Through The Mist Of Memory

By Francita Brown Gasche

All the numinous events hidden safely from ridicule, criticism, and disbelief bubbled up from deep in my heart when my childhood friend died in 1985. The voices, visions, sighting, and apparitions throughout my life clamored acknowledgement. Gossamer threads anchored to my life fabric at various points in my life told vignettes of mysteries about which I wondered.

After he started school, he changed from a happy little boy to one depressed and afraid. Though I asked, he would not tell me what happened, only snippets plus a warning to me before I started school. He was particularly afraid to go to the outhouse alone because of a phantom. We had appendectomies within a week in 1947 and spent five days in the hospital together. He was in the children's ward and I in the women's ward.

The epiphany after Johnny's death was the most wonderful and horrendous event of my life. It answered questions for which I needed answers plus information I did not contemplate. When his spirit came to me, explained and verified his words and actions in childhood, it was apparent all I had been a witness to needed to be revealed.

The mysteries disclosed must be open to others. Just as I needed more information, some other soul may need the information I can offer. This is my purpose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886856552

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Through The Mist Of Memory

Francita Brown Gasche

ISBN 979-8-88685-654-5 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88685-655-2 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Francita Brown Gasche

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

When the deep purple falls

Over sleepy garden walls,

And the stars begin to flicker in the sky.

Through the mist of a memory

You wander back to me,

Breathing my name with a sigh.

—Deep Purple, Mitchell Parish

In memory of my parents, Iris and Kenneth Brown.

Also, my husband, Delmer O. Gasche.

And honoring all those who have made my life so rich, especially Johnny, my first and special friend; now the ghost who comes to tell me what he thinks I need to know. Thank you.

Notes to the Reader

Acknowledgments

Misty Memories

Other Times and Places

The Gossamer Threads

The Journey Begins

Seattle

The Journey Continues

The Epiphany

The Journey Resumes

Back Home

Alone Again

About the Author

When the deep purple falls

Over sleepy garden walls,

And the stars begin to flicker in the sky.

Through the mist of a memory

You wander back to me,

Breathing my name with a sigh.

—Deep Purple, Mitchell Parish

In memory of my parents, Iris and Kenneth Brown.

Also, my husband, Delmer O. Gasche.

And honoring all those who have made my life so rich, especially Johnny, my first and special friend; now the ghost who comes to tell me what he thinks I need to know. Thank you.

Notes to the Reader

All that matters is God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Ghost. What God revealed to you is his will for you.

—Paul Gasche

These words came from my father-in-law when I asked him, What is the Christian view of reincarnation?

The events contained in this work of creative nonfiction are all true to the best of my recollection, though some names have been changed for privacy reasons and some have been omitted by design. Those persons named are relatives, friends, and loved ones worthy of honor, acknowledgment, and remembrance. Within ten years of death, little is left to show a person walked this earth. Events and dialogues are not dependent upon names. Written remembrances honor their lives and spiritual journeys. Perhaps that is why the Adult Male Voice never revealed his name.

Some events are repeated several times throughout the narrative. Each presentation comes swirling out of the mist to reveal another small part of the mystery and emphasize its importance. Be assured the repetitive bombardment in the epiphany came like a broken record more numerous and forceful than anything I could write.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Marjorie Kohli and Donna Barhite for reading and making suggestions. I appreciate your input and time spent reading Through the Mist of Memory. Thank you.

A special thank-you to the staff of Christian Faith Publishing, especially Mickaila Sands, who led me through the publishing process.

Misty Memories

I did not seek this spiritual journey. It came upon me forcefully in April 1985 when I learned my first and special friend died the previous month on Saint Patrick's Day. Three months before his death, I began having strange experiences at various intervals. I didn't think much about them since I had always experienced psychic episodes with sounds and visions concerning my friend. My physical life held the normal pleasures, pains, pleasantries, and disappointments which fill all lives. The psychic I never talked about. I hid them safely in my heart. These included voices, visions, and apparitions of my friend. Some episodes did not include my friend. The latter gave me information convincing me to believe the ones with my friend were also true.

I didn't set out to write a spiritual memoir. For the first forty-five years of my life, I was well satisfied with being raised Methodist. I believed in God, Jesus, his Son, and the Holy Ghost. I was always aware of the spiritual in my physical and emotional life. I knew I was more spiritual than religious. I can't remember a time when I did not hear the Adult Male Voice telling me things I might need to know at that time or in the future. I knew these spontaneous occurrences were psychic. They were not continuous, appearing when I was unsure of what I should do. They were for my benefit or to assist some other person. I did not think it was God telling me information nor my guardian angel.

This entity never disclosed a name to me, so I have always thought of him as the Adult Male Voice. I always paid attention to what I was told or shown. Only a few times was I given specific instructions as to what I should do. Following the instructions produced a peaceful calm. Usually, I was told what would be. I regret not recording these in detail at the time. Now I must write through the mist of memory.

I suppose everyone has secrets. There comes a time when the secrets yearn to be revealed. The spirit needs to declare the mysteries uncovered in its pilgrimage. Prior to starting school in 1945, I talked openly of the Adult Male Voice I heard. It always seemed to comfort me and inform me of what I would need to know.

My mother cautioned me, Don't talk about things like that. People will think you are crazy.

I paid no attention.

One day, shortly after I started school, eight of us first-graders were standing out by Elm Street. The boy next to me on my right said, I'm afraid I will never see my favorite cousin again. She's being committed to an insane asylum today.

A boy to my left asked, Why?

His answer, Because she hears things and sees things no one else can hear and see.

I said, That happens to me.

The boy looked directly into my eyes and said, Then you are crazy too. His eyes wondered why his cousin was being committed and I was not. I remembered my mother's warnings, and I have never forgotten that boy's eyes. That instant, I began gathering the secrets into my heart where they were safe, and I could ponder them without ridicule, criticism, or disbelief.

I also realized other people did not normally experience these things. I had assumed everyone had these encounters but didn't talk about them. I always knew they were for my benefit or to assist someone. They came to me as if they sought me rather than me seeking them. They were spontaneous and always a pleasant surprise, though sometimes the information gleaned was disagreeable.

I continued to hide and treasure them in my heart. I don't remember when I began the list with just a few words about each event. One or two words is enough to jog the consciousness as to which event and the content. The memory always comes the same way, unlike regular recollections. They seem more real than life. Occasionally, there is a gift, something I can touch or hold. These are special, resembling a visit from an old dear friend. Those gifts that can be saved in a box are cherished.

My first job was a page at the Wauseon Public Library at age fifteen. It involved shelving the returned books, readying the new books for use by the public, and whatever the librarian, Miss Wolf, asked me to do. I could push a book truck around the library, but I usually chose to take five or six books in my hands and go to the shelf where they were housed. Sometimes, with poetry and quotations, I opened a book and read as I carried them to the shelf. One day, Bartlett's Quotations opened to Francis Thompson. The quote was:

All things by immortal power,

Hiddenly to each other linked are,

That thou canst not touch a flower without troubling of a star.

As I stooped to place the book on the bottom shelf, I felt lightheaded as everything went black before my eyes. Then points of light like stars in the night sky appeared. They grew into white orbs of various sizes with gossamer threads wrapped around them. The threads were brightly colored neon of lemon yellow, crimson, indigo, green, and violet. It resembled an elaborate pulley system. It moved through the darkness as one.

Many years later, I saw a drawing of the gravitational map of a part of the universe. It was laid out with the orbs, making depressions as if on a fabric. I realized it, too, moves as one.

The older I become, the more I believe all things work together. Though lives are lived in chronological order, day by day, some events are connected by gossamer threads in random order. Inch by inch and day by day, life's tapestry is woven. The tapestry records all events of a life in brilliant colors and textures suitable for a beautiful testimony. It also records the sad, hurtful, and sorrowful events and the kin that produce them.

Gossamer threads connect events which are related. They may appear close together or several years apart. Significance is added with each occurrence. Each appears as an individual event with no particular meaning. They show where life's journey has been and where it is headed. The significance may not be understood until an event produces a connection. When an association establishes itself, it is analogous to a dropped thread being picked up and the casting of the gossamers continues. The joyous happenings are the exciting growth of the spirit and are represented as beautiful rare flowers among life's embroidered events. The ugly are as dung heaps reflecting the negativity, spiteful deeds and troubles which occur in each life. They, too, are prominently displayed in life's tapestry.

All are kin and destined to enhance the growth of the soul. The beautiful bring harmony and joy. The ugly bring strength and stamina. The soul understands what the body finds weak and unjust. They may occur close together or far apart. They may hide in the daily tapestry of life's adventures to suddenly rise with overwhelming clarity. The gossamer threads are laid as the life is lived but only appear upon reflection of one's life. It is lived forward but understood looking back. Mystical eyes and ears see and hear deeper, clearer, and more spiritual.

Like most children, I believed God to be a kind and loving grandfather who sat on a throne in the sky. Even as a small child, I felt I sat on God's lap at some time. He showed me everything that was and could be. He told me I could have anything I desired. I could not have everything. What I chose must fit with those things everyone else had chosen. Then he cautioned, Choose wisely, my child.

Spirituality comes through family heredity, genealogy, area of the country and land where you were born and live, the climates of those areas and accommodations afforded to individuals. Some stimuli are already inherent in a newborn baby's personality. Where and how did the child receive his individual temperament? It came with the child.

I believe I chose my parents and they were the best choice for me, considering what I would do and where I would be in this life. My mother was very pragmatic and a no-nonsense woman. When you have your own house, you can do as you want. As long as you live in my house, you will do as I say.

This was the philosophy when I rebelled against some procedure. If I came home from school with the desire to do what us kids had decided and asked if I could with the statement All the kids are doing it, it was met with, Name three, and I will call their mothers to see if they are doing it.

Suddenly, no one was doing anything. Mom provided a feminine but strong demeanor with an honest, religious, and can-do attitude. Dad provided a strong masculine profile of what I should require in a future mate, but if I should be alone, he gave me his masculine expertise to solve problems. His sense of integrity, strength, and just-do-it attitude pervaded everything he did.

When I was in college, studying engineering, I was going to quit after each semester because I wasn't doing well scholastically. Every semester, he would say, Just one more semester. My last semester, he said, There's only one more and then you did it. Both parents provided love, security, a good home, and encouragement in all my legitimate endeavors. At our house, there was no masculine or feminine work. When something needed to be done, someone did it. Dad always helped with housework, and Mom always worked outdoors. She never drove the tractor, but then she didn't drive a car either. Being an only child on a small farm, I doubled as Mom's girl and Dad's boy. I learned cooking, cleaning and sewing from my mother, and Dad taught me to drive the tractor, use appropriate tools, mow lawns, and play ball.

I believe I chose to come at this time and place so my special friend and I could be close confidants as children. I always needed to know he was all right and that I should be watchful over him. He would need a close friend whom he could trust and rely on when there was no one else in whom he could confide. He would need a friend who would not tease nor ridicule him when he was afraid.

I believe I was destined to study engineering, become engaged to a fellow engineering student, and follow him to the West Coast. This prepared me for the job I would have at Boeing. I would be in Seattle for three particular experiences. The first to become self-reliant and comfortable being alone; second, to be there to provide a safe place for my friend when he came to Seattle; and to comfort Barbara and Gordon when their younger son died in a hiking accident. Although I did not want to move to Seattle, I was richly rewarded for doing so.

I believe Del and I found each other, and he came to Seattle with the purpose of getting me back to Ohio in time to modernize and add on to the Wauseon Public Library.

These things put me in the area to care for my parents and Del when it became necessary. I always knew I would care for my parents. Their comfort would be my responsibility as they grew old. Somehow I would be where I was needed at the appointed time, and events would transpire to make it so. Rich rewards were the outcome.

I never felt I had many close friends, but I could be friendly with almost everyone. Sometimes I felt like a dinghy set adrift on the sea, having come here at the wrong time. I always seemed most comfortable when I was alone or with my special friend. Most people seemed to place restrictions on me if they noticed me at all.

There have always been times when I felt invisible. The first time I remember experiencing this was in third grade when my teacher looked directly at me, then walked into the room and closed the door just as the bell began to ring. Either I was invisible to her or she wanted me to be late. Since I did not think in terms of invisibility at that time, I lost all respect for her that day.

Life is affected not only by events that happen in our own lives but also events that happen to our friends and loved ones. Seventy-five years later, I understand the little girl thought she and her special friend would always be together as in growing up and getting married. It did not happen. We were together in a bonded relationship but, for the most part, unaware of its significance. Synchronicity occurred when both were aware of each other. We may have thought in terms of coincidence. I don't know if I had said and done things differently if the reality would have been different. Probably not or it would have come to fruition at that time.

The boy had already suffered and reacted to the trauma. The man followed what he deemed was true. Though he had told me some things when we were children, he did not reveal his secret. I may have been the only person to whom he told anything.

In writing Little Bull Calf, I kept the secret very subtle because the five-year-old girl was not aware of molestation. She only knew her friend was afraid and hurt emotionally. He did not tell me what happened to him. Those things he did say were relived as his spirit revealed all after he died. Just more gossamer threads surfacing on the tapestry.

Over the years, my spiritual life has changed in ways that seem almost bizarre to me. I had always felt I was more spiritual than religious. As I learned about these things, I was taught to believe my body received a soul sometime before birth, and I was to nurture this soul. I was taught the Christian religion. My body would eventually die, be buried, and would be resurrected when Christ returned to claim his Church. I believed what I was taught. I and my body were one.

My religious background came from conservative Judeo-Christian values. My mother's family were Reformed Mennonite, one small step removed from Amish. The women dressed in the long or mid-calf-length skirt with apron, blouse, shawl, and head covering. There was no adornment, and plackets were closed using straight pins as fasteners. When Grandma became old and no longer made her own clothes, Mom made her clothes, but she sewed snaps on the plackets. Adornment of any kind was considered sinful. Grandpa wore dungarees, either gray or tan, with plain or brushed cotton shirts and suspenders. The men's clothes had buttons but apparently were not considered decorative on the male clothing. When I knew them, they did not have a car, but before moving to town, they did own a car.

Grandma ironed clothes for the neighbors to earn a little extra money. She used the old irons heated on the woodstove. Grandpa drove a huckster truck into the countryside, selling groceries and paper products at farmhouses. He stocked his truck with produce and products from Hammontree's Grocery and Lantz's Market on Fulton Street in Wauseon.

My instruction in Bible stories and prayer came from my mother. She always monitored my bedtime prayers until I started school and required grace before eating. The summer I was seven, I learned to read fluently. I had surgery, and the incision became infected. I wasn't allowed to play outdoors or do much of anything all summer. I found The Children's Bible upstairs on a bookshelf and read the creation story and thought it was perfect. It was just like the science of the world and the conception of an animal. Again, everything was one.

My dad's family were Methodist Episcopal. After his parents died, Dad was quite angry with God and did not enter a church for a long time, except for Easter Sunday. This caused much dissension on Sunday mornings when Mom desired to attend church and Dad would not go. He was a janitor at the Wauseon High School. The minister at the ME Church saw Dad doing yard work at the school. He asked Dad to dust and vacuum the church on Saturdays for seventy-five dollars a month. After a while, he and Mother decided to be baptized and join the church.

Dad came to me and told me they were going to join and asked if I wanted to join the church also. I remember feeling a bit left out since they had not assumed that I would want to join with them. I had just turned twelve. They evidently thought I was old enough to make my own decision. The minister gave the twelve-year-olds instruction for six Saturdays. Then Maundy Thursday of 1952, we were baptized and became members of the Methodist Episcopal Church on Fulton Street in downtown Wauseon, Reverend George Brown officiating.

As I became more spiritual, God became love with all its beauty, emotion, energy, and joy. I was aware of evil in the world but did not believe in Satan or a devil destined to capture souls. Either God was omnipotent or he was not.

The totality of religion is the story of the prodigal son. The sinner is the soul who refuses to acknowledge its relationship to the universe and to God. The spirit must return to the oneness of God. A contrite prodigal is always welcomed back. Eventually, all souls will return.

Now I believe God is a spiritual being and all souls are coheirs. Upon the death of the body, the soul returns to God. If it is deemed worthy, the spiritual journey is over. If it can be useful in another time and place, it will be directed back to share its expertise with a soul in need. It will take a rest and return to the physical plane to be further perfected. If the soul has been nefarious, there is no rest. It will return to amend the grievances it caused previously.

Karma is as karma does. What goes around comes around. It may not be equal and opposite. If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword. It may not be in the same lifetime. Remember John the Baptist and Elias; that is Elijah.

I became aware of the psychic episodes when I was three. I was not surprised by the voice, so it may have been guiding me earlier. Throughout my life, I heard this Adult Male Voice. Not often, but it did impart information crucial to my well-being. I sometimes experienced visions of events that would happen in the future or happening at that time. There was a voice that called my name twice in succession. I always answered, I am here twice in succession but did not receive any other information. Sometimes I heard it two or three times in a week, and then again, there might be a span of two or three years.

I felt I knew a few people upon introduction. Several times, I knew I would not see individuals again in this life. This also happened with dogs. I have had out-of-body experiences and, one time, a vision in which I died and traveled into the white light. I have seen and talked with a ghost and carry a mark where he touched me. I saw angels once. All these experiences were opening a door to a new intuitive awareness.

The gossamer threads running through my life involve psychic events. In the day-to-day living, I knew only the event when it happened. Though I recognized some events happened before and were regular, I did not know or understand what they were telling me. The events can be grouped into headings which describe the threads; the voice that always called my name, why my friend was special to me, knowing he was all right, seeing him as an apparition, telepathic communication, medical events among others, and the secret I alluded to in The Summer of the Little Bull Calf.

The tapestry of one's life is composed of all events. It is embroidered in vivid colors as the life is lived, becoming a story meshing with all other stories simultaneously happening. The joys, the sorrows, loves and hates, war and peace, friends and enemies, successes and failures—all appear in vivid colors and meticulous detail. The gossamers join isolated but related actions along life's journey. They reveal specific knowledge when viewed together and may be spaced near each other or separated by years in the timeline of the tapestry. Contemplating these connections reveal mysteries rising into the mist—wisdom and truths not previously understood.

The gossamers in my life answer questions I'd not asked before. When my childhood friend died, I began to see some scenes connected in a manner never imagined. I was always aware of the psychic phenomena at the time it occurred but did not relate them from one time to the next. Neither did I remember various scenes in my life as connected to each other. Silky gossamer threads float above life's tapestry. Various events anchor the gossamers to a specific time and place. Some events occur in more than one thread connecting them all to each other. This forms the web in which a secret can hide. After the epiphany, I saw how the psychic phenomena and the gossamers flowed through my life, rising and falling in the mist of memory, revealing truths hidden in the daily living.

The "Special Friend Thread" began the day my mother introduced Johnny and me in 1943. I already knew him and was in love with him like an eighteen- to twenty-year-old. I knew I was only three and had found him in just three years. As children, we could communicate telepathically until his family began going to Florida in the winters. Sometimes I saw him as an apparition, usually as the six-year-old. There were two telesomatic episodes, our appendectomies in 1947 and blood transfusions in 1981. He also gave me a warning before I started school and, about six months later, physically restrained me from entering the school when the principal was standing at the door. All these episodes whisper how very special he is to me.

I always needed to know "Johnny Was All Right." This thread began the day I met him. Three days after Lee was born, I experienced an OBE (out-of-body experience) which told me he was all right when he was born. I was aware he was all right on his sixth birthday, when we flew the big kite and probably when he showed me the pictures of the liberation of Buchenwald in 1945. There were times I watched him for a few minutes on the school playground just to make sure he was okay.

The day I heard the scream from the boys' room, I needed to know he was all right and went to find him. There were times I watched him as he walked home to be sure he arrived safely. The day he broke his finger, I knew I should walk him home, but I did not. Then in 1969, when I had a premonition of him being scared and running, I wrote to him, asking if he was all right, but he did not respond. Three months before he died, I knew he was cold.

Throughout my life, I thought the "Voice Calling My Name" had been with me always. After Johnny's death, it became clear this thread had a beginning and an end. The voice that always called my name called twice in succession. Francita. Francita. I always answered it twice in succession, the same as it called. I am here. I am here. Sometimes I thought it was God and would petition what was wanted from me. Sometimes I questioned my nonbelief in the devil by thinking perhaps it was Satan and would dismiss it with, Leave me alone. Sometimes I would ask, Who are you? What do you want? There was never an answer. Background noise indicated a crowded room with many voices but no discernible words. I tried to listen forcefully, like trying to understand what was being said across a crowded room. Nothing ever came through.

On March 17, 1985, at 7:23 p.m., I heard the voice, but the call was extremely different. It only called once, and it was so weak and far away I almost missed it.

I learned of Johnny's death on April 9 when his obituary was in the local paper. When I read March 17, I knew four things: the voice that always called my name was Johnny, as a child I had known it was he, somehow I had failed him, and I should have been there. The only one which did not bother me was the last. I think I was there for him since I answered before the bond was broken.

The "Adult Male Voice Thread" may have been with me from the beginning. My first remembrance of the Adult Male Voice is the day Mom introduced me to Johnny. The voice told me how to find out that Johnny was all right. In 1953, it told me, You and Johnny will not marry, and two years later, If you have a child, it will probably be a mongoloid. In 1964, when Johnny went into a trance, I became frightened for him. I think it was an OBE. The voice told me what to do. In 1985, on March 11, it told me, It is hopeless, you are helpless this time.

The "Vision Thread" originated in 1945 when I found my friend hiding in the spireas. In August 1969, I suddenly knew Johnny was scared and running and saw a vision of him taking items from a large box and putting them in a smaller box behind him. In 1981, he appeared as an apparition in my Cordoba and immediately disappeared to become a vision of him ill. In 2011, when Roger was telling me about the party for the Brickers on the fairgrounds in the 1960s, a vision of Johnny was next to me on my left, and Dad was in front of me, giving the high sign that Johnny was going to see me in Seattle. This revealed how my dad knew to call me that night in 1964 and the message Mom gave me years later. Margaret called Johnny from the living room of my parents' house.

I became aware of Johnny's trauma in the summer of 1945 when he began screaming and running in circles in the turnaround at his house. Bill teased him; he began to cry and ran into the house. This happened several times throughout the summer. He told me he couldn't go to the toilet at school anymore and I should not go either. The night I found him hiding in the spireas, he was terribly upset and said something happened that was so wicked no one could ever love him. This was the start of the "Trauma Thread" as I know it.

"The Telepathy Thread" connected times when we talked to each other using only our minds. We could talk this way sitting next to each other, across a room and between the two farms. We played mind games quite often. After the Brickers began going to Florida in the winter, I thought Florida was too far away to continue playing mind games. I think Johnny could still pick up on my thoughts when he was in Seattle. I sometimes felt he was reading my thoughts but did not think I was reading his.

In 1945, the "Apparition Thread" had its start when Johnny told me of the phantom in the toilet and proceeded to show me its reality. He appeared many times over the years, usually as the six-year-old. Sometimes he came as an adult. After he died, he came as the adult to tell me what had happened. He was with me from April 19 through June 1, 1985. The last time he came to me was July 1, 2012, when he revealed his picture on the NOAA website.

The "Spirea Thread began with finding Johnny hiding in the spireas in 1945. Then, in 1952, he walked me to those same spireas to ask me to go with him to a party. I was not allowed to go. In 1964, when he asked me to a dance at the Officers' Club, and I accepted immediately, he said, Isn't there someone you have to ask?" It was a surprise to both of us. I think that wound never healed.

The "Little Bull Calf Thread" began with the boys releasing the calf when I climbed into his pen in 1948. The title came to me when I was a freshman in college in 1957 and planned the outline in Seattle in 1963. When Shirley died in 2011, I decided to try writing the story as a memoir. In April 2012, I received 300 copies of the published book. Copies were given to friends and relatives and to my 1957 classmates at our fifty-fifth-year reunion.

The story started in the winter with Johnny's sixth birthday and ran through the beginning of September, just before I started school in 1945. Chapter headings are the months. The events of the Second World War are presented by referring to the radio and Life Magazine.

The "Coin Thread" involves an 1845 five-franc silver French coin that has been in my possession since 1944. For forty-three years, I thought I had found it by the old woodshed. Every year, when I helped Mom clean the upstairs bedrooms, she would tell me who had owned all the furniture, pillows, and embroidery work. All the heirlooms were identified. The small heirlooms, like watches, rings, and coins were in a silverware box. The box that held all the family trinkets also held the French coin.

The "Telesomatic Thread" began in 1947 four years after my mother introduced Johnny and me. Johnny was taken to the hospital early on a Tuesday morning with severe abdominal pain. He had an emergency appendectomy at eight o'clock in the morning. The following Sunday, I had an emergency appendectomy at eight o'clock in the morning. Four years before he died in 1981, we both received blood in February.

The spirit has a portal access to the spirit world maybe five or six times during a lifetime. It makes a decision as to whether it has accomplished all it came here to do. This comprises the "Death Thread. I've had serious operations but never felt in danger of death due to the surgeries. However, when I was four, I was exposed to typhoid fever and received the vaccine within twenty-four hours. I had a violent reaction to the vaccine being unconscious for three days. I saw three angels watching me. They whispered among themselves. I was quite vocal about them peeking through the curtains" as they spied on me.

In June 1952, I looked out the living room window and saw snow on the ground. An unfamiliar make of car came speeding up the road, skidded on ice, and crashed into a telephone pole. I saw my body slumped over the dashboard. I knew my body died. I became my spirit, rising into the air toward the brilliant white light, and made the decision to return because of the love I had for the driver and my family. Then I was back in the living room.

In the summer of 1956, our church youth group traveled to Port Clinton to the future site of the present Cedar Point Amusement Park. It had been a pleasure spot with the same name in the 1920s but fell into disrepair. Now it was being resurrected. Several of us decided to swim in Lake Erie. We jumped off the pier into six-foot-deep water. The other two girls could swim and left me alone. I tried to get to more shallow water, but it remained deep. I really thought I might drown but thought how sad my parents would be and managed to get to a boat docked on a side pier. A stranger helped me into the boat until I was rested.

In September 2013, I bought a rib-eye sandwich at the Beef Growers' stand at the Fulton County Fair. It was contaminated and did not taste good, so I took most home to the dog. A few days later, both of us were sick. I went to the ER and told the doctor I thought I had food poisoning since both my dog and I were sick. I really thought I might die.

Actual deaths which affected me bitterly were a little dog named Stormy in the spring of 1956, the vision of Stanley's death in 1965, and Johnny's death in 1985. I was so afraid that the deaths of my mother, father, and husband would affect me in like manner. When those happened, there were no extreme emotions. Since there were no unresolved issues with them, I believe there was no reason for spirit intercession.

"The Words I Did Not Say and the Actions I Did Not Do Thread" occurred when Johnny and I were together in Seattle. There were times when I should have told him he was all right or safe with me. When he became upset, I should have embraced him. I certainly should have asked him if he had a girl back in DC. I figured he would tell me if he wanted me to know. We were together maybe thirty hours in those two weeks he was in Seattle. The last night we were together, he approached me about making love. I thought but did not say, I want everything to be perfect for us. We are worth it, you and I. It may not be. Things seldom are, but I do want that for us. Later I heard his lament, but I did not understand. When he left the following morning, I should have insisted walking him to the car.

"The Car Thread" began in Johnny's car as we returned from a movie downtown. My dodge Colt Carousel is important, only because it was a lemon, and I would need to buy the Cordoba. He would ride several times as an apparition in this car. After he died, his spirit repeatedly said, Car. Car. Car. I worried about receiving his car. On the sixteenth of June, I met Del for breakfast at the Village Inn Restaurant in Morenci. He mentioned our mechanic had a car for me. It was a Cadillac for three thousand dollars. Every time I drove any car with the radio on, the song Moon River was played until after my mother suffered a stroke.

The "Unrequited Love Thread" began with the dream when I was three, was prominent the day my mother introduced Johnny to me, and perhaps with the vision on the prairie. It definitely continued when Johnny and I watched Cyrano de Bergerac in 1964. I never understood why we were not together until after he died. Why something that seemed so right turned out to be a fractured fairy tale, I do not know. Why something so right for me became reality of the childhood dream. When Johnny did not call me after he left Seattle, I felt I was not good enough for him.

"My Marriage Thread" began when I was little. I always thought Johnny and I would be together forever until the Brickers moved to Florida in 1955. I went to the University of Toledo College of Engineering and became involved with a fellow engineering student in 1958. We became inseparable and dated throughout our college years.

Gary managed to pull me through the tough courses, and we became engaged at graduation in 1961. His father secured a job for him at Boeing in Seattle, Washington, and I planned to go with him until his mother quit her job and announced she was going to Seattle. Eventually, I moved to Seattle, and we broke up after three months of my arrival.

When Johnny called me in June 1964, I prayed we might get together. We spent six evenings and one Saturday afternoon in joyful friendship. When he left, he told me not to fall in love with him. I assumed he had a girl back in DC and knew there was no chance of always being with him. I expected him to be married within six months. That didn't happen, but he didn't call me either. I gave up dating, bought a car, bought a house, and found my dog, Ole, and I settled into being alone. When I went home to be in my college roommate's wedding, Del parked in my folks' yard to go to the fair. We had six dates in the next year and married in September 1967.

The "Missing Him Thread" runs through the epiphany section relating how my emotions were affected whenever he was absent. Even now, after he has been gone for thirty-seven years, I still miss him. It is impossible to pretend my soul mate and all the psychic events were a figment of my imagination when I can touch the physical items he provided.

Several events in my life point to a "Reincarnation Thread" or at least a time before this life. Why these memories should come to me in the first place and why I should remember them throughout my life, I do not know. It does seem to me at this time I am to reveal my secrets and present my investigation into the mysteries of life.

I suppose I was three years old when I walked by the mirror in my parents' bedroom. As I noticed my image, I thought, They tell me that is me, but I don't look like that. Only three times have I looked into a mirror and recognized the image I think is me. It came as a surprise each time with the accompanying thought, That's me. That is the way I should look. The first time, I was fourteen. The next two came the same week in Seattle when I was twenty-four.

The dream I had before Johnny's apparition left me in May 1985, I was hovering over a boy and girl walking hand in hand along a lane. I knew these children were Johnny and me. When they turned their faces up to me, they were not our faces. I was aware it was the future.

The dream and the visions of other times and places, plus recognizing Johnny when I met him, do fit the pattern of research on children who exhibit having lived before as studied by Dr. Ian Stevenson.

"Knowing Life Events Thread" was always present. I would need to care for my parents in their elder years. While I was in Seattle, I worried how I would do that with my job 2,500 miles from them.

I needed to watch over Johnny as a child physically. I feel I did that psychically as an adult, even though we did not communicate physically. The times with visions and apparitions support this assertion, at least in my mind.

I always knew I would need to work. The jobs I had were all good and provided sufficiently for me intellectually, monetarily, and physically.

I always knew to trust the Adult Male Voice and follow his advice. He never told falsehoods. He never told me his name. Whether it is God, an angel, psychic phenomenon, cosmic consciousness, or a result of entangled minds, I do not know. It does not matter. It was always personal and for my benefit or some other person. I appreciate his warnings and advice. Now that I am older, I don't hear the Adult Male Voice. Maybe I no longer need his support, but I do miss those fleeting interludes when he spoke to me.

The "Rich Rewards Thread" begins with having selected great parents. I hope I did everything I needed to do for them. Though I did not marry my special friend, my husband, Del, was a good man, and we were extremely congenial. We were compatible or became so in everything except money. We were friends, lovers, partners, and husband and wife. We had forty-five years and nine months together. Life was good, even when disaster struck. We always sought to support each other and enjoy those things we had, especially the animals. I only told Del a few numinous events. I did not want to worry him or cause him any grief.

The jobs I had were memorable and challenging. FORTRAN programming at the Boeing Scientific Research Laboratories was my dream job. Working with very intelligent and world-renowned people in their scientific fields was more than I ever could have anticipated. The five labs were mathematics, solid state physics, plasma physics, aerodynamics, and geo-astrophysics. These were supported by technical services; computer services, translations, art and graphics, and secretarial services. This truly was the ivory tower of Boeing. I had the good fortune of working there for nearly ten years. Pay and benefits were great and made possible our farm in Michigan.

Library work was interesting but not really appreciated, respected, or thought of as valuable, and the wages reflected that sentiment. The saving grace was ordering, reviewing, and access to the new materials. I was Director of Wauseon Public Library for twenty-eight years. With the two years I worked at Toledo Public Library, I retired with thirty years in public service.

With my voluntary savings account from Boeing, Del and I purchased a hundred-and-twenty-acre farm for $450 an acre. Five years later, we sold off eighty-five acres for $800 an acre, essentially giving us the remaining thirty-five-acre farm free and clear.

In 2007, my father passed away, leaving his farm to me. We sold the Michigan farm to the neighbor on land contract for ten years. Del and I moved to the Brown farm in October. We spent almost six years together at my childhood home before he passed away.

Spirituality comes through one's genealogy, other animals, trees and natural scenes, and found items like pretty stones, coins, heirlooms.

Feelings that touch the heart and mind rise up to meet those of other souls. Empathy, sympathy, love, hate, and compassion on meeting another soul give first impressions which are usually correct.

There is a burning in my brain and a gnawing in my gut to record these memories and psychic experiences as I remember them. They have influenced, enriched, and guided my life. It seems important enough to be in my prayers. What a benefit it would have been to have had more books dealing with mind communication between individuals at the time I needed. Better yet, it would have been someone with whom I could talk without fear of being deemed crazy. I will revisit the Little Bull Calf memoir as an elderly woman who now understands what had happened to her friend when they were children.

I believe the events in one's life transpire to place the person in the location that the person is meant to be in at a specific time. Jonah will be in Nineveh at the appointed time, even if he must have a big adventure with a fish.

The mist is there for all, whether or not you seek it or it seeks you. You are there even if you do not realize your part in the whole, the totality of it all. The soul has always been and will always be. It is a part of the Holy God and must eventually return to God. God will not suffer to lose one of his own. Every living soul, human, animal, or other belongs to him. He holds his universe in the palm of his hand.

Other Times and Places

Misty memories from another time and place float down from somewhere, settle in the mind, and the soul remembers. Three of the four involve my special friend. The fourth involves a little boy I knew in Seattle. These memories differ from memories of this life by always coming in the same way. They cannot be defined or explained, only described. Memories of this life may be accessed through various triggers fully capable of definition, explanation, and description.

The first came as a dream when I was three. It came again as a vision while I played Beethoven's Minuet in G on the piano when I was eight. I was aware my fingers were playing the keys perfectly, and my mind was focused on the vision. I recognized this vision was identical to the dream I had when I was three. There was no emotion with the vision, no feeling of despair or hopelessness as there had been with the dream. When I finished the song, I was elated that I had finally played it without mistakes. I realized for the first time the existence of muscle memory. I had played the song oblivious to everything around me; my fingers remembered the music as I viewed the vision.

The only gift I recall for my third birthday in December 1942 was my own room. It was with quite a bit of pomp and circumstance. I was told I was growing up and it was time for me to have my own room and, with it, the responsibilities of caring for it. Until this time, I slept in a child's crib in my parent's room. They must have realized I was getting old enough to require them to have their privacy. They were too late.

Mother led me around the coal-burning stove in the center of the