Trip the Light Fantastic

By Tracy Glassey

Abigail Gray is a dance instructor whose life tragically ends at the age of thirty-four. She is welcomed to the other sidein a room of pure whiteby her guardian angel, a brown book with gold accents, a movie screen, and a remote control. With no recollection of her death, the reel commences as Abbey and her guardian angel, Michael, focus on her last year on Earth.

In this year, we follow a journey of newfound love with a man named Jason, as well as a magical friendship with the spiritual intuitive who owns the towns apothecary shop. Acting as a mentor, this prestidigitator helps Abbey decipher the dreams that have been haunting her sleep since the day she bought the must have picture of a dancing couple, an item she found at the local antique shop. He also teaches her the importance of living her lifes truth.

As the reel of Abbeys life plays out, she and Michael embark on this visual journey together, while Michael carves a wooden sculpture and offers her heavenly wisdom about lifes fragility, opportunity, and purpose.
Inspirational ... a perfect blend of spiritual and earthly wisdom woven through a poignant love story.
~Christine Duminiak, certified grief recovery specialist, author of Heaven Talks to Children

As we follow Abbeys journey, we cannot help but pause for thought about our own personal beliefs and question the purpose of our own lives. The words of the author display a deep understanding of spiritual philosophy.
~Alison Baughman, numerologist, author of Get His Number!

In a story playfully sprinkled with fascinating trivia and spiritual wonder, Tracy Glassey explores the power of all the connections and influences we dont even realize are there, and in the process conveys a great deal of wisdom and practical life lessons.
~Ralph Marston, Greatday.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Sep 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781452573595

Tracy Glassey

Tracy Glassey began her writing career writing gift books, children's books, and articles in various children's magazines. Writing is her passion and it is her goal to inspire and connect with readers all around the world. Please visit her website~ www.tracyglassey.com

Book preview

Trip the

Light Fantastic

a love story about life and

a life story about love

Tracy Glassey

Edited by: Pamela Maliniak

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Copyright © 2014 Tracy Glassey.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com

1-[phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-7358-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-7360-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-7359-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013907851

Balboa Press rev. date: 09/25/2014

Table of Contents

Chapter 1:   The Meeting

Chapter 2:   Concept of Love

Chapter 3:   The Photograph

Chapter 4:   Moral Excellence

Chapter 5:   The Clock of Life

Chapter 6:   December 20th

Chapter 7:   Viscum Album

Chapter 8:   Resolutions

Chapter 9:   Forget-Me-Not

Chapter 10: Interpretations

Chapter 11: First Date

Chapter 12: The Authentic You

Chapter 13: Another Dream

Chapter 14: The Wishing Seat

Chapter 15: Sanskaras

Chapter 16: Something Amazing

Chapter 17: Nudges

Chapter 18: Fragility of Life

Chapter 19: Brave as a Lion

Chapter 20: Pocketful of Thistle

Chapter 21: Dissolving Past Lives

Chapter 22: The Launch

For Madeline and Mike ~

whose love of dance & each other has been a true inspiration.

♥♥♥

To every reader ~

May you live authentically, love unconditionally and listen to the whisper of your soul.

♥♥♥

For my Father ~

whose love and guidance will always be remembered, felt and validated through symbolic expression.

Extraordinary Advance Praise for Trip the Light Fantastic

Inspirational … a perfect blend of spiritual and earthly wisdom woven through a poignant love story to explain why God allows human suffering. You will find yourself getting lost in this story and not able to put it down! If you are hurting in any way, this book will bring you an enormous amount of peace and comfort.

~Christine Duminiak, certified grief recovery specialist, author of Heaven Talks To Children

Thought-provoking messages about our life purpose and our spiritual connection are interwoven in this fictional story about Abbey Gray, her life and death. As we follow Abbey’s journey we cannot help but pause for thought about our own personal beliefs and question the purpose of our own lives. The words of the author display a deep understanding of spiritual philosophy which is the basis for the story line.

~Alison Baughman, professional numerologist. spiritual teacher, radio host, author of Get His Number!

"With Trip the Light Fantastic, Tracy Glassey gives readers the opportunity to see life in all its richness from a unique, eternal perspective. In a story playfully sprinkled with fascinating trivia and spiritual wonder, she explores the power of all those connections and influences we don’t even realize are there, and in the process conveys a great deal of wisdom and practical life lessons."

~Ralph Marston - Greatday.com

Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.

~W. Clement Stone

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

~Romans 12:12

The Meeting

I feel free. I feel happy. I feel at peace. There is a man with a familiar face walking toward me. He has dark hair, olive-colored skin, and he is dressed in white. He is holding something in his hand—it appears to be a remote control. He is coming closer, he is smiling, and he is gorgeous. How do I know this man?

Hello, Abigail Marie Gray, he says softly.

I am speechless.

He hands me the remote and tells me to push the orange triangle. As I look over the gadget, a huge screen rolls down before my eyes. I feel as though I am about to watch a romantic movie. Hey, where’s the popcorn? Actually, where the heck am I? I find the triangular orange button and push it. The gorgeous man smiles at me.

The screen in front of us displays video of a white Volkswagen Jetta parked in a garage. It is my garage, and it is my car—my very dirty car. And sure enough, there I am, entering the garage from the house. I watch as I fumble for my keys and get into the car. Though the scene feels very familiar, I cannot place where I am going or why I look so scared. The garage door opens, and I back out into the driveway. Everything is blanketed in white; it is snowing. Hail begins to hit the roof of my car. I clearly remember this night.

Sitting here, watching myself on this screen, I begin to acutely relive the sensations and emotions playing out before my eyes. My hands tremble. They are freezing, and I am nervous, which is only exacerbated by the fact that I just slid straight through the stop sign at the end of my street. The DJ on the radio says snow accumulations are expected to approach or exceed six inches in twelve hours and will be accompanied by significant wind. He encourages everyone to stay at home. I start to cry. I begin to pray.

Please God, let me get to Jason in one piece.

Angels above, please let his plane land safely.

Making a right-hand turn out of my neighborhood, I find myself behind a red truck with a plow and am happy for a brief moment. The ice continues to accumulate on my wipers, and I can barely see through my windshield, but following this truck would make my trip easier. I pray again. My palms are sweating, my stomach is churning, and my heart is racing. The airport is fifty miles away. God, I hope this truck is going the same place that I am.

I continue my ride. Time passes, and I am still following the red truck. Looking to the roof of my car, I thank God for hearing my request. As Simon and Garfunkel’s Cecilia winds down on the radio, I feel happy again for a moment and remarkably less alone. There is something so comforting in hearing a favorite song, especially in moments of helplessness. I breathe. The DJ announces that it is Double Shot Friday and rewards us with Slip Sliding Away. How appropriate. I slide, listening to the song tell me that I’m closer to my destination the further I slip. But the plowman is still with me, and all is well for now. I start to feel hot and turn down the heat in the car.

The movie screen fades to black.

Though the video has stopped, I cannot avert my attention from the screen. The man with the olive-colored skin taps my shoulder. Turning to him, I try to speak, but the words remain tucked in my throat. They are stuck without a chance of moving. He nods in apparent understanding and tells me to push the orange triangle a second time. Complying, I press the button and gaze up again in anticipation of the movie of me.

I watch as I pull into the airport, looking incredibly relieved. I park the car, quickly get out, and slip on the ice. Wait! I scream, moving toward the red truck as fast as I can without falling. The driver starts the engine and begins pulling away. He turns around and looks through his back window. Smiling, he waves to me.

The movie screen fades to black, again.

My name is Michael, says the gorgeous, black-haired man.

My jaw hits the floor in disbelief.

That was you? You are the plowman! My gosh, you are my angel, I manage to get out, all in one breath.

He chuckles, Thank you for the nickname, and I am indeed your angel.

Handing me an oversized book—brown with gold accents—he says, This is your life, my dear. Welcome to Heaven!

What? I slap myself. I pinch myself. I bite my hand.

How did I die? I ask. Where did I die? When did I die?

It’s all in the book, he answers. Your death, your first day of school, the day you broke your arm, even the day you graduated from college. It’s all in there. We’ve got the good days and the bad.

I turn to Michael and give him a hug.

Thank you for leading the way that night.

He winks and replies, I’ve watched over you since the day you were born.

I smile as this realization fills me with an overwhelming sense of joy and love. I am on cloud nine—literally. I am in Heaven!

Michael carefully opens the book and explains, This compendium serves as a blueprint of your life, and each chapter is numbered. Enter any chapter code into the remote control to watch it play out on the screen.

I can review my entire life?

Yes, indeed, he answers.

I page through the book. As an outline of my entire life, it looks overwhelming, but I feel at ease and somewhat excited in scanning the very familiar titles. First Date, Trip to Disney, Dance Recital, and Wedding Day are among the list that goes on and on to include hundreds of entries, complete with subcategories.

In browsing the list, I notice a few of the subcategories are confusing as they contain names that seem unfamiliar to me. Under the Snow Storm entry in particular, I see one that is completely unfamiliar.

Who are the McGregors? I ask.

Go ahead. Enter their number, and push the orange button.

A woman, about 5'5" tall with brown hair and green eyes, sat on her bed as she folded laundry. While slender and incredibly beautiful, she was also visibly quite sad. A man entered the room with a beer in his hand and walked toward the window. He had brown, curly hair and looked to be at least eighty pounds overweight.

I bet we have four inches out there. I hope the roads are clear by noon tomorrow. I have a customer coming in to buy the grandfather clock.

That’s wonderful, said the lovely woman as she wiped tears from her eyes.

Emmie, why are you worrying? You will see your sister again. For Pete’s sake, she’s only going to rehab.

Screw you, Bob, she whispered, shaking her head. And then, aloud, There is a picture in the dining room. She left it at the front door with the note. I guess she thinks it may be worth money.

Walking into the dining room, the man flicked a light switch and lifted the picture from the floor, studying its ornate frame.

It appears to be a winner, honey! he yelled in the woman’s direction.

Way to go, Jenny, he mumbled, turning off the light.

The screen goes blank. The segment is over.

I bought that picture from Emmie’s Antique Shop! I note with excitement.

Michael nods his head.

A young girl with multicolored hair and body piercings helped me. She was a sore sight to the eyes but very sweet. I never met the owners, but I do have a dear friend named Jenny. Oh yes, I do love Jenny.

Michael smiles at me. He has a perfect smile.

As he hums Judy Garland’s majestic piece, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, I feel oddly jovial, and my thoughts wander to my students. I’ve been a dance instructor for fourteen years now, and I took up the art of dance myself at age four. A natural born performer, I still love the stage. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure how long it’s been since I’ve seen my students. I wish I could’ve said goodbye to them. I miss them, and I wonder if they miss me. To be honest, I still can’t believe that I’m no longer an earthly being, and I still have no idea how I died. And what about Jason? What about my adoptive parents, Bruce and Andrea Gray? I hope everyone is okay. My mom has been battling cancer ever since the doctor found a small tumor on her thyroid. She did undergo a successful surgery, and she’s been receiving radiation treatment for the past five months. Best of all, she just entered remission and has quit smoking. Nicotine free for eight months, three days, and six hours is the last update I recall. A recovering addict of any drug usually keeps a mental count … uh … forever.

I understand the mind of an addict. I was a cigarette smoker, just like my mother. While the designation of ‘addict’ may sound a bit over-the-top, it’s true. It was the hardest habit I ever had to break, and it took many attempts before final success, which felt much like parting with my best friend. Smoking went hand in hand with so many parts of my life: coffee-cigarette, meal-cigarette, alcohol-cigarette, stress-cigarette, accomplishment-cigarette, boredom-cigarette … you get the idea. Six months before I kicked my dirty habit, I was receiving signs to quit, which I attributed to being assistance from my angels. Each night, I fell asleep with the television on, and every night for two consecutive weeks, I woke up to something on the television related to cancer—no matter the channel, no matter the time. I can truly say that I felt a higher power working with me. Hey, maybe it was Michael all along.

Keep in mind the fact that I was not always a spiritual person. Raised Catholic, I attended twelve years of Catholic school and weekly masses until the age of fourteen. My parents managed to get the same front row seat every Sunday. To this day, I wonder if every family sat in the same pew each week, because it sure seemed that way to me. I put my faith and its practice on hold between ages fourteen and twenty-seven while I was busy being a teenager and young adult, finding my way in this world, creating fond memories, making wise choices, living through bad decisions, and learning from my mistakes.

Speaking of mistakes, I flip through the book, curious to see how many of my mistakes fill the pages of this brown and gold masterpiece. My Life with Dale, I read aloud. A feeling of doom takes over my body, and Michael reaches for my hand. His touch is soothing. I enter the code, hit the orange triangle, and watch myself again as the screen comes alive.

Abbey sat on a blanket in the park as she read a book titled MCAT. Having graduated with her B.A. in biology, she was contemplating the test required for admission to medical school. As Dale walked up the hill, she quickly closed the book.

You’re not really thinking about this, are you? You’ll probably fail the test, he shared, flexing his muscles for his own apparent enjoyment.

Abbey ignored him and kept her mouth shut. As she arose from the blanket, he grabbed the book from her hands and threw it to the ground.

You are wasting your time!

Once again, she ignored him.

The screen flickers and then turns black.

I look at Michael, and as my eyes fill with tears, he tells me that it is okay to cry.

My life with Dale was brutal. With verbal abuse pure as ethanol, he constantly degraded me. You see, in abusive relationships, the abuser can be either as cruel as Osama Bin Laden or as sweet as Mother Teresa. You live each day hopeful for the saint to show, knowing that terror is right around the corner. I was Dale’s puppet, his maid, and his punching bag.

There was a point in time that I did love Dale. But one day he snapped, and every ounce of good seeped out of him like sap from a tree. Dale drank, he smoked, and he cheated. He cursed, he yelled, and he criticized. He was a complete creep—toward me, that is. To others, he was a charming and cultivated individual. He discussed politics, told jokes, and always helped a friend in need. To put it mildly, if I had any hope of saving my marriage, I had to speak up. However, the more I spoke up, the more his anger increased. I went into therapy, and his response was to leave me for a woman named Kate. This act was actually a blessing in disguise. I am grateful that he moved on, but I will always feel saddened for her, his next victim. Maybe he will change. I truly hoped that for her, just as I had hoped it for myself. Regardless, the experience did change something, and that something was me. I learned how to stand up for myself and how to go after the things I truly wanted in life, with no fear.

Gently putting the remote down onto the white marble floor and walking over to Michael, I watch as he sits on a log and carves out some sort of miniature sculpture.

What are you making?

A woodcrafter never tells, he responds with a snicker.

So, is this it? I ask.

Is what it? he answers.

Heaven. Is it you and me, a log and a book, a knife and some wood, a screen and a remote—all on a marble floor? Capped off with a marble door? Is this it?

Well, we like to keep it simple, he says with a chuckle.

I reply, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

Ah, you’ve got it, Abbey. Leonardo da Vinci was right when he said that. What a truly universal genius.

Am I in purgatory?

No, he quickly responds. Why would you think that, Abbey?

Well, apparently I am dead, and I still have no clue how I died. I guess I pictured Heaven differently, you know? Clouds, angels, harps, golden gates, and—of course—GOD!

Well I’m here, and I am an angel, he reminds me. Let me tell you this, Abbey. You lived a beautiful life, and your soul will continue on, in eternal bliss, as soon as you finish your journey here with me.

I smile at Michael and say, You’re right. I did live a good life, and I am very proud of the person I am.

I am proud of you too, my darling. Hey, I want to show you something. Come with me to the screen.

Michael picks up the book and searches through the pages. He grabs the remote, enters the number 11, and pushes the orange triangle. I appear on the screen. However, this time I am ten years old. I am sitting at the kitchen table with my mom and dad.

I’ve told you a million times, I do not know anything about your biological parents, Abbey’s mother explained.

Her father chimed in, Abbey, put it to rest.

Abbey stood from her chair and swiped her plate, glass, and every piece of silverware onto the tile floor. Her face was bright red, and tears streamed quickly down her cheeks.

I hate you both, she bellowed, darting out the front door.

Running to the end of the street, she collapsed to the ground and cried for what felt like hours. Each time the tears began to let up, they would immediately start anew. She realized eventually that the sun was starting to make its descent, and she tried to pull herself together. Hearing music, she stood and walked toward the happy sound. Taking a deep breath and cracking a half smile, she found that the music was right in front of her … it was the ice cream man! The truck stopped and so did the uplifting tune.

Miss, can I get you something?

Maybe next time, she replied. I don’t have any money with me.

It’s on me. You look like you could use a sweet treat.

Abbey perused the selection and decided on a screwball. It seemed like the perfect choice, especially since she felt like a screwball for the way she had treated her parents. He handed her a napkin, a screwball, and a wooden stick. She thanked him and began to walk away.

Stop! she heard from the window of the truck.

As she twirled around, her eyes met with those of a completely different man. This one handed her yet another colorful ice cream bar in the shape of a butterfly with gumballs on its wings.

Here, take this, he said.

Thanks, she replied, completely puzzled.

No problem, he whispered. Keep your chin up, kid. Everything will be okay.

The screen turns black.

I grab the remote from Michael’s hands and hit myself over the