The Key of Life: Chapter 3

A Voice From the Past

I went to bed about 10 p.m. on Friday, July 5th 1996. I was thinking of Kathy as I drifted off to sleep, still hoping it was all a mistake. I was sleeping soundly until around 2 a.m. when I was awakened by a dream; not an ordinary dream by any means. The clarity of it helped me to remember it in remarkable detail.

I'm standing out in the desert—Palm Springs to be exact—in front of a single story, white stucco building with palm trees in front of it. Suddenly, I’m inside this same building, looking out of a window into a landscaped courtyard. As I turned around from my view out the window, I see I’m seated in a wood paneled office, talking with Kathy's husband. He's telling me that Kathy died peacefully in her sleep. Other people begin to appear and collaborate on his story. She didn't suffer at all, they are saying, but none of them can even show me a picture of Kathy when I ask to see one. From the distant background, I can hear Kathy calling out to me.

"No, no, no!" she cried. "Find out what happened to me! Tell all my friends what happened to me—Karen Vickroy, Joan Wojnarowski, Bonnie Mutch, and Lee Ann Vautar. They don't know what has happened. Find out and tell them."

She kept repeating those same names. The last thing I remember her saying was, "Don't forget me! Wake up! Wake up and write this down. You won't remember it if you don't wake up and write this down."

At 2:13 a.m. on July 6th, I found myself downstairs with a pencil and paper writing down the dream I'd just had. I thought I was losing my mind. This was the first time in my life I was writing down a dream, let alone waking up at two in the morning and doing it because someone who might be dead has asked me to.
It's amazing how quickly the details started to fade once I was awake. I jotted down the important parts quickly, the people I saw and the women I should contact. I then took the paper and pencil back upstairs to the bedroom with me and placed it on the nightstand.

Susan was still sound asleep and never even heard me go downstairs. I slipped back under the covers and lay there, looking up at the ceiling. It had been an emotional dream and I had awakened crying out in my sleep. I relaxed back into the pillows and found myself staring up at the fast-moving ceiling fan overhead. As I watched the mesmerizing motion of the blades blurring past, one after the other, I became aware of a strange lifting sensation. My body remained in the bed as I felt myself start to fl oat upward and pull away from my body. I was clearly not asleep but in a very relaxed state. The relaxed feeling increased as I floated higher and higher until I realized I had no sensation at all of being in the bed. It was incredible. I had drifted completely free of my body and could now look down at myself in the bed next to Susan.

I was hovering over my bed at approximately the height of the ceiling when I sensed the energy of Kathy's presence next to me. I would know her anywhere and there was no mistaking that she was beside me as I floated above the bed. I didn't see her physically, nor could I sense anything physical about her or myself for that matter. I was in some kind of energy state of being, very fluid and free flowing with her spirit spiraling around mine high above the bed. This separation from my body didn't concern me—a feeling of love and warmth was now washing over me in waves.

Kathy began speaking to me immediately, in a rapid fl ow of thoughts so loud that I felt they would wake my wife for sure. The first thing she said to me was that she was not "dead."

"You never die," she told me. "I see you every night when you fall asleep." Her statement overwhelmed me. I had so many things happening at once, I didn't know what to think.

"I'm surrounding you, Randy, and the whole universe as far as you can imagine," Kathy said. "If you were a sponge in water, I would be the water. All life in the universe comes from a spiritual world that surrounds and penetrates us. From the center of the earth with every object and creature on it, to beyond the end of space with every planet and star in the sky, it's all absorbed in that same glass of water—the spiritual world which I'm part of now."

I was so confused I didn't know what to understand. Why was she contacting me? Why was this happening now?
My questions to her went unanswered as she finished by saying, "Just remember this. Feel my spirit, that is what makes us as one."

The warmth and love surrounding me was intense. It felt like every ounce of love I have ever had in me magnified a billion times over, engulfing my very being. Love was my being and it was building like a tornado, drawing me higher and higher. I just wanted to fl oat off forever with her, but I could feel myself gently sinking down into my body again. All the time she kept repeating, "Just remember this. Feel my spirit, that is what makes us as one. Write this down or you won't remember. Feel my spirit that is what makes us as one. . . Write this down. . ."

As I returned to my body, I remember talking aloud to her, actually crying out to her. It was an extremely emotional experience and I was sure I woke up Susan with all the talking going on, but when I looked over she was still soundly asleep. I reached over and wrote down Kathy's final words on the same sheet of paper on which I had recorded the dream.

Th e next morning I woke up and looked over at the paper on my nightstand, wondering if it had really happened. As I read the notes on the page, I remembered everything that had occurred. I was still trying to make sense of it all when Susan woke up.

"Did you hear me talking in my sleep last night?" was the first thing I asked her.

"No, I didn't hear anything. Why, were you having trouble sleeping?" she replied.

"I just got up once and couldn't get back to sleep. I thought maybe I woke you up getting in and out of bed."
"No, you must have been pretty quiet about it because I never heard you." Susan's last reply trailed off as she went down the stairs for breakfast. I walked into the bathroom to shave.

Looking into the mirror I saw a different person looking back at me. My reflection was the same but I could sense an inner presence now, my true spirit, something indestructible and more powerful than my physical body. Last night had certainly changed me, in ways I never could've imagined. Suddenly I was not afraid of dying and I now knew for certain that Kathy was reaching out to me from beyond this physical world. I had more questions than ever that needed answers quickly. I headed over to my office to think about what to do next.

Debating my options for most of the day, I finally decided to tell someone what was happening to me. That "someone" was going to have to be my parents, for several important reasons. Th e first being they were the only people I knew I could tell that would believe me without question. The second reason was that my mother would now know why I had asked about Kathy for so long, and help me find someone who knew where she was. I thought about telling Susan but knew that would only bring more questions at a time when I had no answers besides there was nothing she could do to help me find Kathy anyway. I decided to wait and see how my parents reacted to the news first. Something would tell me when the time was right to share it with Susan.

Th e dream had an energizing effect on me. I never experienced anything so intense in all my life. The feelings of the previous evening's meeting, with Kathy asking me not to forget her, were playing strongly in my head. I picked up the phone and dialed my parents. When my mother answered, I got straight to the point of my call.

"Mom, you know how I've been asking you to find out what ever happened to Kathy Lynch?"

"Well now that you mention it, you have asked me about her quite a few times," she replied.

"There's a reason I've been asking you," I said. "I've been having premonitions that she passed away for over a year now and a few days ago I finally spoke with an old classmate of hers. She told me she had heard Kathy died over a year ago. She didn't have any details, though, and couldn't even remember who told her. Then last night I had this intense dream where Kathy came to me and told me all the secrets of what life is about." I was sure I sounded completely off the deep end. My mom, however, listened patiently to the rest of my story and then I made another request to find Kathy's relatives.

"I'll start making some phone calls and see what I can find out for you. This may take awhile. They've been gone a long time."

"Thanks Mom, I'm sailing over to Catalina tomorrow and staying for my birthday. If you find out anything just leave a message. The machine will be on or Phil should be home. He has to stay here and work at the bagel shop all week."

"Have a happy birthday Randy and I'll call you as soon as I hear anything." My mom and I finished up our call and then I sat back in my office chair, looking out the window and wondering how long this new search would take.

I considered the possibility that my dream and out of body experience the previous night was the result of hidden feelings that had built up during my search for Kathy. Now that I was nearing an answer, had my subconscious mind created this early-morning meeting of our spirits? That was a possibility, but if my inner mind was looking to soothe a feeling of loss, why didn't my dream play out that Kathy died peacefully in her sleep and leave it at that? Why was she calling from the background, pleading for me to find out what happened, not to forget about her and tell all her friends? Why continue with the out of body experience after I had written down the dream?

I was increasingly certain what was happening was real, not my imagination. Being with Kathy last night was not something I could make up in my mind. It was a true feeling that I experienced. During our short time together, every ounce of Kathy's energy, love, and emotion poured into my very soul. She gave me a slight glimpse and understanding of how the world works and who we really are when you take away the body. She cared enough to come to me after all these years and I was not going to let her down now. I had to know the complete story of what happened to Kathy Lynch.

As I sailed off for Catalina Island the next day, I felt I would finally have some closure on my search. The end was near, or so I thought. In reality, what lay ahead was a quest that would take me to the beginning of time itself.

Susan, Dana and her high school friend Diva Zappa were along on the sail. It was a beautiful Southern California day with a moderate breeze moving us along at seven knots, nearly hull speed. The ocean was calm, no swells and light wave chop, making a very pleasant haul to the island. About midway across the channel Dana and Diva went to the forward deck to lie down and sunbathe. Susan and I were alone in the cockpit so I decided to take a chance, throw caution to the wind, and tell her everything I had been experiencing.

"I've been having some interesting dreams lately." I started off the conversation with a statement I felt anyone could relate to as everyone had dreams. "Oh really, what kind of dreams have they been?" The dialog was opened now so I jumped right in.

"They're a little more than just dreams. They started out more as a premonition about a girl I knew back in Catholic grade school. Her name is Kathy Lynch and the last time I saw her was 23 years ago." I let the first bit of information sink in waiting for a response.

"What kind of premonitions were they?" Susan asked.

"I felt she had passed away. I don't know what exactly happened to her, but I've had these feelings for a year now, and then last Friday night she came to me in this dream asking me to find out what happened to her. I got up and wrote down the dream, and then when I got back in bed I had some kind of an out of body experience where she told me what life is really about."

"Wow, is that what you were talking about when you said you couldn't sleep?"

"Yeah, it was like she was reaching out to me now and I couldn't just ignore her. I called my mother to see if she can find any of Kathy's relatives."

Susan wanted more details so I told her everything I had learned in my search for Kathy. Her reaction was about what I expected.

"I'm sure it's just some kind of coincidence all this has been happening," was all she said.

"I think it's more than that. There has to be a reason she's contacted me and I want to find out why."

"Well I don't see the purpose of you pursuing it any further." Those were Susan's final words on the subject.
Sensing Susan's negativity on the subject, I felt the less said the better and dropped the topic—at least for now.