The Gatekeeper

Someone in the class asked if I was a Medium. I remember it so clearly, I laughed and said, "Me, no! I can't do that!"

It's really important to be careful with your words...

Almost from the moment I opened my mind to it, the voices started arriving. At first it was one, then two more, then five or six, until very quickly, I felt like I was surrounded.

Years ago, my husband was touring with Metallica as the Lighting Director and, when the tour came to LA they played at the Colosseum. It's Big. I went to see the show of course, and watched from up in the "condo;" a scaffolding tower in the middle of the field where the sound, lighting and follow-spot folks worked during the show. From my vantage point, more than ten feet above the ground, I saw mosh pits form and disband and heard the waves of noise from the crowd as Ninety Thousand people stood, waiting for the show to start. We were smack in the middle of it all and, I could feel the vibrations in the air from all those people.

When my mediumship doors opened it felt just like that, with one big difference. At the Metallica show, I was above the crowd and now it felt like the crowd was above me, in front of me, beside me and all around me. I couldn't escape the rolling waves of voices, as each struggled to be heard above the others. I was overwhelmed by the sound, the emotions and the crush of so much energy pressing in on me from every direction.

The ensuing headache was relentless. There seemed to be little I could do to make it stop. Regular pain remedies offered no help, I just couldn't seem to turn the volume down on the white noise in my head. By the time this had gone on for two full days, I was at the end of my rope. If this was what it was going to be like, I was not interested! Finally, I gave up trying to do anything and went to lay down. I tried (again) to meditate, to focus on my breath, but nothing seemed to help.

"What do you want from me?" I asked out loud (again) as tears ran down my face (again). "How am I supposed to do this?" "I CAN'T do this and I WANT my life back!" I yelled to no one in particular, as I flopped back onto my pillow (again).

And then, she came. My Grandma's sister, Aunt Dora. Both very tiny women and the closest of sisters, during her life, Dora had always been a favorite of mine, and a trusted confidante. When we moved to LA, one of the biggest blessings was more time with that part of my family, and we took every opportunity to go see her. She always listened, never judged and loved our family intensely. At the end of every visit, she would say kenahora (a Yiddish slang expression to ward off bad luck or evil spirits) and kiss us on the head, superstition keeping her from kissing our faces. In her passing, she visited me often and years later, finally admitted she had chosen to stay near me as one of my guides.

Now I was watching her walk toward me as I'd done a hundred times before, always wearing the little flower painted Keds she loved so much. She took my cheeks in her velvety soft hands and kissed me on the forehead, just as she'd always done before. She walked to the center of my room and, out of nowhere, produced a deli-counter "Take A Number" machine on a stand and slammed it down onto the floor!

And then, the woman I'd known my whole life to be made of "sugar and spice and everything nice," became formidable as hell as she announced in a booming voice, "I AM THE GATE KEEPER! TAKE A NUMBER AND SHE'LL GET TO YOU WHEN IT'S YOUR TIME!!"

Jaw on the floor, I watched as people from every walk of life and every time in our history, formed a line, took a number and disappeared. As they went, the pounding in my head finally began to subside. She took my face in her hands again and said, "Your life will never be the same but, you will learn to protect yourself."

As sleep came for the first time in several days, she kissed my head again and said, "You can do this. I will be there to help."

*my Grandma Helen is on the left and my Aunt Dora is on the right.