Around 1995 my oldest daughter and I drove to Syracuse to have Thanksgiving with a cousin. On the way my daughter worried about a co-worker who did not show up. She tried calling him and was unable to reach him. She knew he was going through a lot of transition and wanted to support him. She was also struggling to figure out what to do with her life after college. "I know I want to be a healer, Mom. I just don't know what kind".
It was a delightful visit and we joined the long line of cars on the highway heading south on 95 that Sunday. In addition to being hungry, we each had a strong intuitive hit that we were to get off at a specific exit. We drove up to a very crowded restaurant, looked at the long line and declared we were too hungry to wait. We saw CAFE written across the closest hill and drove to the top. We found a delightful little place, ordered healthy, scrumptious sandwiches and sat down to eat.
A man and woman sat at the table next to us and I heard my internal intuitive voice suggest an interaction with them. I stood and approached their table. The woman turned to my daughter and asked if we were playing a word game. We each laughed because we had been playing a word game all weekend. My daughter shook her head no. I stood and said to the man, "I am supposed to say something to you and ask for something in return". He nodded. The woman with him grew excited and said, "He says this happens in his life all the time". My daughter laughed and said, "Yeah, I know what you mean."
I said, "I know you know this, but wanted to remind you that death is merely a transition". The woman began to cry and laugh and explain her father had just died. The man reached into a battered brief case and extracted two crystals, giving one to me and one to my daughter. He explained that he is a shaman and mines the crystals in dried up underground salt lakes and they are already polished and with 18 facets. He called them, "the healer's healer".
We drove the rest of the way home in gratitude and wonder at the delights of the world. After I got home, my daughter called to say she had been in touch with someone from her work and the man she had worried about had died. She said crying, "Mom,I hope that death is not only a transition, but a promotion". Me too, honey.