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OUR LOVE IS WRITTEN IN SONG

On 13 July 1984 Bonnie, Chuckie, and I went to the Texas Breeze to hear Shake Russell and his band play. Bonnie and I danced to a couple songs on a small dance floor in front of the stage. That would be the last time we ever danced together, not because we didn't want to, but because the strength in Bonnie's legs decreased. This was the third time she had seen him perform, and she wanted to meet him. He noticed her with me on the dance floor and smiled at her. Later during a break Shake went to the men's room, and Bonnie walked across the dance floor with her cane to the woman's room. She was gone for a long time, and when I went looking for her, I found her talking with Shake outside the restrooms. She introduced me to him, and we walked back towards our table. He looked at me rather puzzled, as if he had seen me before (which he had), and was trying to remember where. I reminded him of our meeting at a concert five years earlier, when he gave me and two of my friends free tickets and front row seats.

In February or March of 1979 Jeff and Shirley invited me to join them at a Shake Russell and Dana Couper concert. Shirley said that she knew Shake personally, and had been to many of his concerts. She was so sure that she could get tickets for us that we didn't get out of their apartment until about 20 minutes before the concert started. We found the parking lot around the concert hall full, and had to park several blocks away, which made us even later getting to the ticket booth. When we did, the concert was sold out! Shirley was upset with herself, and Jeff and I were disappointed. Shirley wanted someone to contact Shake, because she said if he knew we were there, he would authorize tickets for us. But the ticket person would not comply. When Shirley tried to walk into the concert hall in search of Shake, she was summarily thrown out by a bouncer, and warned not to try again. When she persisted, they threatened to have us arrested. So we went out to the parking lot, tails between our legs, and stopped to decide what to do next. Shirley didn't want to give up. Because of her emotional state, I thought surely we were going to spend the night in jail. As we stood there next to a street light arguing with her to forget the concert, the stage door opened and someone walked out. Shirley's back was towards the concert hall. As a man walked directly towards us, the expression on Jeff's face began to change as he realized who it was. Jeff began saying, "Shirley, it's Shake. Shirley, it's Shake!" Shirley just kept arguing, oblivious to what Jeff was trying to tell her. My heart began doing flip flops when I realized what was happening. Jeff then yelled at Shirley to look behind her. When she did, Shake was about twenty yards from us. Shirley screamed out, "Shake!" and Shake responded, "Shirley, what are you doing out here?" At that point I realized what Shirley had said about her friendship with Shake was true, and not just her wishful thinking. Shirley then asked, "Did you come out here to find us? Did someone tell you that we couldn't get tickets?" Shake replied, "No. I came out to get something in my car. You are standing next to my car." Of the hundreds of cars in the parking lot, we ended up standing next to Shake's! Shirley then told him a story that I had come all the way down from Connecticut to hear him sing. She didn't tell him that I had been living in Houston for two years. I was wearing cowboy boots, blue jeans, and a light colored summer hat. She said that I had never heard him sing live, and that the concert was sold out. Shake asked me if what she said was true, and I told him that I had never been to one of his concerts. I said I loved country and western music, and very much wanted to hear his performance for comparison. He said, "Follow me," and took us through the stage door, where he gave us front row seats!

Back at the Texas Breeze Shake looked surprised to see me again, because, he said, he had written a song about our first encounter! It was on his newly released album, which was for sale up front. The album was called "Comin' Home," and the song was called, "Touch of New Orleans." We purchased the album that night. Shake signed or autographed our T-shirts with "The Shake Russell Band" printed on them. He was very impressed with Bonnie and how good she looked in jeans and a black Resitol hat. He commented on how much she reminded him of the Texas woman he had depicted in the song. He said he wrote that song while staying at a cottage along the sea front at Galveston back in 1980 near where Bonnie's energy would vibrated so strongly at Sandy Hoof Stables only two years later. He told us that the song was about a New England cowboy who came to Texas looking for his true love, and met that Texas girl of his dreams. If I represent the stereotype for a New England cowboy (Earth-loving independent free thinker), then Bonnie certainly represents the Texas woman with a touch of New Orleans.

Shake Russell-Dana Couper Band and John Vandiver/Michael Marcoulier Band

Album: COMIN' HOME

Selection: TOUCH OF NEW ORLEANS

sung by Michael Marcoulier

New England cowboy

two thousand miles from home.

Dreaming 'bout its rivers

and the mountains made of stone.

Though I miss my mountains,

don't you mistake my tone,

Cause there's a lady here who keeps me

full of love and unalone.

Hmmm...

She came out of Texas

with a touch of New Orleans.

Her southern hospitality

is always in my dreams.

And though, sometimes, she goes away,

our love is never lost.

It always seems to surface on

the waves of feelings tossed.

Hmmm...

When we're apart, I've known the hearts

of country girls and queens.

Each time, I find I love much more

that touch of New Orleans.

One moment's love together

and we may not meet again.

But, if she finds this Northeast cowboy,

we will meet as more than friends.

Hmmm...

Copyright 1981 Marcoulier Music.

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Bonnie came home to Texas (Comin' Home), where she will forever now remain, buried in the Garden of Texas Liberty. Her joy and love of life, and love of music and dancing are that touch of New Orleans. Ironically, as a geologist I had dreamt or reminisced many times of New England rivers and mountains made of stone since moving to Texas. As a teenager I even wrote two long poems about rivers: Ode to a Brook and Melancholy Brook. Bonnie always identified with the South, noting that she was born just below the Mason-Dixon line, and that her middle name is Lee, after General Lee, she would always proudly say. She played cowboys and Indians on live ponies as a child, and after coming to Texas picked up a Southern accent so quickly you couldn't tell her from a native (she claimed to always have had a slight Southern accent). And though, sometimes, she goes away, and we have been separated through time (as in other lifetimes), our love is never lost. We met under high emotional circumstances that surface on the waves of feelings tossed. And we meet as more than friends: We met as lovers. Like our guided meetings through our lifetimes, we believed this song was truly written for and about us through Shake's inspiration.

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OUR LAST FIVE YEARS TOGETHER

During the first 23 months Bonnie and I were together, we went places and did as many things as possible to make her life as happy as possible. I have many fond memories from that time. It was a period of great ups and downs. In November of 1984 my company, Superior Oil, was taken over by Mobil Oil, and in February of 1985  I was given severance pay. We lived comfortably after that, but my career took a vacation, and I would struggle just to make financial ends meet, which they sometimes didn't. I lost everything that I had worked so hard to earn. I watched my American dream melt in the hot and humid Texas heat. I lost my savings, house, investments, and credit. Nothing that I seemed to do worked to reverse my financial slide, and nothing that I did after reaching bottom had any affect in recovering what I had lost. It felt as though my life were out of my control, which in hind sight I now realize it was. The lessons we learned and the moves we were forced to make would not have happened had I been able to take control of my life, I thought. I learned to relax and to move with the flow through daily prayer, not knowing where that current was taking us.

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On 18 June 1986 Bonnie and Bruce were married by Justice of the Peace, Paul Till, in a private ceremony at the Harris County courthouse, Houston, Texas. Bonnie had her wedding dress custom designed. She wanted our wedding date to be on her birthday, because she wanted me never to forget that date, and because our union was like a rebirth to her, a second chance at life and hope for the future.

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MORE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

One of the most frightening medical crises I had with Bonnie occurred unexpectedly on 23 August 1987. We were forced to change doctors after her previous physician, Dr. K., had grown tired of her resistance to some of his decisions on medications. He wanted to reduce the number of medications she was taking, feeling that some of her problems might be due to drug interaction and side effects. Bonnie knew her body, and had become stabilized on that regimen of medications for years. If she wouldn't follow his advice, he told her, she would have to find another internist to do blood work and regulate her prescriptions. We knew finding someone else who would be willing to take on Bonnie's many medical problems would be difficult, but what we weren't prepared for was being referred to an internist who wanted to cut and adjust medication levels without proper monitoring, and without adequate familiarity with her medical history. Dr. H. wanted to decrease her dependence on addictive pain medications by increasing the blood flow through her bad leg. He started with a normal dose of coumadin, a blood thinner she had been using for years. When she reported to him that she was still having pain, he increased the dosage without a blood test. After a week or two the pain seemed to subside, but he did not follow up with a blood exam to determine if the coumadin level in her body was safe. As it turned out, the level of coumadin had increased to the point that her capillaries began hemorrhaging. She went to bed the previous night with a few bruise-like areas developing on parts of her extremities, but we thought that they were from a fall she recently had had.

The next morning (23 August) she woke up incoherent with significant swelling and edema in both thighs and abdomen. When I looked at her, the bruise-like areas had grown in size and increased in number. Once again, we had been through periods of swelling and pseudo-bruising before, and adjustments in medication were all that had been required to correct the problem. Nothing serious to worry about, we thought. She called her doctor, but he scheduled an exam a day or two away, apparently thinking that she was just over-reacting. She did not want to go to an emergency room to have her condition checked, because she hated hospitals. By Noon she was much worse, and called me upstairs to look at her. I was shocked to discover that nearly half of her body was now covered with huge brown splotches. We both realized then that there was something drastically wrong. She was weak and listless. I immediately lifted her out of bed, and carried her down to our truck, bringing along her wheel chair. I drove to the West Houston Medical Center hospital, and wheeled her into the emergency room. The doctor quickly recognized the seriousness of the problem, and took a blood count. When he returned his face was white. He immediately ordered two whole pints of blood, STAT. I asked him what was wrong, and he said in a shaking voice, "Her blood count came back three! We checked it twice. Anything under 10 is fatal! You got her here just in time. Had you brought her here another minute later, she would be dead!" I was shocked, because Bonnie was sitting up on the emergency room table as the nurses prepared to give her the blood. How she survived that low a drop in blood volume is a miracle. During all of this she was quasi-alert and talking - even joking with the physicians about her body. Once she was past the immediate crisis, they put her in intensive care for five days until she stabilized and the bruise-like discolorations began to disappear. Diagnosis: Hemolytic anemia from massive internal hemorrhaging due to a lethal level of coumadin in her blood.

Her cardiologist, Dr. A., gave this account in his report: Since admission she received blood transfusions, which was interrupted as she started developing fever. She also received fresh frozen plasma. The patient has a past history of mitral valve prolapse, and suspect of coronary artery disease, with severe chest pain, and palpitations and sinus tachycardia. She had been treated for this with inderol and isordil, and one time on cardiazem, and later on isopten successfully, and the patient had been stable more or less from cardiovascular problems. The lungs are clear to auscultation and percussion. Heart sounds are normal and regular. No murmurs or gallops are heard. Abdomen is soft, non-tender. Legs show no edema. There is deformity in the left thigh from the past surgery, and the patient has swelling and large bruise marks over both thighs and over the right hip area, and also has bruise marks in the left arm and left shoulder, and some areas in the right upper limbs also. The patient's EKG shows marked specific changes with T-wave inversions in the inferior and lateral leads. A comparison to the previous EKG done last year the patient had no T-wave changes at that time, as it is now. The serum potassium is low at 2.8, and the EKG changes could be attributed to hypokalemia.

But what happened after this brush with death is an experience that we both wish could have been avoided. Her doctor and his partner began covering their tracks for incompetence. I couldn't help but think that it all began because Dr. K. and Bonnie couldn't work out their differences. Dr. H. called me the day before she was scheduled to be released from West Houston Medical Center, and wanted me to put her in a local drug rehab clinic. He said that he wanted to eliminate many of her medications, and that the only way to do it was in such a clinic. He felt that she was addicted or dependent on many of her medications, and that she didn't need all of them. Bonnie's insurance company would benefit greatly if he could reduce her medications. I challenged his opinion, since Bonnie's medical history clearly contradicted such an extreme opinion. When Bonnie asked Dr. H. if he had read any of the thick stack of medical records she had copied for him, he admitted to her that he had not read much of it! In order to convince Bonnie's insurance company that she needed rehabilitation from drug addiction, Dr. H. and his partner accused Bonnie of taking cocaine! They said that a recent blood test showed cocaine in her blood. We knew the analysis was incorrect, and wanted to see the paperwork. When I looked at the word, it was spelled "coceine". Then Bonnie said, "I take tylenol #4 with codeine, and cocaine is spelled with an "a", not an "e". We then realized that there was a spelling error, and that the "d" in codeine had been typed as or altered to a "c". This was the type of mistake the doctors should have caught, had they competently reviewed Bonnie's medical record! Because they jumped so quickly to false conclusions, and tried to force her into a rehabilitation clinic where she would have been given life-threatening treatment, we suspect that it was not an innocent typographical error. We thought it was part of their attempt to avoid a law suit for malpractice by creating a smoke screen or worse. They even sent Bonnie's insurance company a bill for $10,000 for their services, and to our shock received payment with no resistance! There is a very rotten smell to all of this, considering that Bonnie's insurance company was also responsible for giving Camden County false information that led to her indictment for welfare fraud.

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AND WHEN THE END CAME

The day before she died (11 January 1991) there was a terrible snow storm (the worst of the season), and my two hour drive to the drilling rig was stretched to three and a half hours. No sooner had I arrived at the rig, Bonnie called to tell me to come home NOW! Her voice was slurred and I recognized the symptoms of a mini-stroke. I had to wait for the roads to be cleared of snow and accidents, and made it home at about 8:00 pm. She seemed OK then, with only a bad headache by her left temple. We talked, and she said that my future looked bright. "You will do OK," she said with a smile. I didn't get the message. She wanted to stay up, so I went to bed in the other room. She came in a little later and asked me, "Have you ever cheated on me?" Her forthrightness and question, particularly at that time of night surprised me. I said, "No! Have you ever cheated on me?" She retorted, "Of course not; how could I? No one would want me in my condition!" It hurt me to hear her say that, because I saw her as the greatest prize catch in the Universe. I thought her question very strange. Then she said something that I will never forget. She said, "Bar, I love you more than you will ever know." I responded with the same sentiment, "I love you more than you will ever know!" She just smiled and went back to bed. About an hour later, just as I was beginning to fall asleep again, she called to me from the bedroom, saying "Help, Bruce, help, Bruce, help." I entered a room lit only by the television. I found her doubled over in bed in great pain. She pointed to her mouth. Then she pointed to her nightstand where she usually kept her bottle of nitroglycerine, but I didn't see any bottle and didn't make the connection. She changed her mind, and asked me to get her a coke, saying that she was having stomach cramps.

Had I known that she had been having angina attacks recently (she had just renewed her nitroglycerine in November), I would have recognized a heart problem. But she was in control and didn't want me to know that this was the big one. Before I left the room, she called me back and wanted me to take her to the bathroom, because she now felt sick. I did, and ran to get her a glass of coke - her usual remedy for an upset stomach. When I returned I found her collapsed on the floor. Her face was turning blue and her eyes were open and her pupils were dilated. She said in a faint voice, "har, har," which I recognized as "heart." I immediately went into action, carrying her to the bed and giving her CPR. I called the paramedics and her doctor, all taking precious time away from her. The CPR kept her face flush until the paramedics arrived, but she was no longer breathing on her own. I looked at the clock. It read 1:38 am (12 January 1991), the time of night when she was born.

The paramedics put her on the bedroom floor, tearing off her night gown. Strangely, she had changed her night gown from the new apricot-colored one with flower design she was wearing earlier to a very old, pink, holy one (with many cigarette burn holes), which was cut and ripped off her by the paramedics. One paramedic (Dave) tried to put a tube down her throat, but it was blocked. He couldn't understand what was blocking it, and asked me if she had a problem with her throat, such as a tumor. I said she had an unusually small throat, and he might have to use a smaller tube, but he said that wasn't the problem. When they powered up the defibrillator and put the paddles on her chest, the house lights flickered and dimmed briefly. The defibrillator was battery powered and not connected to the house current! Because of this unknown electrical interference, Dave could not get his equipment to give them a reading on her heart. He lifted the paddles off her chest and cleared his monitor. He put the paddles on her chest again, but again the house lights flickered because of electrical interference, and he again failed to get a reading. Without a reading he could not risk shocking her heart. Another paramedics said, "There is some sort of electrical interference in this room. We are going to have to move her outside to the ambulance". I knew then it was the big one. I knew that Bonnie's spirit was causing the electrical interference. I was going into shock.

Dave later told me that they could not get a good reading on their monitor, as is the case with electrical interference. They needed a clear signal before they could shock her heart, because they had to be sure her heart was in fibrillation. They might create a problem if they shocked a heart that was beating normally. He said that such interference is common, and could have been caused by something like a microwave oven. But it was 1:50 am Saturday morning when most people were asleep, and the kitchens in the connected condominiums were all located at the other end of the building. Bonnie told me she would resist by whatever means possible the efforts of doctors and paramedics to revive her when the big one came. She didn't want to wake up in a hospital only to endure a slow painful death in a sterile environment amongst strangers. She wanted to be at home with me. The snow storm ended abruptly at the time of her death.

Bonnie told me about a month before she died that she was an old soul who had incarnated many times. She hoped that this life cycle would be her last as a human before she could enter the light and return to the God Source. After I returned home from Horton Hospital, I went outside and looked up at a star-filled night sky. I began praying to God. I said, "Dear Lord, if Bonnie falls short of the requirements to enter Heaven, will you take from me whatever you need for her to be complete, so that she can be with you. I don't want her to have to go through another lifetime of suffering. She has suffered enough. I give to her of my own free will whatever she needs of me to be complete with you. I am willing to reincarnate however many times to make up for my loss, and am willing to accept whatever the consequences of my gift." Later she told me in spirit that my gift was the most generous and kindest thing that I could have done for her, and she loved me even more for it. She said she made it to Heaven on her own accomplishments, and didn't need my gift. Three days later she came to me as a beautiful white light as I was driving down the highway. She said to me telepathically, "Bruce, I got my wings, I'm so happy; I got my wings, I'm so happy; I got my wings, I'm so happy!" I was willing to sacrifice myself and my future for her. That is "TRUE LOVE".

 

THE LOSS OF A CHILD

About six months before Bonnie died her youngest son Chuckie snuck out of the house through his window to go live with his father in Pasadena, Texas. We had moved from Houston to New York in August 1988, which limited visitations with his father to school vacations and holidays. Bill had vowed to get custody of Chuckie ever since Bonnie began living with me. He lost a two-year-long custody battle on 12 December 1985, but continued to try to get Chuckie to want to live with him. After the move to New York he was more successful in making Chuckie feel guilty over not being with his father more, and when Chuckie wanted to get his learner's permit license to drive a car, his father said that he would give Chuckie a car if he came to live with him. When I was out of work in March and April of 1990, we struggled just to survive. I slipped two months behind in my rent and nearly had our telephone service disconnected. But because Bonnie had her doctor send a letter to the phone company indicating that her life depended on having a phone in the event of a medical emergency, the phone company backed off. Bonnie's disability and child support were the only sources of income at the time, aside from a token check from unemployment every two weeks. Chuckie would occasionally comment that he wasn't seeing much of his child support, and we tried to have him understand that it was going for basic expenses. His father had long conversations on the phone with Chuckie during that period, and then Chuckie began taking money from Bonnie without her knowing it. When we discovered what he was doing, I was working again, and the financial damage was corrected. But it became clear that something was motivating Chuckie to take money for himself which we needed for survival. Then in July Bill sent Chuckie a plane ticket, and he got a friend to drive him to the airport. Bonnie never saw Chuckie again while she was alive. The money Bill said he was going to use to send Chuckie to New York for Christmas that year, instead he spent on a car for him at age 16!

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Then Bonnie died in January 1991, and Chuckie began to let his grades slide. He didn't want to talk about his mother with me on the phone, and a copy of a video tape I sent to him of him and his mother during happier times he destroyed. Bonnie had said to me that if ever Bill succeeded in taking her last son away from her, she would have no reason to live. Chuckie overheard her say that. During that last months with us he helped his mother when he was home, and went on many errands for her to the store. But he wanted to be free of that responsibility, which may be the reason he began to steal money from her. But the guilt Chuckie had over his mother dying after he left her was strong, and his subsequent behavior reflected that guilt. He began hanging out with kids at school who were heavy beer drinkers. He began racing his car recklessly, getting one speeding ticket after another. Then he began talking about dropping out of high school. There was even a rumor that he had gotten a girl pregnant. By November 1991 he had gotten his third speeding ticket and was on his third car, an old Volks Wagen Carmen Ghia. The previous two had broken down for one reason or another. He now knew that his provisional driver's license would be revoked, putting even more pressure on him. On Monday 18 November 1991 while driving to school he came upon a slower vehicle, and wanted to pass it. The ground was thick with fog, as it usually is that time of year in southeastern Texas in the morning. He went to pass and hit a full size sedan head on. The driver of the sedan was not injured, but Chuckie was killed at age 17. The car he passed was being driven by a paramedic, but he was not able to save Chuckie the impact had caused so much damage to his head. His father buried him that same day without any funeral service! Need I say more?

Emails between Lisa Stem, Psychic, and Bruce Cornet in March 2001.

That same morning I picked up my Sony television set from the repair shop at about 9:30 am, and had a mental flash of Chuckie and Bonnie, but thought the flash was related to my sentiment for the television, which is the one Bonnie, Chuckie, and I watched together as a family. When I came home that evening my cats greeted me at the door, but they were howling. Mittsie was normally very vocal, but Jessie (Chuckie's cat) was wailing. He rarely made any noise. They followed me all around the condo. At first I thought they were hungry, but there was food still in their bowls from the morning. Then I got Billy's (Chuckie's older half-brother) message on my answering machine, and my world fell apart. Apparently Jessie was wailing in grief. I then sensed that Chuckie's spirit had recently been in the condo.

That evening while I was in bed wrestling with the story of how Chuckie was buried so fast that same day, I detected Bonnie's presence (I could not see her). She then spoke to me in a mental voice, and said that Chuckie was there with her. I concentrated my attention on Chuckie's spiritual energy, and sensed some anger, a lot of confusion, joy at being sentient, and relief that he was with his mother. Bonnie told me that she had brought him here to show him our room with all the pictures on the walls of Bonnie and Chuckie. She wanted to convince him that I really did love him and missed him, and wanted to communicate with him as I had been doing with Bonnie. He told me he was moved and impressed, and expressed sadness that he had buried his feelings for me with the anger he had for his mother when he was alive.

The following night something even more extraordinary happened. I had left Chuckie's room just as he had left it up until a few weeks before. I had a business associate and friend coming to spend a couple days with me, and had to clean up his room to provide a bed. I went through all his things, organized them and repacked them as if Chuckie would soon ask for them. I framed some of his art work and hung it on the wall. I put a new bedspread and matching pillow case on his bed - ones that his mother had bought for him for his expectant return for Christmas 1990, but he never came. When I was done, I reflected on how great it would be for Chuckie to come visit, and hoped that he would feel like he was home again.

Late Tuesday evening (19 November 1991) I got the impulse to go into Chuckie's room. I turned on his light and began thinking about what would happen to all his things now that he was dead. I then felt Chuckie's presence. I felt his energy. He said telepathically, "What do you want with all those things. Why don't you throw them out. I won't need them any more." I sensed his spirit hovering near the corner of the room near the ceiling above his desk. I became incensed. I said to him aloud, "There are several people that love you very much - your brother, father, and me, and they might like some of your things for sentimental reasons." He backed off and said that it was OK. He understood. I then sensed that he was disturbed, greatly so. But before I could ask him what was wrong, Bonnie's spirit came bursting into the room. Her energy was so strong that it felt as though I was standing in front of a blast furnace! I had to take several steps backwards. She was very upset, almost in an uncontrollable rage. At that very moment, Mittsie (her cat that almost died from vomiting and seizures a week after she died), who had been resting on our bed in the other room, ran in, jumped up onto Chuckie's bed, and urinated on his pillow! As I screamed at the cat and chased it out of the room, I stopped. I realized that Mittsie had been directed to do that. I immediately returned to Chuckie's room and confronted Bonnie's spirit. I asked her if she had anything to do with that, and she said, "Yes." I then asked her why? She told me in an emotional mental voice that Chuckie had accused her of causing his death! My mouth dropped open and I turned my attention to Chuckie's spirit, which was to the left of Bonnie's energy. I asked him why he thought that, and he said, "She caused my death to get even with my Dad for taking me from her."    I said, "Whooah! Wait a minute Chuckie. That's not true. Spirits can't lie, because they are transparent, unlike humans. Look at your mother. You can see the truth and tell if she is lying." There was a pause. I didn't know why I said that. It was as though inner knowledge became available at that emotional moment. I sensed the presence of another spiritual being, which I recognized as my own higher self. Then Chuckie said, "Oh, my God! I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't know! Please forgive me!"

 

THE UNFOLDING OF A MYSTERY

Two months before Bonnie died she taught me how to communicate with her telepathically. As a scientist I was aware of the controversy over telepathy in the scientific community, but like most people I had no convincing evidence that telepathy was possible between humans. She introduced me to telepathy in a very dramatic manner. On my way home from work I stopped to get dinner at McDonalds. I had worked late and was tired, and thought of taking some food home for Bonnie. I did not feel like cooking dinner when I got home, and Bonnie was mostly bedridden in the last several years of her life. When I walked into our condominium she called out from the bedroom, "Hi honey. Did you get me my Big Mack with extra pickles and Coke with extra ice?" I was stunned. I walked to the bedroom and asked her how she knew that I had picked her up any food, let alone those items, and she said, "Because I asked you for them." From that moment on I began paying much more attention to the thoughts in my head when I wondered what she would want me to get her. I tested her again and again by having her guess what was in the bag, and she accurately described the contents every time, sometimes saying, "That is not what I asked for," when I tried to trick her. Then I began giving her choices, and I was quickly able to recognize her telepathic responses. It was almost as if we were of one mind.

She died at home on 12 January 1991. Soon after she died she surprised me by continuing to communicate with me telepathically. Her spirit moved objects in front of me (and a witness) as proof of her continued existence. Ironically, the movie Ghost came out in theatres soon after she died, and when I saw that movie it comforted me and told me I wasn't crazy.  Bonnie continued to comfort me with her presence of mind during my grief.  She told me specifically where to bury her, led me to find things that she had hidden, had me reach out to old friends who I didn't know, and arranged things for me so that I could complete her life on Earth. She came back to me in spirit on numerous occasions, and responded when I called out to her in prayer for help. On 7 March 1991, for example, she told me, "I've prepared a wonderful surprise for you that will change your whole life." That surprise was revealed to me six months later when she set me up to meet my current wife, Pat, during an extraordinary paranormal event (shades of the movie, Always, which we watched together just before she died). She gradually introduced me to her spiritual identity and to mine by awakening me to numerous material and verbal clues she had given me while she was alive. She woke me out of a sound sleep on 17 January 1991 and telepathically told me to count the number of months we lived together at each location: I then realized that we had lived together exactly seven years to the day, and seven is a divine number. Every 28 months we were forced to move to a new location because of economic circumstances, and three times 28 gives 84 months, or seven years. And it was 12 January 1984 that she moved in with me. She was born at 1:38 am and she died at 1:38 am. I was born on 8:31, the reverse sequence of those numbers.

She also left me proof of her precognitive ability, and that she knew of not only her time of death, but of her time of burial, where she would be buried, and where I would be at a particular time soon after her death.  On 17 January, the day before she was buried, I went to her bank in Houston to close out her checking account, and was surprised by the tellers who were waiting for me. Dody ran up to me asking if Bonnie was out in our truck.  I was shocked.  I asked her how she knew that I was going to be there, and she told me that Bonnie had called two weeks earlier to tell them great news: She said that I had gotten a job in Houston and was bringing her back to Texas for good. She said that we would be there to see them on the 17th!   We were all shocked by the implications. She was buried on the 18th, the day but not the month of her birth. The job turned out to be what I had to do when I returned to Houston with her body.

On 20 January 1991 I returned to Bonnie's grave to say my farewell. I was leaving Texas that afternoon on a flight back to New York State. I took my mother with me and the camcorder Bonnie had given me for Christmas 1989. I wanted to videotape where she was buried for her family back north. I held the camcorder on my shoulder as I drove through Memorial Oaks Cemetery to the Garden of Texas Liberty, a special section of the cemetery normally reserved for native Texans. 

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As we entered the Garden, which was constructed in the form of a triangle with a circular marble temple at the center of the triangle, I videotaped something extraordinary. See if you can see it in the animated gif below (clue: Look at the temple).

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After parking I videotaped the area without realizing that her spirit was residing inside the marble temple at the center of the Garden.  Beautiful carnelian red and emerald green colors can be seen on the video flashing alternately inside and on the outside of the temple columns (a pretty good trick for the Sun, which was behind the columns).  I was unaware of her presence.

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Then I walked to her grave, having the urge to say my farewell. As I walked something flashed by me, but I still did not get it. Who would magine what was in store for me as Bonnie's spirit tried to get my attention. Standing near her grave I pointed my camcorder at her grave and said aloud, "There is my love, love of my life, in her final resting place right up in front where she would want to be. I will remember you Always, Bonnie dear.  I set you free.  You set me free."  Inside her wedding ring, which I wear around my neck on a chain, is inscribed: "BC & BC forever."  The last movie we watched together before she died was the movie, Always, starring Richard Dreyfuss and Audrie Hepburn.

As I spoke the words, "I set you free," a blue, green, and white starburst appeared over her grave and pulsated to my very words.

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My mother was there as a witness. After I finished saying my farewell statement, the shape of her aura changed to that of a symbolic pair of angel's wings, opening and closing several times.  Then a beam of light descended from an overhead cloud, stopping just above her grave. The beam of light was several feet wide and had a waterfall of light strands falling off of it, which danced on the ground.  It was like nothing I had ever seen before.  The beam captured her spirit, and I could see the colors of her aura ascend inside the beam up into the cloud.  The beam originated from a light as brilliant as the Sun within the cloud, leading my mother to say, "Oh, how beautiful.  The Sun is breaking through the cloud and sending a sunbeam down to Bonnie's grave."   Then the bright light in the cloud went out.  But it was 8:31 am in the morning, and the real Sun had barely cleared the tree tops to the east. The position of the Sun can be seen in other shots on the video. Whatever caused the light was hidden in that cloud.

The experience I had is called an Epiphany, and it is like those described in scripture. Ask any Priest or Rabbi.  Based on this experience, I can state unequivocally that many of the descriptions of similar events in the Bible can be taken literally, adjusting for semantics and our interpretation of the words used to describe those events.

EPILOG

Billy is doing well.  He is married with three children.  He recently purchased his father's house somewhere in Pennsylvania. Just before Bonnie died she found out that Holly was pregnant.  Even though she never got to meet Holly or see her grandchildren, she spoke to Holly on the phone.  Bonnie died knowing that at least one of her sons had matured and was overcoming all the difficulties of his youth.

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Life goes on.....                                                               LAST PAGE

Copyright Bruce Cornet 1999

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