gifts, yet in time these gifts would show their reasons for existing that lived deep inside of me. Yet, even still, I could have never been prepared for the next year of my journey, noting under heaven or in all of the earth could have prepared me for the upcoming events.   My life began to take form and change. Sometime later, about a month or so I would guess, on a Sunday afternoon, my health was feeling quite poor, so I laid down for a couple hours to take a nap. I woke up and could feel such desperation to the point of suicide. I recognized that this was a situational depression and that I had no situations to warrant such a depression for myself. For about an hour, I did not fully realize that this depression did not at all belong to me.

Then, it dawned on me, these feelings did not belong to me, but someone else. I whispered out loud, “ wait a minute, these feelings do not belong to me, they are not mine, who is feeling so desperate that their feelings would give birth inside my spirit? Someone is in trouble, who??” I knew these were dangerous feelings and could actually harm someone, and then I realized who they did belong to.

It was someone that Laura knew. I shared this with Laura, and urged her to call her friend and just tell her that she cared about what was going on with her life. I said, “please Laura calls her now!” I could hear Laura talking to her friend, Gracie’s answering machine, for her friend did not pick up the phone. She told her machine that she just felt she needed to call and let her know that there were people who cared, for we cared about her life and what was happening to her. Then I heard the phone slide back on its hook, as she hung up.   Several days later, that friend called and was amazed how we called her in that very moment when she was lost and filled with despair. She wanted to say thank you for helping her realize she was not all alone. Her friend, Gracie, asked me how I knew she was in such need of encouragement. I chuckled and replied, “oh do not question how I know things sometimes, just know I do and that we care very much. Know that God is watching over you and his angels are caring for you and your life.”

About the same time period, I would at times take on a physical illness temporary from others, their broken hearts, their disappointments and their physical illness and would go through it as if it was my own. I felt all that they experienced.

My emotions were being stretched way beyond its limits, at times, so much so, I would think, this has to be a curse! Who in their right mind would call this a gift? Why there is one person I knew when they would drink too much the vodka taste would sit in my mouth, I could taste it, and I hadn’t drunk a drop! I would call my friend, June and say, would you please stop trying to drink your troubles away! She would be in total shock of how I knew, how could I? No one knew!   There were also times, I would be talking to someone over the phone and my body would become red and inflamed with that person’s illness and when the redness and pain went away so did their own affliction! I didn’t know how to do this on purpose, it would just randomly happen or so it seemed to be random. Later, in my research I found this to be what the books call an empath healing. My spirit began to learn and be nourished, I was going to places within my essence that I never knew were possible. I wanted to know more, I needed to know more, to learn how to direct these gifts that seemed to be for now, way out of control! In reflection of just several years ago, I smiled as I remembered winning the international poets competition of 1500 poets with my piece of poetry.

The grand prize was awarded to me, it was twenty-five thousand dollars, the most they had ever awarded up to that time. It was called, “I Choose To Dance.” I looked over the crowd of over a thousand poets who had taken part in voting for me to be their queen of poetry, I was filled with such awe of them all, their talent and their faith in me.