Higher Connections

Spirit of Christmas Eve

It was Christmas Eve, and I had taken some edibles about an hour earlier (because, as a Jewish person, I strongly believe that this is what Jesus would do). I was watching TV, minding my own business, when Alexandra came in and asked if I was okay. I said I was fine, and right as I said that, our dog Mattie—who was lying on the floor next to me—made a growling noise. This caused Alexandra to think of an interesting experience she’d had earlier in the week, while I was traveling for work, that she hadn’t told me about yet. As she explained it, she’d woken up in the middle of the night with a very high fever (she had been sick for a few days, and I know, I’m an asshole for leaving her alone while sick), and when she got up, she saw the light in the extra bedroom was on. She started walking to turn it off, and as she was walking down the hall, she heard someone say, “Mama, Mama.” She checked on the children, but they were all fast asleep.

I asked her if she thought it was the boys or our young daughter and she said she didn’t think it was them. She said it sounded like a six- to eight-year-old boy. I asked her how hearing that voice made her feel, and she said that she hadn’t freaked out like she normally would have—it just made her feel like they needed her help.

A bit of very personal backstory here. In 2014, Alexandra and I found out she was pregnant with what would have been our third child at the time. There was an issue with the pregnancy, and we had to make the decision to terminate the pregnancy or risk complications at birth. This was a very difficult decision, and we have had to live with that decision and our feelings about it since then—albeit in different ways for each of us. I think she would agree it affected her much more profoundly than it affected me, which I am sure is true for any woman that has had to make a difficult decision about a pregnancy.

So, with this in mind, I asked if she thought the voice she was hearing was “Quarter,” which is what we had named it when we made the decision to end the pregnancy. She said she hadn’t thought about whether that was a possibility. Then we got into a deep discussion about what happened and the fact that she needed to forgive herself for the decision. We also spoke about the fact that we had never really talked in detail about the pregnancy afterward, but that it was something we both decided together was the best decision for her and our family. I kept telling her, “You need to forgive yourself if you want to move on; you need to get the negative energy out of you.”

As we continued to talk, I had a moment where I felt an absolutely overwhelming sensation. I remember grabbing her arm and saying, “Wow, I feel an overwhelming sensation of love right now.” I distinctly remember it taking over me like a wave, first starting in my head, then my chest and arms, and finally down through my legs. There was also a buzzing in my head that just felt like pure love and warm energy. The sensation lasted for a minute or two, and the entire time I was holding onto Alexandra’s arm and saying, “Wow, wow. We have a strong connection right now.”

As the sensation began to end, I told her that it felt like, because of the discussion we were having, a little bit of negative energy that she associated with this topic was released from her, and I picked up on it, though it turned into positive energy for me. What could this have been? I don’t know. But the sensation was so overwhelming that I had to pause for a few minutes to just collect my thoughts. I lay there for fifteen minutes and just kept telling Alexandra that it was the most intense and longest connection I felt like I had ever had.

Of course, the topic at hand was a difficult one. However, the feeling I had that she’d let go of some of the negative energy around this topic was strong, and she agreed that discussing it helped her feel a little better, but that she still had a long way to go before she could fully forgive herself. Please keep in mind, this is very personal for us to be writing about, but the connection I had was so strong and so emotional for me that we felt this story should be included in the book.

What we took away from this is that we think that it is possible that when one person releases negative energy, it can turn into positive energy for whoever is able to connect to that person. I felt so good afterward and it turned the rest of the night into a great Christmas Eve. I will let her summarize her reaction to this experience in her note below (as of this writing, I have no idea what it will be, but I hope it is as positive as mine!).