The last time I visited New Jersey, Jeannie said that she wanted me to come to her house to do a session with her and her daughters again, even though they were not sure why. She expressed that they had all found peace, and that they felt connected to John, and that things were good, and still she felt that I needed to come over. So, we scheduled a time to do that.
The scenario was the same. My friend Dita picked me up to drive me their house after dinner. As soon as I got into the car I felt John’s presence; it was strong and determined, and he made it very clear to me that he wanted to speak with his son. It was a non-stop conversation he had with me for the entire ride to the house.
I walked into the house and was greeted with the familiar love and warmth that I had become accustomed to with them, and Jeannie again telling me that she had no idea why I was there. Well, I certainly knew why I was there.
“I do. John wants to speak with his son, and this is the reason that I’m here. Jeannie and her daughters looked at each other saying, “That’s not going to happen. He won’t come down here, we already asked him.” I on the other hand was certain that, one way or another, that boy was going to end up in the room with me, and when it did happen, he might not even know how he got there.
Three of us went into the living room, and Maryann went upstairs to her little brother John Jr. and told him that I was there and that he should come downstairs. He declined.
The four of us began to talk, and I shared with them some of the things that John had been telling me on the drive over to their house. John was present in the room with us, and he was sharing with them, through me, what it was that he wanted to talk to his son about. His son John Jr. was seventeen at the time of this session; he was fourteen when his dad died.
As the four of us continued to talk, I felt John’s presence leave the room and head for the staircase that lead to his son’s room. Maryann followed close behind. It was almost like John had said to her, “Come on. Let’s go get him.” She came down a few minutes later and said that he was not coming downstairs, and that he thought the whole thing was too weird. My feeling at this point was to be patient, because unbeknown to John Jr. his father was coaxing him to come downstairs.
I felt John’s presence come back into the room and stand right next to me. Trailing behind him a few moments later was John Jr. John Jr. walked into the room and sat in the chair that was closest to the entrance that he had come into the living room through, perhaps so if he needed to leave quickly, he could. I turned my chair so that we were facing each other diagonally across the room from each other. To my right was the “L” shaped couch, which held Jeannie and her two daughters.
The room was suddenly very quiet, and the air was filled with a subtle apprehension.
I introduced myself to John Jr. and thanked him for being so brave to come into a situation, which I knew sounded totally bizarre. I then proceeded to tell him that his dad very much wanted to communicate with him, and that was the reason I was there that evening. John Sr. was a proactive father in every sense of the word. He was strongly involved in his kid’s lives, and his son’s very much so. This was his boy. Understandably, his son had been devastated by his dad’s death, and as a result, John Jr.’s life had gone downhill for the past three years.
As he sat there, nervously fidgeting a bit, I could see that he was pretty uncomfortable. I wanted to change that so he could be more at ease. He had a great presence of heart; I could feel that he was kind, but he also seemed confused and maybe a bit lost.
He was wearing a black tee shirt that had something on the front, which actually came up later in the interaction that took place, but I can’t remember what it said now. Even though he was nervous, John Jr. seemed willing to be present with me. I was suddenly overcome with a feeling of love, and I just wanted to hug him; I stayed in my chair, observing the emotional sensations that I was having that were growing in strength. As I was looking at him, I saw a football helmet in my mind, so I asked him if played, and he said yes. I knew his dad was feeding me images and information about his son so that I could open the gates of communication between him and me. It worked.
Our communication started out simple, on the level of personality and interest, and then all of the sudden the conversation took a turn to reveal information about John Jr. drinking and being self-destructive, and him doing poorly in school, and letting things that his dad was so proud of him for just go down the drain. He agreed that all of this was happening. His posture told me that though he felt defeated in a sense by the choices that he had made, that he didn’t want his life to be as such. I could tell that this was not who this young man really was, and that he had lost his way with his dad’s death. He missed his dad so much; he didn’t know what to do, how to live, or even how to be with himself. He’d lost his way.
Suddenly, I had a very strange sensation. It was as if John Sr. had come right into my body and began talking directly to his son. It was so powerful and so intense, and this is partly why it’s taken me so long to write this part of this story. I felt that suddenly I was an observer; a witness to what was happening between John and his son, and I was so overcome with emotion, that it’s hard for me now to remember all that happened in those moments. I was crying and talking at the same time, and John Jr. was crying and responding, and Jeannie and the girls were crying. It was like an emotional bomb went off in the living room. The power of the love that was present brings tears to my eyes as I write this.
The conversation between the two of them grew in intensity. John was talking with his son about everything that he was doing, or not doing, and that he wanted him to know that he was still there with him. He began telling him about specific incidents that had occurred since he had died, that involved only John Jr., and sometimes his friends. This boy went from being a total skeptic to talking directly to his father while he was looking straight at me. I was in the middle of such intensive love, such powerful direction from father to son, and such a huge explosion of “I’m still here and I love you” experience for all of us present, that it was like being swept away by a fifty-foot tidal wave. That tidal wave was composed of pure love; a father’s love for his son.
There are no words to really describe what occurred that night, and what I’ve written here is just a small piece of something so enormous it’s almost difficult to comprehend, when I think about it. That evening, all of our lives were transformed. The greatest gift of all though, was to see the total transformation that happened with John Jr. It was a healing of the greatest proportion; he walked in that room broken, angry, and lost, and he walked out with peace of mind and heart, with hope, and most importantly, with a living, real connection with his dad.



