Cosmic Messages

Last night at book club we experienced a strange interdimensional event, I think.

The group met at our house, and we were reading the book I chose, which was "Apocalypse 2012," about all the various ways the world is going to end on Dec. 21, 2012. I'm a big sucker for End-of-the-World stuff.

Anyway, we learned that one of our members, Amy, has been feeling sad the past few weeks because her aunt has cancer and is almost certainly going to die soon. (Yes, Perhaps a book about the end of the world is not the best for someone under these circumstances, but of course I couldn't have known about Amy's aunt when I chose the book.)

We were all well into the meeting, and well into the wine when Amy suddenly burst into tears out of the blue. She apologized profusely, but explained that she was just under a lot of emotional stress because of her aunt's illness. She thanked us all for being so supportive (of course, the meeting came to a halt and we all gathered around to try to comfort her), and told us that she was sure that in the next week she was going to be attending her aunt's funeral and she would remember this night and all the love and support she received from all of us. It was very touching and very sad. Clearly Amy loves her aunt very much. She kept saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," for crying, for crashing the book club with her grief, but we teased her gently that she must not apologize any more to us, or for every apology we were going to make her drink an extra glass of wine at next month's meeting.

Amy is very sweet and gentle, and always thoughtful of others, so we knew we'd never get her to stop apologizing. After Amy's husband came to take her home, someone said "I bet we get an email of apology from Amy tomorrow," and we laughed.

Well, this morning we did get an email. But she said she was writing to thank us for our love and support, and to tell us that she learned from her husband on the drive home that, at the same time that Amy had been having her sudden meltdown at my house, her aunt passed away. Just as she was telling us that she would remember that night and how kind we had been when the time came... the time was there.

I think that today we all feel as if there was a sort of inter-planar communication going on at that meeting last night, between Amy and her aunt. That somehow on some subconscious level, Amy knew that her aunt was dying, and that was why she was suddenly overcome with grief.

I feel particularly odd about it because just before Amy started crying, I had been talking about how I don't believe that there is any cosmic justice in the world. I don't really believe in karma in the sense that people who are not good people get their come-uppance some day. I don't believe there is an afterworld in any understandable way like that, or any cosmic judge who doles out rewards and punishments. And if our spirits are recycled to become new people, I don't think they retain any baggage from the previous existence.

What do I know, huh?