My Cecily

 by Terry Lee Bivona


Yesterday, I went to one of my hospice patient's home after he had died. I arrived to see his body laying on the bed, his withered arms and legs, his body tilted to his left, knees bent up slightly. This past week I had met him: straight eye contact, accepting the upcoming graduation from the earth to the heavens, not wanting, not caring to comfort us. He was polite and he was brief. And he could still be funny, answering the chaplain's question of "What can I do for you?" with "You got any money?"  

In 1989, my now-ex wife and I got pregnant. We were planning marriage but that was a month or so away. She chose abortion. I did not want it. I wanted to keep going on the path we had set. We had talked the prior16 months, since meeting, about having children, that we wanted two, playing out in our minds how bright they would be, whose physical traits they would get, how often we would be in the principal's office at school for having kids who thought too smartly out of the box. So I wanted this, we had agreed on it, I invested from the heart on this, an opportunity to give and to teach the lessons I felt my parents missed on giving me, but which I felt that I had the ability to give.

The abortion was in early 1989, up in Charlottesville.  The following years of the marriage never did recover, love did not fill the space, and nothing was ever as bright as before that day. I felt that THAT was our opportunity to parent, and that that it may not happen again. It didn't.

Two weeks after I moved out for the divorce, I had spoken to the therapist about all this. The next morning I hand-picked a pink rose, wrapped it in a creative way that carried my signature style on it. I drove below the speed limit to C-ville. I had also bought a card, thanking Cecily for being a part of my life. The clinic was closed, as I had wanted. I went to the door, placing the card and flower there, inwardly repeating my words of thanks, and wishing her well on her road ahead, that she would find parents she deserved, that she could be loved as I hoped that I would have been able to love her.

The next week I was in my apartment when I saw an apparition of her, a young girl, with big, dark blond wavy hair to her shoulders. I said "What are you doing here?" She said, "I've always been here." Why.? "Because I like you." I dropped to my knees in the surge of being so overwhelmed by the vividness, and reality of this moment.

She appeared again in my van on a return trip from C-ville. She said she was leaving, that she could now, because I was loved. I had been dating a woman for over a year and the relationship looked hopeful.

So, yesterday, I was there with that old man's body. The gents from the funeral home came in and placed the gurney in the living room. The bedroom was through two very narrow doors and a short hallway. I said I would bring out his body. They chuckled, assuming I was being funny, as we had joked earlier about me doing all the work while they would "allow" me to do their work for them.

I picked up the man's body, under his bent knees, and then I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and lifted him. As I backed up and turned to the door, I could feel his soul had departed, and that in my hands was an empty body. I decided that I would love it anyway. There was a brief second where I felt that empty shell simply open, and that I was surrounding it with love. Then I came into the hallway. In an instant I felt a presence in that body, but not that man‚s presence. It was someone I knew. There was an impact in my chest that felt like a flood, but it was too much to sort out, still carrying this body to the people and gurney waiting in the next room. The chaplain and funeral home gents were stunned to see me there, all of a sudden, holding this body, right there beside them, in a warm embrace of tender love. I placed that body on the gurney so gently. They created space for me to do it. The chaplain began to cry. The two gents and I swaddled that body, and covered it with the blue velvet covering. The quiet reverence was massive.

Once outside, the chaplain and I talked. She had many layers of experience behind her tears, there. I told her I had an impact moment but I could not yet put it all together.

It was when I was writing a friend about it that it all became clear. Cecily had mattered to me before she was even conceived. I loved her, I surrounded her with bright thoughts of love and wisdom and to see her develop the courage, the spiritual and mental courage that I knew could create a better life than I had known in my childhood. I wanted her to have that courage. So, I had seen her in my heart, in my mind, and at that one day after my divorce to see in my inner vision, and even in my van on that road home from Charlottesville that one night. But yesterday, yesterday, through that body, she let me hold her. I had never done that, not in the 18 years since her conception. I had longed for that. God, I had longed for it. The one image I have treasure of my dad, was of that same embrace, carrying me down the hallway, late one night. I acted like I was asleep so he would continue to embrace me. I know how wonderful it felt to be held like that. Cecily came to me so that I could feel her there, just this once, but just to last the rest of this lifetime.

I am Cecily's father.

Terry Lee Bivona
TLBivona@comcast.net

IJHC - WHR Observations

Two out of three people who have lost someone close to them will either see, hear, or simply sense the presence of that person shortly after their passing on - according to a survey in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1988.

For many, this is a deeply meaningful experience, as it was for Terry. I am grateful to Terry for sharing this with me, and for his willingness to share this with readers of this eZine.

If you know anyone who has been had someone close who passed on, you have a 2 out of 3 chance of being deeply appreciated for asking them, "Have you had a sense that your loved one has been present after they passed on?" Many people who are unfamiliar with this type of apparition are afraid they are 'losing it.'

More on apparitions and related spiritual experiences in Healing Research, Volume III: Personal Spirituality - Science, Spirit, and the Eternal Soul