Ice cold water poured down through my bedroom ceiling as though a dam had burst above my head. Although I was only 10 years old, I recall that winter night vividly. I stood shivering in my soaking pajamas and clinging wet hair, chilled to the bone. My few precious possessions were washed away leaving me with nothing but memories, and a saturated mattress on a freezing cold concrete floor.
Stealing copper pipes to feed another poor starving family was a common occurrence, in the dreary tenements in Glasgow in the early 70's.
Without electricity, ice quickly formed on the inside of my window and on the concrete floor. Escaping the frozen tomb, I slept on the living room couch. The only warmth was coming from the one small fireplace where we burned scraps of wood, as we could not afford any coal.
A few weeks later while sitting in my classroom at school I started to cough and sweat with agonizing back pain and breathlessness. I coughed so hard I thought I was going to cough up my lungs.
I told the teacher I wasn't feeling well and she realized I was obviously in a lot of pain. As we had no telephone to call my Mum, the teacher arranged for Ralph a distant cousin of mine, who was in my class to walk me home.
When I got home my Mum could see I was sick. When the ice cream van came by, she asked me to go buy an Askit Powder, which was what they gave you in those days for the flu.
While standing at the ice cream van, I started to get the sharp shooting pains in my back again. I doubled over struggling to breathe and my heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vice. Ralph's older brother James asked me if I was okay. I looked into his eyes with panic. I could feel everything spinning around. I reached out grasping the darkness and slid down the side of the ice cream van. James picked me up, and ran to the house.
"Rosemary's sick. Get the doctor.” Mum ran to a neighbor's house and asked them to call the doctor. She came right back and got me settled in her bed, a place I always liked to be when I was sick.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, I slept for what felt like hours, but it had only been about twenty minutes. I kept asking for Dad. “He'll be home soon Rosemary.” I kept watching the clock on my Mum's bedside table. It seemed like time was almost standing still.
The pain was getting worse. I continued to struggle to breathe and constantly tried to sit up to stay awake. I was afraid if I slept, I may never wake up again.
My Mum gave me the Askit, to help ease the excruciating stabbing pain in my back. Trying to escape this feeling, I kept going in and out of my body. One minute I would be standing in a room filled with brilliant white light talking to family members who had passed over. Next I was back in my body feeling the pain and gasping for breath, which thankfully disappeared when I returned back to the light.
The doctor finally arrived at 7:30 , 2 hours after he was called. Meanwhile my dad arrived home fifteen minutes earlier. I remember this as I watched the clock the whole time I was conscious.
The Doctor took his time examining me then left the room to speak with my Mum and Dad. At this point I had left my body, for what I thought would be the last time. I was torn between returning to my body and the loving voices calling me from the light.
As I left, I looked back at myself. I saw this waif of a child with curly hair matted on her head and sweat on her face. I could not believe that it was me I was looking at. I remember thinking god how ugly and sad the little girl looked.
I was back in the brilliant white light, however this time the mist had cleared. Before me stood an old man who was a stranger to me. He held out his hand and said “Come. Let me show you.” “Show me what?” I asked, “You'll see.” as he smiled at me.
We floated down a big hallway that was all lit up with the light. I was blissfully happy to be there. I had this feeling of being somewhere I knew very well.
As we moved down this hallway, there were frames on the walls that looked like TV screens, hundreds of them, more than I could count. He said, “Look! Look at what is past, look at what is behind you, now, look to the future.”
This man was showing me all of my past lives, he was showing me what was going on in my past lives, who I was, what I had suffered, what joy I had, what I had chosen to do, and why I had to be in this little body of a waif of a child. He showed me how strong I would become, and the changes that I would make in this world.
Quickly each lifetime flashed before me. There must have been fifty or more lifetimes. However it was so fast I couldn't keep count.
I saw myself in scenes from my other lives. I was an old Indian woman sitting by a fireside in an Indian village with tepees all around me.
An old man sitting on a stone floor with a small wooden pallet to lay on and just a few bowls that I used for eating and drinking, with only a robe on my back for warmth. I went from a man, a child, a young woman, and a young boy. There were so many I could not remember them all.
I saw myself in the middle of a battlefield, bleeding out from a stab wound, from perhaps a saber or knife. I saw myself struggling to breathe to get above water as I was drowning going down with a ship. I could not even begin to tell you how many past lives I had and how I passed over each time.
I had always had a knowing that I had been to earth before.
The older man then proceeded to show me my future. “Look. See what is ahead of you.” I was flashing into the future traveling to exotic places I had never been to nor seen before. I was working on people who were sick. I was speaking before audiences of thousands of people. All around me people were smiling, laughing, and crying. I remember thinking, “ Is that me?” I asked, and I heard, “Yes.” I thought I looked pretty. I was pleased about this as, my perception of myself as a small child was not at all pretty, I always felt like an ugly duckling.
I felt no pain only a sense of complete and utter love surrounded me, like a thousand pairs of arms all hugging me at once. The feeling of love was overwhelming and overflowed from my heart. It was a miracle, this feeling felt so good.
I asked this older gentleman not to send me back. I told him I did not want to go back in that body down there. It hurt, and I was not happy with my life. I did not want to be a child in this family full of pain. “They are so unhappy,” I said to the old man.
He said, “I know, but what little happiness they have, you brought into their lives Rosemary.”
“Oh…” I said.
“They need you.”
“So I need to go back?”
“Yes, you do.” He smiled at me knowingly, as if he shared my secrets. “It will get better. I promise you.”
I sighed, “Oh well… I guess you'd better send me back then.” He led me by the hand, back down the long hallway.
Rosemary, you have not yet finished what you have come here to do. You still have to go to America . One day you will go there and change the lives of others with your healing work and your powerful communication with myself and others in the light.” You will see miracles happen and you will not believe what you are seeing. I want you to know we will always be with you and you just have to call out to us, believe in us and we will bring you joy and happiness in your life. “Goodbye, Rosemary. I will be here anytime you need me.
I felt very sad that he was going to leave me. “Ok” I said, “Goodbye”, and with a wave and a smile, he disappeared in the blink of an eye. I never did ask him his name, it did not seem important at the time.
At that time, I still did not fully understand. I knew I did not want to be back in a body full of pain, and I did not wish to be with a family that was hurting so much, but I believed the old man and so I went back to do the work I was destined to do.
Suddenly at lightening speed I moved back down the tunnel of light. The next thing I knew, I was floating above my parents and the doctor who were talking in the hallway. The doctor was trying to break it to my folks that it was touch and go for me. I was seriously ill and I would be lucky to last the night as I had silent pneumonia.
I saw my body lying on the bed with a white light all around it. I thought I looked awful weak and scrawny. I remember thinking to myself that I did not like the look of the body that was below me, that I was getting ready to enter back into.
I remember looking at myself in spirit, all I could see and feel was this warm glowing energy field that was all white light. Although upset about going back into the physical body, I accepted my fate.
My Mum was sobbing, saying she could not loose another child. The doctor said all they could do was get me to the hospital, make me comfortable, and give me antibiotics, and see if they could help clear my lungs.
At this point I slid back inside my body. I instantly started to gasp for breath. The pain was excruciating. As I gasped for air, I called out to my Dad. He came into the bedroom. I said to him through my pain, “Dad, I'm going to be ok.”
“I know love”, he wiped away the tears that were trickling down his face.
“No, Dad, I'm really going to be Ok, my angel told me so.” I pleaded, “Get me to the hospital.”
Finally after another two hours of waiting the paramedics arrived. I could tell by their faces that they did not think I was going to make it. I was so weak looking and deathly pale.
After stabilizing me in the emergency room, the doctors later transferred me to the critical ward, where they put me in an oxygen tent and started to pump me with antibiotics every two hours. I remember hating this treatment because they put the needles into my thighs, which was excruciatingly painful.
Mum and Dad stayed by my side throughout the night. My angel, who I later found out, was my grandfather, came to see me again and said that “By morning I would be over the worst of it and it would not hurt as much anymore.”
I was still very weak the next day but very much alive. I spent eight weeks in the hospital recovering. The only way I could get around was by wheelchair, I hated not being able to run around, and being unable to reach things, or get to the bathroom on my own.
The Blind Child Eloise
After a few weeks of being in bed, I began to get stronger. I wheeled myself around the ward in my wheelchair, going from bed to bed, talking with the other children who were all younger than me. I drew pictures and made little toys for them in between catching up with my school work.
One day a new little girl came in whose cot was directly across the room from my bed. She would lay there and cry all the time.
I asked the nurse what was wrong and why she wore mittens all the time. The nurse told me she was not yet two and going blind. Through sheer frustration, she kept poking her fingers in her eyes.
One night, when the little girl was crying, I rolled over in my wheelchair to check on her. I reached between the cot bars to soothe her. I talked softly to her as I stroked her little head.
I told her my name was Rosemary and told her about my dog Shep. I said anything and everything that popped into my head, just to reassure her. I started singing to her and eventually she started to calm down a little. I looked at this beautiful child with both her eyes turned inward, and I cried. I cried for her, and I cried for myself. It was not fair that she should be going blind at such a young age.
I prayed to my guardian angel to help this poor child. I felt that if he could help me, maybe he sure as heck could help her, this little one so innocent. I closed my eyes and called out to him to take me and give her back her eyesight.
I put my hand on the little girl's head, and asked God to keep her safe and protect her. At this point, she was very calm and started to drift off to sleep. I could see a brilliant white light all the way around us, through us, and within us. I could feel tremendous heat coming from the little girl's eyes.
I asked my angel in the light to bring her peace, and take away the pain, I must have stayed there for what seemed like hours, I was not sure how long, as I drifted off to sleep with my hand over her head and eyes.
I awoke with the nurse shaking me to awaken me. She asked what I was doing. “I just said I was soothing the baby and praying for her.”
The nurse said, “Oh that's nice of you, Rosemary. You should get back to bed now. It's really late, and you should be sleeping.”
I went back to bed thinking , that poor little thing. She's so young and not able to see the world around her. I went to sleep, mad at God because he let me live and mad because he was taking the sight of a child. This I did not understand.
Later the next day I came back from the playroom at the end of the ward. There seemed to be a lot of commotion going on around the crib of the little girl. The doctors and nurses were saying things like, “This is unbelievable!” “How can this happen?” “What happened?” No one seemed to know.
It seems that when the little girl's Mum came to see her that morning, she walked up to the crib and the little girl was standing up looking directly at her. Her eyes were not turned in. The child recognized her mother, and called out to her.
Her mother lifted her up, looked in her eyes, and just knew that the child could see her. The mother put the baby down, ran to get the nurse. The nurse examined the baby, and then got the doctor. By the time I got back, all sorts of tests were being done on the baby girl to check her sight.
The doctors could not believe it. Her eyesight was completely restored. They even called in another Doctor from another hospital who, arrived much later that afternoon.
I sat there on my bed watching all that was going on as people ran back and forth. I smiled to myself. I got up and pulled the curtains around my bed, lay down on my bed and cried with happiness, all the while thanking God for this miracle that he brought to us through the light, and for answering my prayers
The nurse who was on the night before came around to see what I was doing. She asked why I was crying. I told her I was happy the baby girl had her sight back. The nurse said, “Don't cry. Be happy.”
“I am. That is why I'm crying.” Smiling, I told her, "I prayed to God to help her.” She looked at me strangely at first, then smiled and said, "Thank you for being so kind.”
At this point, I lay back down and decided to take a nap . I thought to myself, “It sure is hard work, all this emotional stuff .”
Every day, after that, whenever I could, I would go over and spend time with the little girl who I had found out afterwards from the nurse was named Eloise. I would sit with Eloise, sing to her, and play games with her. It was a delight, to see this beautiful face smile, with her eyes straight and not turned in. Once again I thanked God silently for this blessing.
A couple of days later, Eloise went home with her Mum and Dad, I was sad to see her go but also very happy for her and her family. Her mother came over to me and gave me a gift, a big bag of candy. I thanked her. She thanked me for playing with Eloise. I said, “I loved it. It was like having a little sister.” Eloise's mother let me hug her, say goodbye, and off they went. A very happy family, I cried again with joy in my heart for them.
There were other times, when I had asked God to help me. I sometimes felt like I'd been deserted by him, especially when I did not get what I wanted. But after what happened to Eloise, to me it was a miracle; my belief in God was restored.
