My Children, Listen by Catherine Toye of Caritas Publications

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Chapter One

December, 1990

Because God did not make death,

nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.

Wisdom 1:13

I was thirty-eight years old, happy, successful at least by many worldly standards, and full of life. My two children were my greatest joy. Our lives had seen the trauma of a marriage failed—its end divorce. I persevered in its wake, striving to put the comforting rituals of life in place about us. I made as great a sense of permanence, family, and continuity as circumstances allowed. My work as a physician was fulfilling and challenging, making the long arduous years of school and training pale in memory.

Suddenly it was all over. One December morning I simply could not get out of bed. Each time I tried, I fell back. I could not plant my feet on the floor. I could not find the floor, as I realized I could not tell up from down. The room was spinning round and round. As the spinning become more violent, I held tightly to the bed for it seemed I would otherwise be thrown from it. By comparison it was relief when this vertigo subsided into continuous dizziness and nausea—punctuated by periods of uncontrolled vomiting. The high-pitched ringing and intense pressured pain deep within my ears distracted me. Later that morning my attention was otherwise fully seized, when I realized that intermittently I could not hear those around me. My body was drained of energy. An oppressive fatigue shackled me—my body felt four times its weight.

That was my first episode of Meniere's disease, an inner ear disorder, and it heralded my entry into a world of chronic illness. Initial testing confirmed the diagnosis: bilateral Meniere's disease, cause as yet undetermined. My prognosis was laid before me. I could expect repeated episodes of Meniere's with progressive hearing loss, and in five to fifteen years be deaf in both ears. I sat frozen in stunned silence upon hearing my physician's words. I thought, "This couldn't be real...there must be some mistake." He continued, "Some patients are actually grateful when they are deaf, because they have some relief from the bouts of vertigo, vomiting, and dizziness."

"Grateful? Was that supposed to be consoling? The good news, the silver lining?" I thought. Being unable to relate to this at all distanced me further still from the reality of the moment. Beneath my outward composure, I wanted to scream as long and loud as I could, "NOOOOOOO!"

An intensive search for the cause was begun in hopes of tailoring any form of treatment to stem the inevitable progression of the disease. Weeks of testing followed, but nothing more definitive emerged. Though ninety-nine percent of Meniere's many causes had been excluded, what brought about mine remained a mystery. Only a handful of rare etiologies remained, stones not yet turned.

The first two months of my illness were quite severe, spent almost entirely lying still in a darkened quiet room, seeking any modicum of relief from the unremitting motion sickness. I was blessed by having my mother and grandmother interrupt their lives to come help my children and me.

Some days I could not raise myself out of bed to even care for my own needs. At times I felt panic and confusion over the body which I held motionless because even the slightest movement of my head was accompanied by suffocating waves of sea sickness rolling over me. I felt useless, worthless. Who was I? What was left of me? Was there any spark of the vibrance I once had? I was indignant at confronting an identity crisis.

I was affronted by the lack of permanence offered by so many things we anchor ourselves to in this life—transient moorings to distract us from thoughts of our mortality. For me, now, nothing seemed permanent. Reduced to my present circumstances, there were few distractions to cling to. I envied those who continued in the reassuring routines of daily living, though I knew firsthand how precarious their illusion of security was. It was a hoax awaiting inevitable exposure, if not by an early fate, then by time. In the havoc illness wrought I slipped beneath the veneered semblance of life's order onto its raw, fragile edge. A solitary thread held me from being swallowed into the nothingness engulfing me on every side. That fine thread was my children—needing me and depending upon me. We three were together. Now, in the wake of my illness, our lives had been turned upside down once again. It was even less certain what lay ahead.

Angry and frustrated at my losses, I slipped into despair. Overwhelmed, I felt the full burden of my illness as failure. I was alone and without hope. I was frightened for my children and myself. I was their sole provider. All that I had hoped and wished, worked, struggled, and dreamed for lay wasted around me. I was desolate—except for my children, and it grieved me to wonder how I would protect and care for them. The tomorrow of our lives had become a growing uncertainty. I could no longer see a path or clear direction, nor did it much matter; there was barely a shred of me remaining with which to take the first step.

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Chapter Two

January, 1991

He heard this and said,

"Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.

Go and learn the meaning of the words, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'

I did not come to call the righteous but sinners."

Matthew 9:12-13

As had become our new morning routine, my daughters, six and nine years old, came to my room together to kiss me good-bye before school. Their faces were bright, their hair shiny, neatly combed, and their jumpers and blouses pressed. The usual sparkle in their eyes was dimmed by unspoken questions, not to be thought, much less asked. Brown eyes wide and limpid, they approached my bed with the apprehension of fawns nearing the injured doe. Propping myself up on one arm, I made my best effort to look and sound like the mother they had known five weeks before. Their eyes searched mine for reassurance. I thought my heart would break as I watched their pain and fright, leaving me overcome at my helplessness. I would have moved a mountain for them—but I could not stand up to see them to the front door.

They walked away from me, anxiously turning for a last glimpse and wave before I heard the front door open and shut. I closed my eyes and rested my head on the pillow. A tear welled at the corner of my eye.

What immediately followed their departure was not a dream or a hallucination. I was fully awake, my mind sharp and focused. I had a heightened clarity of perception beyond anything I knew possible.

At first my mind was completely blank. I was enveloped in a soothing, soft, velvety, indescribable blackness that was more than black. At the same time the steady, intense pain and continuous, noisy, high-pitched ringing deep in my ears, and the marked nausea and dizziness totally abated. I felt no physical sensations. It was like floating effortlessly, weightlessly. A living, rapidly moving stream of light in the shape of an inverted V appeared around me. The apex of the V was far above and ahead of me, and I could not see where the two arms of the V joined. The arms of the V enclosed the space I was in and beyond. The light had a quality I had never seen before. It was radiantly beautiful and alive as it streamed from the V's apex. At about the same time that I became aware of the light, I heard the most beautiful, soft musical chimes.

Then I "heard" a voice, but I did not just hear it. I saw and felt the words spoken. The letters forming the words had three dimensions and were made of light. It was a similar, beautiful, live, white-golden light as in the V. The words all originated from the apex of the V and as they came down to me they became larger in size. I did not see the words stop short of me, nor was I aware of having the physical border a body provides. I could feel the words, as if gently bathed in them. I cannot at all describe what they felt like. It was more pleasurable than our bodily senses would allow. The voice was not like one I have ever heard. It was magnificently resonant, harmonious, deep, and extraordinarily soothing. But there was something ineffable about that sonorous voice. Immediately, in a familiar, entirely commonplace manner, and without fear, I recognized the Presence speaking to me as God.

My child, you have had a difficult life...

I felt undeserving of so much compassion, and thought how many others have suffered so much more and for longer than I. In that moment, I knew that God was there for them too, matched to their needs. I found infinite solace in the depth of pure, unconditional love, acceptance, and understanding from the One who knows my every fault.

It was rather like actually being there again, with all the accompanying details, sensations, and feelings. The one difference, however, was viewing my life with crystal clear perception and a knowledge superior to hindsight and experience alone. The two most painful areas were revisiting my father's death, when I was four, and the dissolution of my marriage.

The death of my father when he was thirty-three, and the loss of the person I thought I was married to had been the most tragic and deeply saddening events in my life. I saw these events in brutal clarity and appreciated rippling aftershocks from each into many other scenes in my life.

I had not mourned my father's death until I was twenty-three years old, when I shed my first tears of grief for him. I knew he was dead, but I could not let him rest as only a memory. I had made him part of my daily life. As a little girl I would think of him in heaven, at various times throughout my day, and I would imagine his reaction: praise, encouragement, support, and sometimes gentle scolding. Most of all I carried the memory of his love inside me, playing it over and over as if it were in the present. At day's close my ruse never worked as well because all I really wanted was to feel his reassuring hug wishing me a goodnight and sweet dreams. There were times I was bitterly disappointed and angry with him for not truly being there. There were times I was frustrated at his silence when I grew tired of my monologue with him. But his silence was less painful than letting him go from my life would be, and I grew more and more accustomed to a very one-sided relationship with the most significant man in my young life. Unwittingly, I shaped my future expectations of a spouse.

Viewing my life in retrospect, I became more compassionate and forgiving toward myself. I appreciated how my inability to face the pain of my father's death had led me to choose a spouse who I came to feel interacted with me in a manner as remote, self-absorbed, and unfeeling as if he were dead; I, through this choice, doomed the relationship to end in loss. I mistook the familiar for the normal.

Flowing from my life review, I became exquisitely aware that when we sin, that sin always hurts people, and the injury does not remain contained in isolation. As one raindrop falls on a quiet lake, there is an ever-widening disruption of the serene water. Sin is like the raindrop that ripples its effects over the lake of life to an ever-widening circle of people. Injured, they in turn generate new raindrops, till the lake's calm is obliterated and the water can no longer reflect the beauty around it, the beauty of God's love and creation. In this heightened state of perception I also became acutely aware that sin is not accidental, but always involves choice given us through the gift of our free will.

In these scenes before me I witnessed how I had perpetuated this chain and in turn hurt other people. I not only saw but felt, from the vantage point of others, the consequences of my actions or lack of them. I was overcome with regret, remorse, guilt, sorrow, shame, and a deep sense of being unworthy of the many gifts I had been given in my life. The manner in which I was able to see and think laid all things bare, without any possibility of deception, dissembling, or forms of excuse. Nothing was allowed to be hidden; all was apparent. The stark truth alone made judgment obsolete. Absolute truth was judgment.

This awareness would have been unbearable were it not for the incredible Presence I felt with me, holding me, gently guiding me. Instead of fault, blame, judgment, reproach, condemnation, or accusations I felt the most indescribable, incomparable, boundless, absolute love supporting me. It was filled with a depth of compassion, and there were no conditions. Forgiveness was implicit. Instead of demoralization at having now starkly witnessed my own sins, from the active through the acquiescent, I had hope and confidence that I could do better.

I felt incredible peace. Again I became aware of floating in the soothing blackness pierced by the inverted V-shaped arms of light and the chimes around me. In the same manner more words, which I could see, hear, and feel, appeared. The interval between these and the first seemed no more than a mid-sentence pause. I heard the next phrase as if it had been a smooth continuation and completion of thought.

...but there is a plan.

This was explained to me in the following words, which I heard but did not see or feel.

There is a purpose for the pain and

suffering in your life,

as there is for everything in your life.

Without words I was made aware of several personal events that would one day occur. What was revealed to me illustrated the above explanation. I was shown what I could uniquely bring to these circumstances as a direct consequence of the suffering I had in my own life. I was therein shown how purpose could underlie pain and be brought to fruition.

Again without words I understood that there was always a purpose to our lives even when we could discern none. It was God directing the overall plan and so all-powerful as to harness even evil, drawing good from it, such that his will alone prevails. So too it is when we use the gift of our free will to turn from God in sin. God does not forsake us but continually seeks to draw us back to his plan. God's boundless love and merciful forgiveness await those who are prepared to receive it.

I was filled with a profound faith and trust in God as my all-powerful, loving, and kind Father. I experienced a deep sense of peace, and again floated in the blackness, cradled by the arms of light and soothed by the chimes. I saw, heard, and felt the following.

Your body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost.

Do not let anyone, including

yourself, or anything abuse it.

This was explained to me, as it applied to my life. Simultaneously I was vividly immersed in relevant past scenes. "Anything" was demonstrated as working to excess, with its attendant improper sleep, nutrition, and relaxation. "Anyone" was exemplified by those who took advantage of my regularly responding to the needs of others without proper regard for my own needs. The contribution of "self" was illustrated throughout all scenes in that it was I who had not set the appropriate limits. It returned the ultimate responsibility to me.

There was never judgment or reproof from the enveloping consoling Presence, only deep compassion, overwhelming love, and the most gentle guidance leading me to see the truth. In this manner I was taken back again to scenes from my early childhood.

I was four years old, unable to make sense or find comfort in the incomprehensible—my father not coming home. I did not know I stood at a crossroads: letting him go and accepting and mourning his death, or progressively deadening the awareness of my own needs, dulling my disappointment and anger in order to tolerate his silence—his absence. It was never a choice. I took the only comfortable path, the one in his "company," and there I remained throughout childhood and yet a little longer.

It pierced my heart to watch and re-experience the fragile vulnerability of childhood. It was all the more poignant knowing where that path led. Compassion and love from the enveloping Presence obliterated all else. I had been shown the source of my weakness in setting limits, having learned to ignore some basic needs. I was shown how to do yet more, in proper balance. We are to regard our bodies with a reverence due the Temple of the Holy Spirit. To most fully love and care for others, we must begin by loving and caring for ourselves. In this there is more strength; in this there is more to give.

I was left with a wellspring of hope, empowered to change with a sense of completeness beyond the insight of mere understanding. I felt extraordinary peace and perfect contentment, beyond words. I felt more love than I can begin to describe. Once again I drifted off into the soothing blackness, bounded by the arms of light and bathed in chimes. Then, I heard, felt, and saw the following:

I am the head of every household,

married or single.

This was explained to me in words that I did not see or hear:

Do not be looking for a husband

or father for your children.

I was then given understanding into my lifelong yearning to have my own father back and recreate an intact family, and the similar wish I now had for my children. I saw how this deep need, which had been too painful for me to face, had sabotaged my life's choices, and thus I created exactly what I tried to escape. It was reaffirmed to me that my daughters and I were a complete family, with God in our midst—head of our household, and our ceaseless, dominant, governing constant, whether I was married or a single parent.

Again I was at great peace, and my being was permeated with joy. At once I felt I had been filled to overflowing with a father's love, gone from my life too soon, and always desperately wanted back. Simultaneously, another gaping void was also healed—feeling abandoned by the man I had loved and committed my life to. I was brought to terms with the calamity of my own self-deception. The person I thought I married was a figment of what I could imagine, rationalize, excuse, or deny.

The first question I initiated to the Presence about me was my prime concern: "What about my children?" I saw, heard, and felt the following words in response:

Your children will be fine,

if you let them know me.

This was explained to me twofold. The first was didactic: teaching them about God. The second was by my living example, and in my relationship with them—to simply love them as purely and as much as I was able. By loving them as I had experienced God's love for me, I would help them be more readily able to find God in their lives and be open to his grace and love.

The next interchange is difficult to relate. Being enveloped by this Presence was somewhat like the ease of being reunited with your dearest long-lost friend, now unexpectedly found. It was the delight in picking up exactly where you had been, as if twenty years, thirty years, or even a lifetime were two days. I felt an overpowering, comfortable oneness, something missing made whole, a deep longing fulfilled. In this familiarity I felt totally free to express myself, despite full knowledge of my absolute insignificance. Simultaneously, I appreciated the awesome power, yet gentleness beyond words, of this Presence, imbuing my entire being with boundless, infinite love. Another quality of this magnificent Presence was the warmest, kindest sense of humor, further inviting me to share in light-hearted mirth. Responding to this and with the deepest reverence, the tone of the following was one of affectionately shared jest. I suddenly remembered the reality of the Persian Gulf War looming, and said, "Oh, and while I have you here; please grant us world peace." I paused, conscious of the enormity and privilege of these precious moments, then remembered my prognosis: the prospect of one day not hearing my children. It startled me in nearly forgetting—nearly forgetting to ask. I quickly added, "And, oh yes, I'd really like to hear!" In response I saw, heard, and felt the following:

Rest your body, and heal.

Filled to overflowing once more with the gifts of faith, trust, hope, peace, joy, and love, I floated in the soft blackness cradled between the arms of light, soothed by the chimes. I wanted to stay there and never, ever leave. From a state more awake and aware than any I had ever known, I fell swiftly and gently into a deep sleep. When I awoke later that day, my life was forever changed.