The Story Of My Gatekeeper
Whoopi Was Right…
People often ask how or when I knew I was a medium? Did my abilities just show up one day?
I smile… There have been voices in my head as long as I can remember and, when I was little, the “glowy people” would visit me in my room and play with me. I loved it because I never felt alone and there was always someone to talk with. As I got older, my abilities grew stronger until, during my freshman year in college, I asked them to go away. By that time, my pre-cognition and psychic awareness was overwhelming me and with no one to guide or even to talk with about any of it, I felt like I was breaking apart. I couldn’t handle the voices anymore and I didn’t understand my responsibilities regarding the information being shared with me. For the first time in my life, I just wanted it all to go away, and it did. You can read the full story in Voices.
Years later I finally felt ready to welcome them back and, almost from the moment I opened my mind to it, voices started arriving. At first it was one, then two more, then five or six, until very quickly, I felt like I was surrounded by spirits.
During the time I was pregnant with our younger son, my husband was on tour with Metallica and when the tour came to LA, of course I went to see the show. I watched the show from a scaffold tower erected in the middle of the field, where the sound and lighting folks did their jobs. More than ten feet above the crowd, I saw mosh pits morph, one into the next, as the waves of music and cheers from the crowd rose and fell. Ninety thousand people filled the Coliseum, and I could feel the energetic vibrations from all those people.
When I reopened myself to mediumship and my psychic abilities, it felt like being back at the Coliseum, except for one thing. At the concert, I was above the crowd and now I 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.
Remember that scene from the movie Ghost when the spirits realize Whoopi Goldberg can actually hear them? Inundated, she runs in every direction, trying to make them stop and, although the scene is filled with humor, I understood her shock and frustration as I was suddenly living that same experience. The ensuing headache was relentless and nothing I tried was able to shut them out. Essential oils, pain remedies, liquor, nothing helped. I just needed to turn the volume down on the cacophony in my head and, after two full days, I had had enough! If this was what opening myself to spirit was going to be like, I didn’t think I was interested. I was emotionally and physically exhausted and I just wanted my life back. Except, it was an empty place in my heart that called me to re-open myself to the voices. I knew I was supposed to do this, there had to be something I was missing.
“What do you want from me?” I asked out loud, as frustrated tears ran down my face. “I can’t live like this; I want my life back!” I yelled to no one in particular, as I flopped back onto the bed and closed my eyes.
And then she came, my grandmother’s sister, Dora. They were the closest of sisters and during her life, Dora and I always had a special bond. I called her my auxiliary grandmother and one of the best parts of living in Los Angeles was having more time with that part of my family, and I took every opportunity to go see her. She always listened, never judged, and loved my little family intensely. At the end of every visit, she would say kenahora, a Yiddish expression to ward off evil spirits and kiss us on the forehead.
After she passed, she was a frequent visitor and I figured she now embodied the kenahora blessings she’d bestowed on me so often. Years later, she finally admitted to having chosen to stick around as one of my guides. I watched her walking towards me, the kid sized Keds, with little flowers painted all over them, still adorned her tiny feet. She took my cheeks in her velvety soft hands and kissed me on the forehead, just as she always had before and then, she walked to the center of my room. Out of the air she produced a deli-counter “Take A Number” machine on a stand and slammed it onto the floor with a bang!
And then, the woman I’d known my whole life to be made of “sugar and spice and everything nice,” became formidable as hell, announcing in a booming voice, “I AM THE GATE KEEPER! TAKE A NUMBER AND SHE’LL CALL YOU WHEN IT’S YOUR TIME!!”
My mouth agape, I watched as people from every walk of life and every time in our history formed a line, took a number, and disappeared. And as they went, the chaos inside my head finally began to subside. She took my face in her hands again and said, “Your life will never be the same and you will learn to protect yourself.” As sleep came for the first time in days, I heard her voice again; “You can do this. I will be there to help.”
True to her word, she has been with me every step of the way.
