Sometimes a first love doesn't come as the Cinderella story we all imagine. It isn't hand holding and butterflies but rather a friend at a young age who teaches you to acknowledge your self worth and find out just who you really are. It's lighthearted, joking jabs accompanied by subtle words of encouragement and comfort. 12 years ago I met one of the greatest human beings that's ever walked this planet, Jeff Bowlan, in Fort Irwin, CA. Like many relationships children in the army lifestyle form, we quickly became more like family than friends. He wore the mask of the tough guy well and kept many fooled. However, I would come to realize subconsciously I was doing the same. We both carried our fair share of family baggage and formed a wall comparable to Great Wall of China to hide emotions yet somehow found ways to get through to each other. We treated rebellion and trouble making like a profession and became each other's partners in crime. Yet unfortunately the plague of many military families befell us and after three short years my father was transferred to another duty station. Somehow we managed to preserve that friendship through the trials and tribulations of life into adulthood. I recall fondly Jeff calling me from the airport after an overseas trip when he met up with a beautiful woman who would go on to become his bride, a great old friend and cheerleading mentor of mine. We both grew up, got married, had children while managing not to grow apart. From opposite sides of the country, his wife and I exchanged messages of our pregnancies and our wishes that our boys could grow up together and share friendships like we all had. Jeff became very active in his local church and even went on to start a Christian Outreach program for troubled youth. He had dreams of fostering a better environment with the help of the Lord for his young boys and their peers. He worked hard to do his best to provide everything his bride and sons could ever need. That was until God decided it was time for him to come home to the Kingdom. I have never been so internally conflicted in life. How could God take him from me? Take him from his wife who was the picture of strength and grace? But most importantly take him from those precious intelligent little boys who were just realizing the man of integrity they had made out of their daddy? One minute I was angry, the next confused, the next praying for answers from God and how to be stronger and somehow make sense of this.
- [ ] Days became weeks which faded to months and then years and I found myself reflecting and privately speaking to his spirit no differently than I would pick up the phone and call whenever life took a turn down a rougher road. I would remember how he developed into such a forgiving person and would recall how he never left anything unsaid. I let the pain I felt from 2,000 miles away for his family be a constant reminder to be gentle with my words because tomorrow is never guaranteed for anyone walking this earth. It's been almost a year since my mother began telling me about a dear friend she met, Janis Boscarello. She informed me Janis was a medium and many of her friends had found comfort in their grief with her messages received from loved ones passed. She raved about how Janis expressed messages and information to her and her friends regarding their loved ones and the bonds they shared with each person that no one would ever know and no internet search could ever turn up if she was anything less than legitimate. However, I would have to consider myself a partial skeptic. I believe whole-heartedly in spirit as well as people who possess a gift to see things beyond this world, but I have seen the shows. While each person seeking comfort walks away validated with secretly guarded information and personal messages, I struggled with the lives taken, what the average person would consider, far too soon. How could my friend, a man who went from a partying wild child, to a Godly man raising a strong, beautiful family and a cornerstone of his community by spreading the Lord's word be accepting of his fate? He wasn't sick. He had no time to prepare, no time to say good byes. No time to tell his wife how much he loved her. No time to prepare a piece of worldly advice to guide his boys through life. That mask of the tough guy I'd grown so accustomed to wasn't on the other side taking this without a fight. My curiosity to speak with Janis grew by the day, but fear of a message of regret or disappoint from Jeff kept me at bay.
- [ ] Here recently though, I have found myself at a crossroads. I want to put my hot headed temper away on a shelf for good and live a life in which my children remember their mother as patient and graceful. I also struggle with a relationship with my father. While a great man in all aspects, we have never gotten along. Whether it be his short fuse or a decades worth of bad baggage carried, I cried myself to sleep after one of our ever so typical arguments wondering just where I would take this relationship into the next chapter of my life. I woke up the next morning from a very vivid dream. In the dream, I was back on the school bus, sitting with Jeff telling him about the confrontation with my dad. Just like 12 years ago, he made joking remarks about how my dad was a good guy and it was my fault and I needed to go home and beg for forgiveness for whatever it was my dad thought I had done to upset him this time and just like he would always do, he nudged his shoulder hard into mine and leaned his head towards me and dropped his tone saying, "But for real, you know you didn't do anything, kid! Just tell him how you feel. You'll wish he was around one day." I wish that dream would have never ended. I didn't know whether to cry or smile. One thing I did know though, I needed to speak with Janis.
- [ ] After arranging my appointment, I nervously got ready. I was nervous if the messages Janis would have for me would come across as legitimate. I was nervous if I would be disappointed in the messages she was to relay. I was nervous if Jeff would have even cherished our friendship to present a message for her to relay. Janis greeted me with the warmest of smiles and most comforting environment and it was easy to begin rattling off details of my life in its current state and small talk. She insisted I didn't go into too much detail with personal plans of my future with school and immediate family details as she likes her messages to be clear and genuine but I had an agenda of my own. It was easy to talk about myself but I wanted to remain as tight lipped about my sweet friend as possible. While I'm sure she was well aware I was using a diversion technique, it was to become crystal clear her messages and her gift are truly miraculous. She had already jotted down some quick notes on a pad. "Male energy, brotherly, picked up throw over shoulder." I read it and my stomach turned. I'm not sure if it was nerves, grief, relief or the combination of all. Just days before I was reminiscing of a story about how he used to tease me about stuffing me in a trash can in an act of freshman hazing. She effortlessly asked me details about California, made sure he mentioned his sister. Janis presented visions of campfires, smoke, lighters and then it was if another door opened and revealed to her our wilder sides and Jeff's dance with youth rebellion. "Did you hit someone? Did he hit someone?", she asked. I smirked while holding back the tears and told her how we both had a tendency to throw a few blows in a confrontation in our high school days. She went on to say she was seeing a drawn back fist even specifying she was left handed but she was seeing a right hand drawn back in a fist. I didn't overly dwell here and she continued with detail about him being very close with his mother and assured me not to harp on the past and those rebellious times were things we all, especially Jeff, have to go through to reach our full potential. Then an actualization hit me like a train. The fist she was describing a few minutes earlier wasn't about our past. She was inclined to point out it was specifically a right handed fist for a reason. The youth group Jeff had started and had so many visions for, he named "Hitting Kids with Hope." The groups logo was a fist with the word HOPE across the knuckles. She went on with more reminders of the past and encouraging messages for his wife, children, loved ones and myself. Janis asked knowingly, questions of his passing that were spot on. While that hour session seemed to fly by, it was flooded with a decade of emotions. One of my biggest worries going into this reading was crying in front of a stranger who barely knew me. I can't make it through a conversation with the closest of friends mentioning Jeff without tearing up. Yet somehow Janis made me feel so comfortable, the few times I did feel my eyes welling up, I would almost feel that tough shoulder nudge and that deep voice light heartedly growl, "Suck it up, kid. Don't be lame." Janis has another gift that comes in close second to ability to feel messages from the after life and that is her ability to meet people and their life circumstances exactly where they need her. While she presents her self to the upmost professional standard with a poise and classiness that is unmatched, I'm sitting across the table vulnerable to a lifestyle of partying and insanity left behind that anyone with a sane mind would most likely judge. Never the less, she showed me kindness and understanding with her own words of wisdom between the message of spirit that you would swear could only come from a close family member. While I don't know if I will ever get closure, or if I even desire it, I left Janis' office with a warmth in my soul and a smile stretched ear to ear on my face, despite my running mascara. While Janis' may be petite and small in stature, her strength and gift are more grand than I could have ever dreamed.
YOU ARE READING
An Afternoon With the Afterlife
Non-FictionA nonfiction account of my experience with a psychic medium
