Several years ago I started to attend a spiritualist church in Leamington Spa. Like the handful of other spiritualist churches I’ve attended it was a happy place run by lovely people. Unfortunately my sporadic and brief journeys into this subject had never really convinced me one way or the other regarding the survival of the ego. I like to think that I’m sceptical but open minded. I’m curious about everything but some things are more difficult to work out than others.
Before I start I need to say that although I’d been to this church a few times, nobody there knew me or knew anything about me. I’d turn up for the service, take part in it and then go home. A few times I’d had a reading but they’d been brief and too vague for me to reach a definite conclusion.
It’s my good fortune that on this particular day any doubts I had would be swept away.
I don’t remember the name of the “demonstrator” that evening. She didn’t seem any different from any of the other psychic mediums I’d experienced. About half way through the service she said she had a message for me. I thanked her and said hello and she began.
She said that she was getting the message that I’d been on stormy waters, she said all the references she was getting were related to the sea. She told me that soon the sun would be over the yardarm. She said I’d be setting sail for calmer waters. Then she asked me why all the references were related to seafaring. I sat there puzzled. I’d been in the merchant navy and I said to her that this was probably why. She said she didn’t think that was the reason and then she asked me again why all the naval connections were being used. I was stumped, all I could think of were my few years in the navy, so I repeated that. She accepted my explanation, told me a few more times that things would get batter and then she started to move on to the next massage.
Then she said something that rocked my world. ” He says the name Grace to you just before I move on “. she said.
Immediately I knew who it was, there was no doubt, no hesitation, I sat there stunned, too stunned to even speak or acknowledge the huge impact those few words had on me. To explain this properly I need to go back over 30 years to when I was fourteen.
I’d got a job working Saturdays in a greengrocers shop to earn some pocket money. The shop was called Pippins and it was on Albany Roadin the Roath area of Cardiff. The shop owner was a great guy called Brynley Margerison and he had a profound effect on my life. He was a retired Master Mariner who’d spent his formative years at sea, only settling down with his wife Barbara when being away from his young family had proved too difficult. He was kind and funny and it was because of him that I ended up in the navy myself.
So why does the name Grace signify so much to me. Well my mother worked 3 doors away from his shop at an art shop called Studiographic. She was there for several years and she started there long before I started working for Bryn. She shopped at Bryns’ shop for her fish and greengroceries and Bryn. who was a bit of a ladies man had started calling her Grace. There was no reason why he should call her Grace it was just one of those silly things that people sometimes do, and in honesty the name Grace suited my mum almost better than her given name of Margaret.
So he called her Grace.
He was a mariner.
We’d been very close, I worshipped him and he helped shape who I became.
So why the hell hadn’t I twigged who it was that was making contact with me? I’ve no idea is the only answer I can give. Did the medium pick up thoughts from me via some telepathic link. Possibly though if she did she went very deep for the memories, to a level that even I had filed “closed” and left alone for many years.
So now I know for a fact that we exist after death, in some way. My belief is unshakeable and I shall forever be indebted to Brynley Margerison for getting that message to me. When he was alive he was my hero, when he was dead he became my friend and I look forward so much to seeing him again and all the other friends and relatives that I’ve not seen for awhile. Hello Bryn, thanks, see you soon.