The Eagle and the Rose (29 page)
As I talked to David at my first meeting with his mother, I realized, probably for the first time, that a child born mentally and physically handicapped is not incapable of seeing the world and the people in it in an ordinary way. The child's body and brain might be damaged, but the mind, as David showed me, remains intact.
My first close encounter with the handicapped was years ago, when I was fifteen, and, strangely, at the local mental hospital in Leicester where my grandmother had been a patient—The Towers.
The drama group to which I belonged at school was asked to entertain some of the more able patients. We were to give a performance of
Hiawatha,
and I had the lead part. I did not know then, nor did I discover until about two years ago, in 1992, that the
Song of Hiawatha
speaks of “Grey Eagle.”
Mystic songs like these, they chanted,
“I myself, myself, behold me.”
It is the great Grey Eagle talking
All the unseen spirits help me.
Of course, as you might expect, all the group made silly comments about visiting the “loony bin,” and we all had a bit of a giggle about the whole thing. We must have seemed an insensitive bunch of silly schoolgirls.
It was only as the coach taking us approached the gates to the hospital grounds that my nerve began to crack a little. And my mother's words, spoken often in my childhood, came flooding into my head to haunt me once again:
“You'll end up like your grandma, in The Towers.”
I gazed out of the window and up the long driveway toward the large, cold, and imposing-looking building ahead, and I shivered.
But as the coach pulled up to the front door and all the girls and the two drama teachers jumped up, such was the hustle and bustle of preparing for the show that I was drawn along with the rest of the crowd, with no time to think.
The play went well, very well, in fact. The audience applauded, and we were then invited to stay for tea. Having had the usual lecture that always preceded any school outing, about being representatives of the school and so on, we were all, naturally, on our best behavior.
We were shown into a large hall with trestle tables partway down one side on which there were sandwiches, cakes, and biscuits. All around the rest of the room were people, patients, our audience, seated on hard-backed wooden chairs.
As we stood, my little group of friends and I, in a huddle by the door, wondering what to do, a nurse came up to us and explained cheerfully that we were expected to chat with and try to make friends with our audience.
This was more difficult at first than it might seem, as some of the patients were quite withdrawn. One or two even burst into tears (I now know that these people must have been suffering from depression). But we soon got into the swing of things, and chatting to these strangers became easier.
Then I noticed a lone figure sitting all by herself right in the middle of the room. This lady was possibly in her mid- to late forties, although it was difficult to tell her exact age. She had obviously placed her chair as far as possible from everyone else, and she sat still and silent and strange, very definitely strange.
My friends by this time had also noticed her, but such was the feeling of oddness that emanated from her that not one of us wanted to approach her.
“Well, one of us ought to go,” I remember saying, “so I'll do it.”
As I walked toward this still and silent figure, the thing that struck me most was a feeling of the most incredible loneliness, not just for her, but for me as well. And as I drew closer her pain and despair seemed to creep over me, covering me like a blanket of fog.
Her hair was black, jet black with streaks of gray, and cut straight round as if someone had used a pudding basin. Dark, despairing eyes stared out of a face devoid of any emotion and bored straight through me. The dress she wore was navy blue with tiny white flowers, and in her hand she held a lighted cigarette.
So still did she sit that although the cigarette had burned down almost to her fingers, none of the ash had dropped off at all. The length of ash was as long as the cigarette had originally been. I stared at it in amazement. I had never seen anything like it before.
Deeply moved by this lonely creature, but also terrified, I coughed nervously and tried to say hello. At first I could hardly speak, but, determined, I forced myself to make the required effort. For what seemed like an eternity I struggled to make some sort of conversation, but it was as if I were addressing a stone wall.
Nothing flickered, not an eyelash or a muscle. Not even the cigarette ash.
Then I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder, and a nurse said quietly, “It's no good, dear, she's not at home today.”
As I walked back up the room to my school friends, I could feel the prickling at the backs of my eyes, the awful lump in my throat, and, worse still, the weight of hopelessness and helplessness upon my shoulders.
I don't remember the rest of my time in that hospital, but I do know that I was glad to get out of there. But the memory of that pathetic little lady will stay with me always.
The fear I felt with this lady is the same kind of fear I also felt when I was asked to visit the daughter of a client of mine. This child had had massive brain damage at birth and was in a special care unit at St. Catherine's Hospital in Doncaster in the north of England. Her mother warned me before I went that several kids in this unit, housing some of the worst handicap cases, were not a pretty sight.
When Samantha found out where I was going, she wanted to come along, and I tried to persuade her that it was not a good idea. I didn't know what we were likely to come up against, and being a protective mother, I didn't want my daughter to see the “ugly” side of life.
How wrong could I be!
Samantha, eleven years old at the time, was fine. It was I who had the problem coping.
Superficially, I did the rounds, saying all the right things, nodding and smiling in all the right places. But inside me was turmoil, panic; all I wanted to do was run, just run away from these deformed creatures. They weren't children, were they? It was even questionable whether some of them were human. Their bodies were so distorted.
Then, as I sat in the day room, waiting for my friend to finish her visit and wishing myself a thousand miles away, one of these creatures shuffled up to me on his bottom. He couldn't use his legs because they were so badly mangled. His arms and hands were twisted, as was his face, and to complete this picture of ugliness, his hair, thick and unruly, stuck out from his head in bright ginger spikes.
I pretended not to notice him, but to my horror his twisted fingers caught hold of my skirt and tugged. At the same time, out of his mouth came a moaning sound.
My heart began to thud loudly, banging in my chest. What was I to do? I tried to ignore him, but he was persistent and just kept on tugging. Then a nurse, passing by, said casually: “It's all right, love, he just wants you to button up his pajama jacket.”
I froze. Oh no, not me. I couldn't, didn't want to— touch him.
But why?
A few moments later the same nurse came by again. “If you do his jacket up, love, he'll stop pestering you,” she said.
Well, now I had no option but to cooperate. Tentatively I looked down on this ugly little creature and, gritting my teeth, reached forward and did up his buttons.
There now. That wasn't so bad, was it? I thought as I leaned back on my chair. The thumping in my chest had subsided, and the panic I had felt had eased—but then, oh no! The tugging began again.
I sat forward, looking straight at him this time, thinking that perhaps I ought to move, as it seemed the only way to get rid of him.
It was as I was about to put my thoughts into action that the boy gave another hard tug at my skirt; then, making a noise something akin to a loud chuckle, he hooked his thumb into one of the spaces between the buttons on his jacket and yanked hard. The jacket flew open, and a wicked grin spread across his twisted face as he tugged once more at the hem of my skirt. And I fell in love.
For the first time since I had been in that awful hospital, I laughed. It had become blatantly obvious that this funny little thing had been playing games with me. Wanting my attention, needing recognition. And because of his persistence, he had won.
The instant I laughed, his crooked fingers gripped his jacket and flapped it up and down, and he bounced up and down on his bottom in pure delight.
I reached forward again, but this time with gentleness and tenderness. And as I did up his buttons, I spoke to him softly and looked, for the first time, at the little boy. I looked into his eyes, which were bright and alert and full of mischief, and my heart went out to him.
It is strange, don't you think, how easily laughter can dispel fear?
Seeing these children with their small deformed bodies had brought home to me the stark realization of my own vulnerability. It was a reminder to me of how easily twisted and mangled, disabled, both physically and mentally, any of us can become.
And I had been afraid. Afraid to face the frailty of humankind. My own frailty.
God knows that every time I am reminded of my initial attitude toward these children, I feel a wave of shame wash over me. My lack of understanding and compassion and my inability to look farther than my own self is something I will always be ashamed of.
How much more ugly was I in my intolerance of imperfection than that small boy, ugly in appearance but undoubtedly pure in heart? Tenfold, I think.
David's mind had grasped most things while he was on this side, even though it had been impossible for him to reveal that in a physical way.
Now here was his opportunity to show his mother just exactly how much he had been aware of and how much he had understood when he had been on this side.
Initially Mrs. Harrison found it hard to respond to her son's first attempts at communication from beyond the grave. But she soon overcame her nervousness, and then David's comments had her smiling and relaxed. He amazed his mother by his directness and confidence and by his ability to communicate. She understood everything he said, and the evidence he gave of his survival was phenomenally accurate.
There were a few tears at this reunion, both from David and his mum, but they were tears of pure joy, not of sadness.
Then, toward the end of the sitting, David had this to say: “My mum, my dad, and my sister used to tell me every day just how much they loved me. I would sit in my wheelchair, or on the settee in my special place, and listen to the words of love and reassurance which they constantly gave to me. Even though they were not sure whether I could hear or understand, it made no difference. They told me just the same.
“It was impossible for me to respond to them in any way, as I simply could not move a muscle. But my mind reached out to them in the hope that they could hear me—a boy locked away in a prison.
“I couldn't walk, I couldn't talk, I couldn't run or shout or play football. But those things don't matter anymore. Tell my mum, Rosemary, please, that I can walk now, that I can run and play and do all the things she always hoped I would one day be able to do. In all my life on the earth plane, my mum was there for me. Caring, loving, gentle. Tell her, please, that I can talk now, and tell her, please, Rosemary, ‘I love you, Mum.’
“My life,” he continued, “goes on in the spirit world, and I learn and grow, but I will always be there for my mum, as she was for me, whenever she needs me.”
I have seen June Harrison and her husband many times since that first sitting and have come to know David very well. And believe it or not, he often comes with me when I go out to give public demonstrations, and he is able from time to time to help with my work. After all those years of doing nothing, this young man is now very active and is helping people wherever he can. But I do remember one occasion when David came to help and that help became just a little embarrassing for me.
I was a guest speaker at a special dinner held at a hotel in Newcastle, which is in the north of England. Around 150 people were there, and after talking to them for a while I decided that I would demonstrate spirit communication. I had been aware of David's presence since the evening had begun (I had been talking to his mother earlier that same day), but now as I looked at my audience, I saw him standing by one of the tables, laughing and pointing to one of the gentlemen sitting there.
“Come over here,” David called to me. “His name's David, too … his gran is here to talk to him.”
Dutifully I approached the table and asked the man, “Is your name David?” He said yes, it was, and having spotted his grandmother standing next to “my David,” I proceeded to give him a message from her that he understood totally.
So far so good; the evening was progressing as it should. I had promised David that he could help, and he had taken me at my word, so he went from table to table, indicating to me the next and then the next recipient of messages from those in the spirit world. The problem was that David had decided that the only people to get a message this night were those who bore the name of David or who had husbands or sons by that name. You can imagine that I gave the name of David so often that it became much too repetitious; but I had made a promise and had to stick by it. Fortunately, once I had explained to the audience what was happening, that David liked his name so much, and also liked the idea of being in charge, they thought it was almost as funny as David did … and he thought it was hilarious. I found it funny, too, eventually, and I thank God for the day that this young man came into my life.
David is one of my favorite people, and his story tells it all. The end of his life on this side came when he developed a chest infection. His tiny body was too frail, too weak, to fight it, and he “died.”
But the boy survived and has gone on to become a man, strong, compassionate, and caring. He has fought his battle, and he has won.
And with God's help, so shall we all.
H
ow old was she? Three, perhaps, or possibly four years old. The bed, pushed into the corner of the bedroom, seemed, even if only temporarily, a safe harbor.