Angelic Pathways (13 page)

There, as I stood in the shop alone, that one sliver of doubt in my mind that I can never seem to let go of said,
What if you’re wrong?
My breath hitched and I began to pace the floor. What if the angels were all a part of my imagination? What if they didn’t really exist and I was just some crazy lady hearing voices?
What if?

With a deep groan, I sat down and covered my face with my hands. I wanted to call Tracy right then and there and cancel the appointment, but how low of a human did I have to be? I couldn’t just toss the matter aside.

“Stop panicking,” Archangel Raphael said as he appeared before me. Dressed all in white and holding onto his shepherd’s staff, he gazed at me with large brown eyes as a golden aura radiated around him.

“I can’t do this, Raphael. I mean, what do I say to her?” I clutched at the roots of my hair as all kinds of scenarios played out in my mind, right down to the ghost of the woman coming back to haunt me for misleading her about the other side.

“
You
don’t say anything,” he said, pointing a long finger at me. “Let me handle it.”

I scoffed at the archangel with a chuckle. “Right. Whatever you say, chief.” Hey, if he wanted to take the reins on this, fine. The internal paradox was heavy enough to crush me. On one hand, I was too skeptical of the angels and my own gifts to connect with them to keep the appointment. On the other, I was too much of a coward to face the woman and so would hide behind this archangel—real or imagined—and see what happened.

Irrational thinking? Of course it is. I knew that then and I know that now, but there was so much that was still so new to me that I really didn’t know how to approach the situation. If nothing else, I would go and offer comfort the best way I could. I would treat her as if she were my own mother, with respect and love, and maybe, just maybe, that would be enough.

All of that brought me to the moment where I was sitting in the parking lot of the very same hospital where I had been treated for pneumonia earlier that year; only now, instead of panicking over a bill I couldn’t pay, I was panicking over the spiritual task I had agreed to carry out. I felt so ashamed! I felt like a sham. A fraud! Other than talking to the angels directly and connecting with clients who claimed that my consultations were accurate, I had not a single shred of proof that my spiritual life had a basis in reality. With a sigh, I pounded my head against the steering wheel.

“God, I really don’t want to do this,” I whispered.

“Which part of ‘you don’t have to do anything’ did you not understand?” Raphael spoke, and I looked up in the rearview mirror to see him sitting in the back seat. “Come on, let’s go.”

Reluctantly, I gathered my things and got out of the car. Within minutes, I was walking into the hospital room where Tracy, her sister, her brother, and her mother were. I’ll call her mother Gladys.

For someone with only days to live, Gladys looked incredibly well. Her eyes were bright and she was smiling. For a moment I thought perhaps I had entered the wrong room, at least until Tracy got up to greet me. She introduced me to her sister, who expressed that she wanted to get a consultation with me in the near future. And then Tracy turned me to her brother, who gave me a disdainful lookover. It was a skeptical look I knew well, as if he couldn’t believe his sister would bring some storefront psychic to sit with his mother in her last days. I didn’t fault him for feeling that way. If I had been in his shoes, I would have most likely felt the same way considering the skepticism I had about myself and the angelic world I was still learning so much about.

“Do you want us to leave the room?” Tracy obviously caught on to the contempt her brother was exuding, but I declined her suggestion.

“No, you can all stay,” I said and went to take a seat by Gladys. She offered her hand to me and I took it. It was cool, but very soft. She was a graying woman, looking to be in her seventies, but I could tell by the light in her eyes that she still had a lot of spunk. If she were to leave soon, the angels would have to drag her away. She had the look of a woman who still had so much more she wanted to do.

“My daughter says you talk to the angels,” she said with a smile. There was no skepticism in her features. Her demeanor was open and welcoming, and she treated me with a reverence that I didn’t in the least feel I deserved. If anything, I really wished the family had called a priest instead. The mangled soul that I was was hardly fit to help someone transition from this side to the other, but there was no backing down now. I was locked in for the ride.

“Either that or I need to be wrapped up in a straightjacket and tossed into a padded cell,” I chuckled lightly.

Gladys laughed boisterously and with more vigor than I expected from someone in her condition. “Good, we can be roommates then,” she said good-naturedly. I couldn’t help but laugh, too, and I was grateful to Heaven that she was in such high spirits. She seemed to be in much better spirits than Tracy had initially implied, and I was left wondering how to broach the topic of the reason I was there. Luckily, I didn’t have to. It seemed that Raphael had started the show without me.

“Well, I don’t think you’re crazy in the least bit,” Gladys began. “My daughter told me you were coming, and at first I laughed her out the room about bringing a psychic to see me. No offense.”

“None taken,” I smiled.

“But then I got a visit.” She breathed deeply to continue her sentence, and that’s when Raphael appeared and tapped me on the shoulder.

“Tell her I’m here,” the archangel said, and then he went to stand over by the door. I swallowed hard and braced myself, knowing not to dawdle when it comes to angelic instruction. Before Gladys could say another word, I gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

“Hold on just one second, Gladys. I don’t mean to interrupt you, but …” I glanced up a moment at Tracy and her siblings sitting over by the window. Her brother didn’t seem too interested in what was happening and had his eyes plastered to the game show on television. “Archangel Raphael just told me to inform you that he’s here.”

Tracy and her sister gasped. Her brother let out a sound of disgust. It was Gladys’s reaction, however, that floored me. With not an ounce of surprise on her face, she pointed over at the door directly at the angel.

“I know, that’s what I was gonna say. Raphael’s with me now. He’s standing right over there by the door.” I had to sit back in my chair as my gaze slid back and forth between the woman and the angel. They were looking directly at each other!

Clearing my throat and shaking off the chill that had just washed over me, I shifted in my chair again. This had to be a coincidence. It had to be. Never had I encountered anyone who could validate my own vision of any angel so clearly. And as if Raphael knew of my apprehension, he waved at Gladys.

She waved back.

My heart began to race. I turned fully to her now even as Raphael crossed the room to stand at the foot of her bed. “Just out of curiosity, Gladys,” I began with a quaking voice, “how does he appear to you?”

“Well, he’s tall,” she said. That was a no-brainer. Most accounts of the angels often begin like that. “He’s wearing all white.” Again, nothing to write home about. “He’s got long brown hair and dark eyes and he’s holding a staff.” My eyes slid to the archangel standing at the foot of the bed. His features were stoic and betrayed no emotion. I was rendered speechless.

“I’ll tell you, Chantel,” Gladys whispered, “if I’d known the angels were that good-lookin’, I’d have left out of here a long time ago.” She gave me a sly smile and elbowed me. I was in too much shock to respond, but Raphael actually seemed to blush as he glanced down at his feet. She shook my hand to get my attention. “I’m not afraid anymore,” she said finally with conviction in her voice. “I’m ready.”

I gently withdrew my trembling hand and sniffed back tears. I could only nod to acknowledge her declaration even as I watched Raphael slowly fade from sight. “Thank you,” I spoke to him with my mind.

“Her legs are bothering her,” he whispered. “Why don’t you give her some Reiki before you go?”

Again, I nodded and then looked to Gladys. “Would you like some Reiki?” I asked her and then explained to her what the alternative energy healing method encompassed.

“Oh, yes!” she smiled a bit and then groaned. “My legs are aching so bad. Will that help?”

At that point, all I could do was pat her gently on the arm, get up, and go to the foot of the bed where Raphael had been standing. I gently placed my hands on her feet. “Close your eyes and relax,” I whispered, and she did just that. By time I was done administering the Reiki as per Raphael’s instructions, Gladys was snoring peacefully.

Tracy and I both giggled through our tears and tiptoed out of the room to talk in the hallway. As she thanked me for the visit, I couldn’t help but express my abundant gratitude to her and her mother for one of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life. Even as we stood there, I was still shaking in awe of what I’d witnessed. I had gone into the room steeped in doubt and come out believing more in the angels than I ever had before.

And I wasn’t the only one. I had noticed that when I was done with the Reiki, the brother had made himself absent. On the way to the elevator, I saw him pacing slowly in the lobby. I offered him a sympathetic nod, but before I could get on the elevator, he stopped me.

“I’m not sure what happened back there, but thanks. I’ve not seen my mom that happy since all this began,” he muttered as he looked everywhere but at me. I gave him a soft smile and patted him on the shoulder.

“I didn’t do anything. The angels did it all. I was just there to watch them in action, just like you were.” With that, I offered him my hand and he took it in a firm grip before we exchanged farewells. Not long after, I found myself sitting in my car again, this time staring at the starry night sky. I was still in shock over what I’d just witnessed, and as I sat there, I turned my eyes toward the massive hospital complex and wondered how many others were connecting with their angels like Gladys was. How many people were lying in their rooms, clutching their blankets and fearing their final moments, only to be soothed by the presence of an archangel?

“When it’s my time …” I whispered in the silence of my car.

“We’ll be there, Chantel,” Raphael’s voice echoed in my mind, and I then felt the warmth of his hand on my shoulder. His soothing touch moved me into such a state of calm that I didn’t feel up to driving just yet. Instead, I sat there in the parking lot and gazed at the stars thinking of every soul that was leaving this planet at that moment and how each one was being escorted away in the arms of an angel.

It was a heady musing, one on which I couldn’t help but superimpose all the moments when I had sat beside someone’s deathbed, and even my own harrowing moments when I had thought the next breath would be my last.

When that moment does come—however it comes—we all go through the same process. The belief that a person’s life passes before their eyes is accurate. There is always the rapid flickering of memories—the person’s life in review. Then immediately afterward comes the arrival of one or more “luminous beings,” as they have been called by the many people who have had a near-death experience (NDE). These luminous beings could be loved ones or angels, or they could be ascended masters such as Jesus, Mary Magdalene, or Buddha.

Regardless of whether a person passes peacefully during sleep or in a tragic car accident, there will always be a representative from the Realm of Spirit there to calm, comfort, and guide the soul back home. My spirit guide Jake suffered a sudden and fatal injury while working late one night. When he died, he didn’t realize it until he saw his friends and coworkers gathered around his body. At first he thought it was someone else who was hurt, but then he heard everyone yelling and screaming his name. When he looked over the shoulder of one of his coworkers and into his own face, panic and confusion set in. Such a reaction is common for those who leave in this manner.

Dutifully, Archangel Raphael was the angel who appeared by Jake’s side to guide him home. Needless to say, the boy didn’t want to go. He was young, not quite thirty, and just beginning to make a name for himself in his field. While he was reluctant to walk into the light with the archangel, he finally acquiesced after realizing his begging and pleading would not change anything.

Whereas Jake mentioned walking through a doorway of bright blue, shimmering light, many people who have had an NDE have described walking through a long tunnel toward a light. Still other souls have expressed that it was just like waking up from a long, detailed dream. Regardless of the path they walk to get to the other side, there is one common thread among those who pass from this world to the next: peace. There is always a sense of peace that overcomes the soul when it realizes there is nothing to fear. The general consensus is that there’s a sense that everything is going to be all right—not just for the soul, but also for those being left behind.