Good Regardless: A Metaphysical Love Story

By Betty Andrea Hall-Miller

Sometimes it takes an imperfect person to discover how perfect life can be.

Aisha is no stranger to tragedy, loss, or hopelessness. Anger, grief, and fear have paved an unexpected, but all-too-relatable path for her. Fortunately, faith and sisterly love have ensured Aisha is never truly alone.

Step into Aisha

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wholly Power Productions
• Release date: Feb 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985540024

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Oneness

Iyanla and I have always been one. We started as one egg that split into two people. Our parents told us that’s how identical twins were made. We used to love that story.

Our parents, Robert and Winnie, were known as a power couple in our upper-class suburban community in Davis, California. Standing six-foot-four and five-foot-ten inches tall, they had played basketball and volleyball competitively and both continued to stay physically fit at the local gym. They were active in the Black community and community at large in Sacramento and Yolo counties, serving on several boards and volunteering at events that promoted health and wellness. Iyanla and I were their only children.

We resembled both our parents but looked most like our mother. We considered ourselves lucky because, in our minds, she was beautiful. Our parents were content with having just us two girls. As busy as they were holding full-time positions at the UC Davis Hospital in Sacramento, they counted it all joy when they produced two babies at once. We appeared like the perfect family to those viewing us from the outside, but I remember Iyanla and I wanted a brother. We were about five when we asked our parents for one. My dad told us our family was perfect just as it was, with him, mom, Iyanla, and me. He said we didn’t need anyone or anything else; we had everything. We believed him, and everything did feel perfect—until the summer we turned thirteen, just before entering the eighth grade.

We both got sick with strep throat. We took antibiotics, and I got better. Iyanla got sicker. Our parents and I spent long days at her bedside in the pediatric intensive care unit. The strep infection spread throughout her body, shutting down her heart, respiratory, and kidney systems. The doctors called it overwhelming sepsis from the strep infection. Finally, the doctors told us they couldn’t do anything else, and they should keep Iyanla comfortable until she passed away.

They transferred her from the pediatric intensive care unit to a comfort care bed on the pediatric medical surgical floor. Our family and New Thought faith community prayed for a miracle, refusing to believe Iyanla could not be saved. She knew she had to go. She told me she was spending most of her time in the spirit world by then anyway.

I tried so hard to make her better. I spent as much time at the hospital as I could. The nurses let me help them with every task possible. I gave Iyanla bed baths, slathered lotion onto her dry, hot, skin, combed and brushed her thick, wavy hair, swabbed her parched mouth with pink-tipped swabs on white sticks, and did every other small task the nurses would allow. I begged Iyanla not to die and asked her to promise not to leave me.

I can’t stay here without you, I told her.

But I will never leave you. We will live together in one body just like we did before our one egg split into two. She told me she would live inside my head, heart, and mind. I will be one person with you again.

I wondered if she would be like God. She told me she’d be a spirit like God, an angel, or even just my consciousness or conscience. Whatever you call me or think of me as, I’ll be that for you.

Our senior minister confirmed Iyanla’s promise at her Homegoing Service:

"Dearest family and loved ones. We are brought together today by a common bond as we mourn our beloved Iyanla Adaeze Rose Freeman, who has passed from our physical sight. Yet, Iyanla remains one in God and one in love with us.

"It is a tenant of our faith that we do not believe physical death is the end of life. We believe instead it is a transition, a process in nature through which we transcend. We may indeed miss the physical presence of Iyanla as she departs from our midst, but we do not mourn her as though she is no more. Everything that has ever been in nature, always is. We must remember together that only the elements containing the manifestation of Iyanla’s spirit have changed.

"In metaphysical philosophy, we trust that, in the beginning of our lives, our physical bodies are brought into manifestations so we, containing the divine image of God as our truest divine selfhood, our Christhood, may express through our bodies our purposes for being. Our bodies are formed around the Spirit of God, which emanates and manifests from our being. When God in His wisdom decides the time has come to move on from this physical dimension to another dimension for our betterment, the spirit is set free. The physical body that contained us returns to the elements, but the energy of the spirit of who and what we are continues. So, it does with our dearly departed Iyanla, who has shed her physical body to return to eternity from which she came.

Just as our brother, the apostle Paul at Philippians, chapter one, verses nineteen through twenty-six informed us, ‘To die is gain.’ Just as the great metaphysician and way-shower, Jesus the Christ, said in the book of John, chapter fourteen and verse two, ‘I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you,’ we remain one with sister Iyanla, as she remains one with us…

* * *

We started as one, and we’ll always be one, Iyanla told me again after the ceremony was over. All around us, people cried quietly.

Promise? It was still hard to hold in my tears, but I did it for her.

Promise.

CHAPTER 2

Sometimes God’s Name is Something

Life without Iyanla physically at my side was only bearable because her spirit remained with and in me. She provided constant comfort and encouragement, never leaving me, just as she promised. Everyone outside of us was baffled at how well I seemed to be doing without her. They couldn’t understand how I could possibly be coping, and they didn’t believe I was. When I explained that Iyanla was still with me on the inside, it only convinced them further that something was wrong with me. For the most part, members of our New Thought community knew exactly what I meant, but even our parents were concerned by how well I was holding up.

They’d raised us in the New Thought faith, but I saw each of them crying on occasion. I wanted to cry, but I had promised Iyanla when she was in the hospital I wouldn’t. She said if I did, it would be the same as admitting she was dead and not alive in me. Everyone was concerned when I didn’t cry, especially when I remained dry-eyed at the homegoing service. There, I kept up a constant conversation with Iyanla about everything we saw and heard. We talked about the flowers, the closed coffin with a huge, beautiful, framed photo of Iyanla on top, musical choices for the ceremony, people who attended, who cried and who didn’t.

We were most impressed that our thirteen-year-old neighbor, Daniel, cried openly and unapologetically. We thought it made him look very mature.

Daniel had been our playmate for as long as we could remember. He preferred playing with us over anyone else, even the other boys in the neighborhood. His favorite game was ‘house’. He always wanted to be the husband and chose Iyanla as his wife. At the age of five, Daniel said he wanted to marry Iyanla for real. His twelve-year-old brother, Marcus, having been to a wedding as a guest before and a ring bearer in another, said he knew how to marry people and offered to perform the ceremony. We held a marriage ceremony in our backyard and invited the neighborhood kids. Iyanla wore her prettiest dress and Daniel wore the suit he wore to church on Easter Sunday. Marcus performed the marriage ceremony. Some of the older kids had phones and took pictures of the wedding and shared them on social media. Someone sent the photos to our parents, who were greatly amused. From then on, they referred to Daniel as Iyanla’s husband and my brother-in-law.

Like he did at the homegoing service, Daniel had shared his feelings for his wife, Iyanla, openly and unapologetically. When other kids attempted to tease him about having a crush on her, Daniel would set them straight, stating, It’s not a crush. She is my wife. Once, Iyanla and I suggested we should switch off so I could be the wife and mother sometimes. Daniel had refused to switch it up. He said he was already married to Iyanla, so she had to be his wife all the time. Our parents and Daniel’s were amused by their children’s marriage, especially when we turned thirteen, long past the age of playing house, and Daniel and Iyanla still acknowledged their marriage. They playfully referred to each other as husband and wife, but seriously defended the validity of it if anyone else challenged it as not being real. The usual accuser was only doing it because they wanted to be Daniel’s girlfriend or Iyanla’s boyfriend. My role in their relationship had always been the faithful sister and sister-in-law.

Iyanla wanted me to go to Daniel at the homegoing service to comfort him. I couldn’t. I was afraid if I got close to him, I would break my promise to her not to cry. Daniel’s pain was palpable. I turned my head away and upward, commanding the tears to stay inside. Iyanla understood and said she would comfort Daniel herself.

I never cried while awake, but sometimes, I’d wake up and my pillow would be wet. I didn’t consider that breaking my promise since I wasn’t aware of crying in my sleep. ‘It could be sweat,’ I rationalized.

Daniel and I attended the same middle and high school. We sought each other out at first, and we tried to remain close, but it was obvious that it was Iyanla who’d held us together as friends. We didn’t talk about her, but the sadness between us pointed a glaring finger at her absence. We drifted apart but remained friendly and interested in each other’s well-being when we crossed paths.

One day, as I sat alone on the steps of the high school courtyard, observing the lunchtime activity, Daniel came and sat next to me.

How’re you doing?

I’m good. You?

Me too. I have a girlfriend.

That’s good. Do I know her?

Probably. She went to middle school with us. Amelia Curry?

Oh yeah. She seems nice.

I wanted to tell you and ask how you felt about it, I guess. Nobody will ever replace Iyanla, but she told me to move on, said she didn’t expect me to mourn her forever.

She talks to you?

She does. Started talking to me the day of her homegoing service.

I’m glad she talks to you too. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just making it up in my mind, so I’ll feel better about her not being physically here. I know I’m not making it up, but it helps to know I’m not the only one who hears her. At least I know you don’t think I’m crazy.

We’re not crazy. We just miss her like crazy. She knows we still need her. That’s why she’s still with us. A few minutes passed as we sat in silence, contemplating what each of us had just divulged. He held a steady gaze, observing my expression as if deciding whether to say more or not. I nodded and smiled at him, indicating that he should continue. He did so, speaking quickly and earnestly in a hushed tone, shutting everyone else out of a conversation he’d been wanting to have with me for a very long time.

It was real, Aisha. My love for Iyanla was very real, even though we were so young. He leaned forward, eyes opened wide, and clasped my hands in his before he began again. The solemn, mature demeanor in which Daniel expressed himself now was the same as he’d demonstrated the day of his wedding to Iyanla and the day of the homegoing service. I’m glad we got married when we did. Something told me we needed to get married that day because we might not be able to later. I had no idea that her dying would be what would keep us from getting married later. I’m glad I listened to that voice and married her then.

I smiled warmly at my brother-in-law and said, Sometimes God’s name is something.

Sometimes God’s name is something, he echoed. I like that. I’m glad I listened to God and married Iyanla then, and I’m glad you’re okay with me having a girlfriend now.

You’re so cute, Daniel. I see why Iyanla loves you so much. She wants you to be happy. I do too. I gathered my brother-in-law in a warm embrace, at once holding onto him and releasing him to continue on his new path without reservation. I was happy he’d kept Iyanla in his heart for so long, and that he thought enough of me to seek my blessing before moving on. Of course, he didn’t need to, but it endeared him to me even more.

He’d have made a wonderful husband, I said to Iyanla.

He was a wonderful husband, she corrected me.

CHAPTER 3

Perspective