This Is Not Goodbye: Anna’s Story

By Fiona Dennis

"It was a wet cold winter’s evening in 1973. A young woman called Anna stood on board a ship watching the lights of Liverpool get further and further away. Tears rolled down her bruised face as she clutched the bundle in her arms - her baby whom she adored, but knew she couldn't keep...Holding what should have been her future, she leaned against a dry patch of wood, and drifted into what seemed to be a daydream of what her life was and how she had pictured it."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fiona Dennis
• Release date: Dec 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781782802112

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Prologue

I have been a Spirit Medium from the moment I was born. Being born with the ‘VEIL’ was seen to be a very lucky omen back then and, as a child, my most vivid memory is that of my Silver Lady who used to come and visit me. I called her that because she would shine so brightly and, being just a child, I had no other word or meaning for her. She would take me travelling, showing me things that, back then, would frighten any young child. Now looking back on the last twenty odd years, she was just showing me the way to my future. I say this with a very big smile on my face; my plans never went the way I had ever expected. Normally, I would land in places unintentionally, but again, that was my ego and free will, as I am also human. Without fail, my Silver Lady would return always in the middle of the night, ready to chat or take me to places that I had never been. I was very reluctant to partake in this as it frightened me until one night; sitting in a small house that I lived in with my first-born daughter there she was, large as life in my sitting room.

My first reaction was to run like a scalded cat out the door but in a moment of utter calm and peace, I decided to just sit and stay put. If she was going to take me away, there was no point in me running. She would have found me. Looking back now she was talking to my soul and I understood each and every word. The emotion that had poured through me was one that I can only describe as real love. From that day on, she and I had long conversations. I had my questions that she would mirror straight back to me. I had to find the answers myself, although looking back, I already knew them. She had told me not to be afraid of the spirit beings that would come, as they were just looking for some way to connect with their loved ones who were grieving and searching for answers.

I rarely spoke of this to anyone as I thought they would think I was a crazy person who could have conversations with dead people. This was until one particular evening a lady knocked my door and asked me if I could help her. I thought immediately that she was lost and needing direction, but as my Silver Lady appeared and with a nod, I knew it was a different type of direction she was looking for. While I made her a cup of tea, there she sat gazing at me like she was waiting for the heavens; perhaps, to open and down would come some magnificent Angel. I, on the other side of the table, remember saying in my mind, Oh, holy God, I need help!

And there he stood beside her: a young man with his sallow skin smiling with the whitest teeth I’d ever seen. I told her this and what he was wearing. I will always remember the check shirt, his white T-shirt and blue jeans. It was then I began to feel the sharpest pain in my legs and arms and then my head. I felt violently sick. I could feel the pain that he had suffered. He began to tell me how he had got himself into trouble with the wrong type of people and how he had been beaten before his body had been dumped into a river. He said, they had tried to make it look like I killed myself but I would never have done this to my mother and my family.

Knowing how upsetting this ordeal had been I described all this to the lovely lady as gently as I possibly could, now sitting white faced beside me. All she could do was nod through the tears. He was such a bright young man she said. He gave her a single yellow rose to be passed as a message to his mother as he wanted them to know he was safe and well. And he was gone. As she left, she hugged me and I went back into my half-built kitchen and sat in sheer exhaustion and sorrow, thinking of how that young man had such a bright future, yet it had been snapped away so fast from him. One minute he was a great mechanic with talk of him opening his own garage. The next he was murdered.

From that first lady, people seemed to be finding their way to my home and my phone started to hop. That was my first ever client. Until then, I had only read the playing cards for family and friends, really just for a bit of light-hearted fun. Now, many years later, I am still working as a full-time medium and a mammy to three precious souls who chose me to be their guide on this human planet. To them I am so grateful, as they teach me every day in every way to stay in the present moment and be grateful to have the life force energy to cope with life’s ups and downs.

This book is written by the hands of spirit. I have been honoured to be chosen by Anna to write her life story in a way that I can only describe as brutal honesty and utter love. She had come to me through meditation and had asked me to write. I had told her I cannot type but would willingly sit with a pen and paper. She refused and insisted no, it must be typed. My problem here was that I was a one-finger typist and was completely useless on a computer, but she was quite persistent that it be typed. My reply was, Okay, I’ll give it a go. Sure what choice had I? She was there and ready to tell her story.

Sitting on my bed, we began. Hours would pass and I wouldn’t even know that I had been typing for hours. Yes, it was through Trance Mediumship that this book was written. I had only experienced trance mediumship when in the United Kingdom with my dearest friend Tracey Bayes and another fabulous medium, who had told me I would be writing soul stories many years ago.

Days passed into nights and early mornings as spirits do not have any sense of time barriers. They didn’t mind giving me a physical shove in the middle of the night and I would sit up and open the laptop and off they would go. It was as time passed that I had to stop as I was exhausted and drained. I needed to be able to still function as a single mum with three children and meeting everyone’s needs was a little struggle but the spirits were patient as they too could see I was tired as I was not only typing for them. I was also experiencing their emotional and physical pain to the point where I had left it alone and refused to touch the laptop for over twelve months.

This was until one morning after the children had been left to school I had this sudden urge to get home. I just needed to write. I could feel Anna lifting my energy in a way I had not felt before, but I knew that it was imperative that this story had to be finished, and over a period of another eight months of meditation and Mediumship (and may I add sore wrists) this is the end product of Anna’s story.

This is the story of a little girl who, from the beginning, had no real possibility of a nice future, but who had also a gift of seeing spirit. It details how she was left in an orphanage without anyone to look after her. She was left with no answers on even why she was there. Many people know about the horrendous treatment of girls and women in the Magdalene Laundries around the world. The beatings and mental torture would break the strongest of souls. Well, this is Anna’s version of her whole life and what she had gone through, from watching her mother being taken away to her brothers and sisters never to be seen until many years later. A Heart wrenching story of how she had eventually found love but it was to be short lived. A story of how each and every person she had loved had been snapped by the hands of death, taken from her just when things seemed to be going so well. From her life beginning in Ireland and then to the heart of London this story will hopefully touch the hearts of many people who have experienced any type of loss, love and abandonment in their own lives.

I need to acknowledge Anna as a beautiful soul and her companions in this story who not only are wonderful spirits but also the best companions I’ve had these last four years. I have gotten to know each and every one of them. Their personalities shine through as their true selves. The characters, their sense of humour and their sheer determination are what kept me typing.

To Anna, Millie, Edie, and Ella: thank you from the core of my soul for choosing me to write and tell your souls journeys. It has been not only my first time to write, but an experience that I will cherish until the day I step into spirit where we shall toast this book together. Until then, I hope I did you proud for I am so very proud of you all.

All my love, Fiona xxx

Introduction

It was a wet cold winter’s evening in 1973. A young woman called Anna stood on board a ship watching the lights of Liverpool get further and further away. Tears rolled down her bruised face as she clutched the bundle in her arms - her baby whom she adored, but knew she couldn’t keep. She had nothing apart from the clothes she could salvage before running away from a life of slavery in the laundries, beatings, alcohol and prostitution.

Holding what should have been her future, she leaned against a dry patch of wood, and drifted into what seemed to be a daydream of what her life was and how she had pictured it.

Chapter 1

Larry Woods was born and reared on the docklands of Belfast. He wasn’t a man to be reckoned with. Neither man nor beast would question anything he ever did, as he was known to be thick, arrogant and violent. Brought up by his father, they had moved from place to place, never staying anywhere too long, so to Larry, education was a myth. He had never settled, although he was never short of a day’s work. More often, the drink had the first and last laugh in his sad life.

He was a fine lump of a lad and even though he was hardened by his life, he loved nothing more than to go to the river and fish. It was where he had always spent his days alone contemplating how his life would have been if his mother had not run away. When he was three, he used to dream about her and picture the life he thought they would have if she were there with him. He wouldn’t have had to move about like a gypsy. He never dared to ask his father where she went or why she had left. The only thing he could remember was his father crying at night. Having few or no friends, he kept to himself as his dad had always said, Keep yourself to yourself. End of.

That’s what he did. They now lived in a small town. They called it The Wee County of Louth. He liked the river Boyne, as the salmon were plenty and he ate well. The ale house was just on the corner so he hadn’t got far to fall when in a drunken state. Anger and loneliness were his trusted companions and he could always rely on them. Until the day he met Mary Collins.

His heart gave a jump when he first saw her as he walked down the road smelling of the fish that was flung over his shoulder. There she stood, pulling at her bags of goods from the local market. Watching her pulling at the bags, he tried to grab the cabbage that rolled down the hill and landed at his feet.

Her blonde hair and her blue eyes shone like the sun and his heart melted as she marched towards him as he lifted the cabbage from the ground. They had an instant connection!

Larry was a man of very few words. He had never really bothered much with women, as his father had beaten it into him that they were all trouble. But now, standing in front of her, holding the cabbage, he was smitten and completely lost for words.

Mary, on the other hand, could and did, always talk for the country!

Lifting the cabbage back from him, she smiled saying, Ye just saved the Sunday dinner!

Laughing, she hinted, Sure maybe you’ll give me one of them lovely fish!

Dumbstruck and shy, he unhooked the fish and handed her the biggest one. Laughing to herself she thought, Jesus this one’s an idiot! Looks handsome too, a bit on the dirty side but that’s easily fixed!

What ye laughing at? he said gruffly.

Oh you’re a northern lad I see.

Yeah, and what’s that mean?

Oh, nothing. I like your voice. Smiling to him she walked.

Well are ye going to stand there or bloody help me? Lifting the fish and her bag, she frogmarched him up the hill to where she lived. I’ll cook ye a nice dinner for your help, seeing as how you caught it.

Nodding, Larry swallowed hard. He wanted to run out the door. He needed to get a few drinks now. Here he sat on a small handmade chair in Mary’s kitchen. As she gave him the plate, old Millie stopped by.

Millie lived two houses up and was a family friend for as long as Mary could remember. People would come to her and she would look into the teacup and tell them things. They sometimes gave her money or food. It didn’t matter to Millie, as it was all in good will. Millie never knocked, she just lifted the latch, always whistling a tune or singing.

Are ye here Mary? her husky voice bellowed through the tiny house. Hmm, what’s all this, eh?

Mary quickly shoved Millie back. Get in there and none of your nonsense do ye hear?

Millie’s beady eyes scanned the man sitting at Mary’s table. Not bad, not bad at all. A handsome one ye have there!

Mary watched him eat. Looks like he’s in need of a good woman!

Millie laughed nearly choking on the badly rolled cigarette. Where did ye find him eh?

I didn’t find him, the cabbage did!

A cabbage? Jesus woman! I think ye may give me something stronger than tea!

Laughing, they both drank a small nip of whiskey that Millie always carried - for medicinal purposes of course! She would howl with laughter when they each took a good swig out of the dirty brown medicine bottle.

As Millie would not have been the cleanest of people, she had no family to speak of and whenever Mary had asked she always changed the subject.

Best leave the past where it is, she would mumble, but a nicer woman you couldn’t wish to meet. She had always been there for Mary. She had been reared practically on her own and Millie was more like a mother and best friend to her. They got on like two peas in a pod.

As time passed Larry wasn’t around much. Every now and then he popped by, but as Millie got to know him, (and after looking into his cup without Mary noticing) she didn’t like him one bit. Pulling Mary by the arm into the small kitchen she whispered, He’s using you lass.

Don’t be stupid Millie. He’s just had a hard old life and needs someone to love him and teach him.

No lass. You’re wrong. There’s something not fitting here. Mary would have none of Millie’s antics.

You’re not stirring them bloody tea leaves again, are ye, Millie?

Well, I may have had a small gander at them. And what if I have? Eh? I am just looking out for you and, well, I don’t want you to get hurt. He’s a violent man Mary!

Going between the mills and the convent she was exhausted by the time she got home, sometimes falling asleep straight away, forgetting to eat sometimes for days.

Lifting the latch on this particular evening, Mary sensed there was someone in the house. Walking into the scullery there stood Larry red faced and swaying.

Where the feckin’ hell were ye woman? The words he spat at her sent shivers of fear through her body.

Trying to calm him, she slowly walked towards him, smiling nervously, putting her hand on his chest. Now Larry, I’ve been working. You know, I have to do two shifts sometimes.

She landed on the flagstone floor, not having seen his fist come and with a thud he had knocked her clean out. Kicking her out of the way, he then walked out of the house.

Millie had been watching from her front window and, seeing him leave; she nipped out the back through the alley and pushed with