I needed to use my creativity to specifically help me. Although the apartment was empty, on vertical paper, I sketched a small stick figure of Stephen lying in bed at the top and one of me cooking at the bottom. In the open space I wrote, “Sh-h-h-h-h, he’s sleeping” in big letters and taped it to the refrigerator door. Each time I went to the kitchen I’d work quietly—imagining that I was not waking him. And it helped.
When I first heard the female, African-American acapella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock sing In the Upper Room, it gave me a name for where Stephen was—quieting my heart.
Having experience with occult abilities, I was still surprised one day looking up to see a vision of Stephen in a room. I thought, “That’s the ‘upper room’—or at least my upper room.” I regularly saw him but only standing, with his left arm straight out and his hand holding the neck of his guitar that he’d wave up and down, as if greeting me.
Then others appeared in the room in their own order until my parents, grandparents, a high school friend lost in Vietnam, a man from Meherabad, a special friend’s parents, and more were there. Some were permanent; some came then left. I treated the upper room as unusual but not out of the ordinary in my life. I realized the ones there were sending love, encouragement, support—on occasion words and at times giving a standing ovation.
This lasted eighteen years until the upper room ended—at breakfast in August 2013. Looking up, I saw Stephen lift his guitar in good-bye, turn, walk away, then turn back. He did this for two days then did not return. I thanked him, knowing I could make it on my own. Two days later, curious, I saw the entire room was empty.
My realization is, “As we seek to cope with grieving, unusual experiences, seen or in disguise—as with a dragonfly that keeps alighting on you—may come, bringing comfort in ways beyond our knowing.”
* http://sweethoneyintherock.org/about/