On the way to see my wonderful chiropractor/energy worker yesterday—this woman is the only one in the last 15 years to give me hope of working through the pain in my jaw—I met another angel. This one came in the form of a homeless woman who stood, huddled against the fierce wind and stinging snow, near the stoplight at the bottom of the freeway off-ramp.

I couldn’t read her sign, but it was obvious that she needed help and was likely asking for money. My initial reaction was two-fold: 1) I wanted to give her the $5 that was all the cash I had in my wallet, and 2) I was afraid the light would change before I managed to fish my wallet out of my back pocket. God forbid that anyone behind me should be inconvenienced by my “charity,” right?

Kindness won out over worry, and I got the wallet out, signaled to the woman, and lowered my window. “Oh, thank you!” she said as I gave her the money. “I’m hoping to get my room tonight!”

“God bless you,” I said. “I’ll keep you in my prayers.”

We locked eyes, and she smiled at me, tentatively. Then the light (which had stayed red for what seemed like a VERY long time) turned green. And for the next few minutes I did pray, fervently, that she be warm and safe that night, and that she be granted whatever she most needs on her journey.

The session with my practitioner went well (if you don’t mind the acupuncture needles she stuck into my neck, arms, and shoulders), as always. Lots of releasing of energy, some lovely/painful massage of sore and stuck points, and even some direct work on the painful jaw area.

Then she said, “I think your father is coming through.”

From our earlier discussions, I knew that she sees or senses my “entourage” of imaginal friends, relatives, and Guides, so it didn’t surprise me too much. We had been talking about some of my earliest memories, trying to find the pre-verbal, psychological roots of the pain in my jaw.

She asked me a little about him, in the way mediums often do: Did he wear a lot of red and yellow? (Yes.) Did he like plaid? (Oh yes.) Then she said this:

“He would like to thank you for stopping for the woman. He’s proud of you and your kindness.”

Oh, wow. I hadn’t mentioned the woman to her, or to anyone—the encounter had just happened, and no one but me and the woman even knew about it. Other than my dad, apparently, and whoever else had been hanging around in imaginal space.

I actually laughed (and cried a bit)—it was like something from one of John Edward’s sessions. It’s what John calls “validation”: where the medium reports something that he or she couldn’t have known about and that would be VERY unlikely to be the result of guesswork.

I don’t absolutely NEED this kind of validation in order to know that these things are the real deal, but it’s sure nice! Thanks, Dad, for coming through!

My practitioner friend went on to talk about other things Dad now appreciates about me that he was never able to verbalize while he was alive. Dad acknowledged how protective I was of him, and how loving…and how he felt that, in life, he might not always have deserved my dedication and kindness.

I’ve written here about my troubled relationship with my dad: Like so many women, I struggled all my life to “earn” Dad’s approval, but never felt like I had it. Two hours before he died, as he sat in his recliner so weak he could scarcely move, he was checking my arithmetic on a list of some purchases I had made for him at Walgreens, lest I be asking for more than I had actually spent. I mean, everyone knows I can’t add, but I do know how to operate a calculator, Dad. Really.

Oh—and one more thing: Last night, doing some video editing in the living room, I turned on the TV “just for company.” I almost never watch anything but PBS, but for some reason I had on the Disney channel and “Mulan,” which I had never seen.

Have you seen it? If so, you’ll know that it’s about a young woman who doesn’t fit society’s expectations for femininity, and who struggles to win her father’s approval and bring “honor” to her family. She goes off to war in her aging father’s place and saves the kingdom…or something like that. I admit I wasn’t paying very close attention. But at the end, she comes home triumphant, and her father tells her how proud he is of her…. I heard that part. And then, in my head, I also heard, “…and you don’t need to work so hard at it.”

Awww…. Thanks, Dad! What a lovely encounter this was. There IS something about hearing things from an “external” source (in this case, in my practitioner/friend’s voice) that you THINK you hear internally. It helps me be sure that I’m not just imagining it. I’ve said before that when you work with imaginal figures (including Guides and friends who’ve passed on), you have to be exceptionally careful that you’re not perceiving something just because you desperately wish it to be so—i.e., that you’re not letting your imagination rule. Not easy…and so it is very comforting to be getting the message in the way I did yesterday.

Comforting, and healing….