Hands

Hands. So important to us. You can give someone a hand to offer help. You can hold your loved one's hand to offer comfort. You can lay a hand on someone to heal. Hands have so many nerve endings that our hands are extremely sensitive.

But have you ever taken a good long look at your hands? The palm has a roadmap of lines and grooves that some palm readers can look at and claim to tell us more about ourselves, our pasts and our futures. Our fingerprints are unique to each of us and defines who we are in databases and in some cases to allow us access to our bank accounts, cars and houses.

I like to look at the back of my hand. I can see the aging process there. The skin, not as smooth as it once was as a child, is now creased with character. But yet, there is something a bit familiar in the shape of my hand, in the shape and length of my fingers and nails. I see my mother's hands.

I see the comforting calm of my mother's hands as they used to reach out and touch me when I was sad or hurt. I see the day that I held her hand as she slowly left me for the last time. I held that hand as long as I could, I memorized the shape, the smell and the feel of her fingers and skin. I wanted that moment to be with me forever. Yes, it was painfully sad, but now when I gaze down at my own hands, I feel as though a part of her will be with me forever.

Hands clasp, hands reach, hands feel, hands applaud, hands raise, hands comfort, hands connect.

The Other Side of the Veil

How often do you get the opportunity to say something to your father, especially when you have never met him?

Well, last night I had that opportunity. I have always believed that there are people in this world who can see through to the other side and speak to those who have crossed over. I have just never had the chance, first hand, to do that myself. I had never met a medium, nor have I ever gone out of my way to seek one out.

I do believe that there is a reason for everything. I do believe that my father wanted to speak to me so strongly, that the connections came together and the time was right.

Several weeks ago Joel met Mark Brogan. He is an attorney who writes a column for the Sun-Sentinel on condo law. Mark is friends with a man, Robert Hansen (http://www.robertehansen.com/) who is a medium. This man is not a medium as a living. He is a special education teacher who works with autistic, deaf and blind children. Something happened to him almost 20 years ago which opened up this window to the other side and he is able to talk to people on the other side. He shares this with people and last night I called him and he shared with me.

Was I amazed? Yes, but I completely believe and I expected to connect. I have been told but another person who has psychic abilities that I have psychic abilities and if I opened up more that I could connect if I wanted to. So in the 60 minutes that I spent on the phone with Robert, I really felt connected to the other side. I wasn't scared, although my heart was beating very quickly in my chest. At times I felt light-headed and as though I could amost pass out, even though I was sitting very comfortably on my bed. I had a tape recorder next to me and the phone on speaker. I wanted to be able to go back and listen at my own pace. I also took notes of things that I didn't know or couldn't connect to a relative.

The most important thing that I learned last night is that my birth father, Harold Lawrence Schain, was the one person who reached out to speak to me. He told Mark that he had visited the child that had the stars on her ceiling and could smell the scent of the candles in her room. That was Rachel, she had a bunch of candles burning in her room and she has plastic stars pasted to the ceiling, Joel and I placed them there when she was a toddler because they glow in the dark and they form a trail toward the door so she could find her way to the bathroom in the dark.

He also told Mark to tell me that my mother didn't have a chance to say good bye to him because his passing was very sudden. Robert didn't know how my father died, but he said that he heard extremely loud noises and machinery. I asked him if I should tell him how my father died. I asked him that because at the beginning of the session he said to not say much except that I do or do not understand what he was telling me. At that point he said yes to say it outloud. When I said that it was a plane crash, he said, now it makes sense. He said that it was a mistake. The aircraft was a private one, a small one, like a Piper Cub and my father switched with the pilot. When I said that we never knew who was flying, he said that my father was insisting that I know that he was flying the plane.

Then my father wanted me to know that he understands my attitude toward my step-father. He is upset that I had to fight for what belongs to me. He said that he was allergic to penicillin and that I would understand that it really was him when Robert said that to me. That was true, my mother told me that and I am also very allergic to it. As a baby I broke out in a terrible rash from head to toe when my mother gave me penicillin. He also said that my mother was kidnapped emotionally and couldn't give me everything that she wanted to give me.

Robert said that I planted something in my backyard in my father's honor. He also said that I did something in my father's honor on my wedding day. I can't remember what either of those things are, but I will just let that information sit and sink in; and perhaps it will come back to me.

There was also something about a baseball mitt and a huge pantry with a lot of canned goods and he kept mentioning baked beans.

These things were pouring out of him. Perhaps my parents wanted to reaffirm that it was really them. My mother always felt the need to keep her pantry well stocked, "just in case." There was always a five month supply of paper towels and toilet paper and canned items and whatever else had a long shelf life. I always attributed that to my her memories of living through the depression in the 1930s. She never wanted to run short of anything. When she took me shopping and we found an item that we liked, she always bought at least two of them!

There was a lot in the middle that I have to listen to again. But at the end of the session, my mother came forward and said that she would be here with me if she could have stayed in her body. She said that she just couldn't do it anymore. It was too painful. She knows that I was with her as she crossed over and that I told it was okay to go. And that my father was her true love and she is with him now.

Robert told me that I have a watch of my fathers. He said that I should hold it and wear it and say good night to him every night because he is listening to me, always.

There was so much more that Robert was telling me and I really have to go back and listen more.

This was the most satisfying experience that I have ever had. I always believed, and now I believe even more.

Change

There is always resistance to change. Change brings uncertainty. But sometimes change brings excitement.

I feel that there is change in the air. Or, is it that I am hopeful for a change? It doesn't matter which is the truth. However, I feel the change coming.

The routine of our daily lives has been tweaked a bit today. Adina is off on a school field trip. She had to be at school at 5:30 a.m. because the buses leave for Orlando at 6 a.m. So Joel and Adina were up at 4:30 a.m. I can usually sleep through anything, but this morning I was up. Adina was so excited, I know that it was hard for her to be quiet. She must have run up and down the stairs 20 times before she was ready to leave. That didn't really bother me, but of course, once they left, I was up for good. I tried to sleep, but couldn't.

So, here I am, sitting in bed, reading emails and writing in this journal. A bit of a change for me. I know that I will be tired later, but that is okay. I am excited for Adina too. I remember what it was like to get up at the crack of dawn. Even before the birds were chirping. My parents used to take me on trips to Washington, DC because that is where my Mom's sister, Sylvia, lived. I loved visiting Aunt Sylvia and Uncle George and of course, my cousin Dennis.

The first thing on Saturday morning, I would meet Dennis in the kitchen and we would eat ice cream for breakfast! That was always so much fun. And Dennis was the only person, besides my Mom, who was call me Jody Robin! Until the day that he died, he called me on my birthday and would say in his Baltimore twang, "Happy Birthday Jody Robin!"

And I was a grown woman! But he was so sweet and loving when he would say it to me. He always made me smile! I do miss him, but I think of him on my birthday and I am sure he is thinking of me too!

But those early morning trips were exciting because it was a change in routine. And of course, the minute we left the driveway and were heading down the street toward the stop sign on Healy Avenue and 25th Street, I would announce to my Mom that I was hungry! Don't know why, but it happened EVERYTIME!!

The very last time that I took a car trip with my parents was in 2002. I was in New York with the girls for two weeks in August. Rachel was 12 and Adina was 7. My parents asked if we wanted to go to Hershey, Pennsylvania! I couldn't really believe that they wanted to do a car trip with all of us, but we all agreed.

So we packed all the things that would keep the girls occupied. We packed food and drinks. My Mom insisted on taking towels and bedding and pillows!! The car was packed to the gills. But, we had all of our creature comforts. And we were off.

My Mom insisted on sitting in the back with the girls. I navigated with maps and my Dad drove. It was like old times, but I was 45 years old! It was strange, it was change and it was an adventure.

And no sooner did we pull out of the driveway, one of the girls said they were hungry! I had to laugh at that and so our adventure began. It was a great trip. We didn't have a set plan. We just decided what to do as we drove. We ended up getting off the main highway and driving on back roads. We saw lots of fields of corn and tiny towns with rolling green hills and brick houses with front porches and American flags posted proudly. We stayed in hotel dives, but we didn't care. I was more amazed that my Mom didn't mind the inconveniences, but it added to the change. We were on the road for about a week. When we returned back to New York, we were ready to get there and sleep in our own beds. But it was fun.

So change can be fun. But the anticipation can rattle you but then, that is what life is about. It can't always be the same.

Glue

Glue. What exactly is glue? According to Webster's Dictionary, glue is something that binds together. However the second meaning is that glue is something to satisfy the human desire for community.

Well, as Mother's Day approaches, I think of my Mom. She was the glue to our family. She had an unbelievable passion for making sure that not only was everyone taken care of, but that they knew what the rest of the family was up to.

My Mom spent an incredible amount of time on the telephone, but it was never idle chit chat. It was always with the intent to find out how you were, what you were doing and to tell you about the rest of the family. Of course, no matter what, when she was in New York, she had to tell me the weather report. That was funny. I don't know why she was compelled to tell me that, but it was sweet and I miss those phone calls now.

In the first year after she passed away, I tried desperately to fill her shoes. I called all the relatives on a weekly basis, just the way that my Mom did. I tried to ask the pertinent questions that she asked and share the news that I had found out on the other phone calls. But it wasn't the same. It was too sad for me to continue in the same exact manner of my Mom, so I tried a different path and does seem to be working for me now. Although my circle of family has narrowed quite a bit.

I use the power of the Internet. I write emails. I take and share photos. I don't get the vast details that I used to get, but it does work for me. My family members tell me that they love the photos because they feel like they are a part of our lives and sharing in the daily activities that I choose to document with my camera.

But with other family members, the glue has melted. Sometimes I find that sad, and other times it doesn't bother me.

But Gloria Horne was truly a unique person and she touched so many lives. Her glue still lives on.