Blessed & Broken

Chapter 2

The night after my father’s funeral, my Aunt Jess wanted my mother and I to stay with her, so we would not have to endure being in the house alone. I told my mom to go ahead and go, that I would be fine by myself. “Honey, you have been through so much these past few days. Please come with me to your Aunt Jess’s,” she pleaded. 

“Mom, I promise that I will be fine, besides, I haven’t had a chance to be alone since…” I couldn’t finish the words.  She looked at me pained. “Well, then I am just going to stay here too. I’ll just tell Aunt Jess that we decided to stay home.” I took a deep sigh. “Mom, you don’t have to stay here with me. I am 18 years old and I am capable of being by myself. Go”, I told her, shooing my hands. “Plus, Luke will be here for a little bit anyways to watch a movie.”  My mom looked at me with exhausted thoughtful eyes, still in despair. “Ok, I’ll go. But, if you need me at all, I don’t care what time it is, please call me and I will be here,” she said. “Alright, I will call you if I need you,” I promised her. My mom held me in a tight frail hug as she told me goodbye… Goodbye……. that word meant so much more to me now. It held so much power behind it.

           Luke arrived just as my mom was pulling out of the driveway. I held the door open for him as he walked into the house. He smacked his lips forcefully to my cheek and gave me a whack on the butt. I shook my head and rolled my eyes. We went over to the couch to sit as I aimlessly and thoughtlessly started flipping through the television channels. I was doing it too quickly to even observe what was on. Luke snatched the remote out of my hand and said, “Give it to me. I’ll find something to watch.”

 I didn’t care what he did. I didn’t care about anything nowadays. I stared at the corner of the room, lost in thought. Luke broke the silence when he said, “Kalia, I know that you just lost your dad and all, but you are still going to go with me tomorrow, aren’t you?” If this was an attempt to act like he cared about me and what I wanted to do, he wasn’t doing a very good job.

 “Um…I don’t think that would be such a good idea. I don’t feel like being around anyone,” I said quietly. A big obnoxious sigh came from his hot-tempered mouth as he sat up and perched his elbows on his knees. So much for him caring about my feelings. “Is this how it’s going to be from now on?”, he asked impatiently. You're not going to go anywhere with me? You are just going to lock yourself up in the house?”, he accused.

 A new feeling swept over me that I have not felt in a while. I was pissed. “Are you kidding me?”, I asked in a furious disbelief. I just lost my father not even a week ago, and you’re worried about if I am going to go to some stupid party with you?” My eyebrows squeezed together tight.  “Why? So, I can sit there and listen to your spaced-out friends while you guys tell the same God-awful stories that I have already had to listen to about a billion times? Sit there while you drink yourselves into oblivion.”

 I was flabbergasted that he would ask me such a question. Even for him, it was ridiculous. “Yeah, I guess I am,” he replied back in a cocky manner. I was…. speechless. All I could do was look at his blank face in awe while his last two sentences really had a chance to soak into my thoughts. “If you do not get out of my face, you are going to wish you had,” I seethed. He then had the audacity to reply, “What? Did I say something wrong?” Again, I was lost for words. 

“Get the hell out of my house!” I boomed at him. He looked at me like he couldn’t believe that I was talking to him the way that I was. I have never raised my voice to him in any capacity before. “Fine, your loss Babe,” he stammered as he jumped to his feet. He stomped to the front door with me following in tow. I really just wanted to shove him out the door but he quickly turned around, stopping two inches in front of me. He bent himself forward, making it so his eyes were level to mine. My stomach wanted to wretch when I looked at him, so I concentrated on focusing on the knotted patterns in the wooden floor. 

He took his hand and powerfully cupped my chin, forcing my head up to look in his direction. “Look…I know you’re going through some s**t right now, that is why I’m letting this little meltdown of yours slide. But just so you know, you will be there with me tomorrow night,” he ordered in a stern sultry voice, sounding awfully sure of himself. “Get out,” I stated again as my voice started to break. He threw a peck on the side of my lips and roughly ripped his hand away from my chin before turning and walking away.

           I slammed the door behind him, shaking the mirror on the wall. Tears that had been held in for days were protesting to get out. “No, I’m not going to lose it now.” I took a couple of deep breaths trying to calm the hurt down inside of me as I started to pace the floor back and forth. I felt like at any moment, I was literally going to lose my mind. Everything was starting to bombard my brain like piranha on fresh meat.

 This was the first time I was alone since my father’s death and I had nothing to distract me now. The ache started to set into my body. “No! This pain will not take hold of me”, I shouted in my head. “I’m not ready.” I ran to the kitchen and grabbed my coat off of the back of the chair.  I hastily snatched my car keys off of the kitchen counter and I sprinted out to my car. I needed to go. I didn’t know where I was going, I just needed to go.

 I leaped into my car, found the most hard-core song on the radio that I could, turned up the volume so that the music was blasting, and tore out of the driveway. I drove in a frenzy. I drove with no destination to get to. I was in a hurry to get somewhere, but I didn’t know where it was.

As I drove, memories of my dad started to seep into my mind. Thoughts of all of the times that we had shared started to play like a movie in my head. His smile, the way he loved me, the way that he loved my mother, it all started to consume me.

 The lump in my throat started to expand. I could feel the suppressed sobs trying to make their way out of my mouth. I wasn’t going to be able to hold it back anymore. A couple minutes, maybe, but no longer than that. I headed back towards my home. I wanted to be there instead of in my car when I lost it because this was just becoming a dangerous situation all around.

 I arrived back at the house and ran straight to my bedroom. My breath came quick now. My hands going to my head…fingers intertwining, gripping in my hair as I paced back and forth in my room.  The pain wasn’t coming anymore, it was here. 

I fell to my knees as I began to endure the emotional anguish.  My mind now let go of all of the previous couple of days. All the distress that I hid, was now exposed. The tears that I held back, now flowed uncontrollably. The sobs that developed into a bulge in my throat now came out in a loud rush of high-pitched agony, choked off by intermediate intakes of breath. I lost it. The rush of emotion was too hard to handle.

 I thought I was going to literally fall to pieces. At least it was dark in my room. The sky was black with only the full moon making its presence known. Luckily the moonlight was not angled the right way to shine in my direction. The night is comforting. Safe, like a big blanket to hide one from the rest of the world, where no one can see you cry or see your pain. Lately, during the daylight hours, I have felt so vulnerable, exposed.

As my cries became softer, my ears caught wind of a whisper. A whisper of a man’s gentle voice that spoke, “Sleep.” Suddenly, exhaustion started to set in and had taken hold of me. I was weak, I couldn’t fight it. Unconsciousness took over my being and sleep conquered.

Every night for the next few weeks was the same. I would not just cry, but aguishly sob over the loss of my dad. It seemed as though the days that were the hardest for me were when I would hear the same male voice telling me to “Sleep.” Sometimes it would scare me to hear this out of nowhere, but the man’s voice was gentle and soothing to me. 

Have you ever taken the same way practically every day and never really notice all the places and things that you pass by? Today was that day for me. I noticed a small isolated shop a few buildings down from the stop light that I sat at. It was nothing fancy. It was very plain and looked quite old, which is probably why I never paid attention to it before. But this time what caught my eye was the old run down, homemade sign that hung from the front. “Psychic.”

When the light turned green, I noticed that no one was behind me so I decided to creep slowly past the building. There was a dimly lit neon “open” sign that was placed in the window. I didn’t see one single car in the parking lot. “Maybe the business shut down a long time ago and someone just forgot to turn the open sign off. Maybe no one is even in there”, I thought to myself. It’s funny how the mind fires off so many thoughts in a matter of seconds. An urge took over me and I found myself turning the steering wheel toward the shop.

That is when I saw a light on inside the building as I peered through the glass from my windshield. I noticed movement coming from the corner of the room on the inside. It looked to be the figure of a slightly older middle-aged woman. I have never done anything like this before. A psychic? I used to be the first one to even scoff at the word. Now, I find myself in the parking lot of a “Future Teller”. “What the hell was I thinking?” I’ll tell you what I was thinking. “I need answers.” My heart was completely broken. I needed something, anything to get me through this difficult time. I needed to find out who in the heck keeps telling me to “sleep.”

I opened the car door, got out, grabbed my purse, and slung it over my shoulder, letting it cross over my body. As I turned the knob of the store’s creaky door, I took a deep breath and whispered to myself, “Here goes”. Right away, I could smell the woodsy scent of burning incense. A smell that I wasn’t really fond of, however, it was light enough to tolerate. The woman standing behind the counter, in the corner, turned and sweetly smiled at me and said, “Hi Hun, I’ll be right with you. Please feel free to look around”. I smiled back and told her, “Thank you.”

As she turned back to her paperwork, I let my eyes graze around the store. For being such a small place, she sure had a lot to look at. One wall of the store was filled with small bins that contained stones. Stones of every color and of almost every Earth mineral taken from the ground. Each bin had a card attached to the front that gave a description of what every small pebble was and how they could help to aid a person. My eyes turned up to another part of the store. Plentiful wind chimes hung from the ceiling, ever so slightly touching one another to give off a faint, but beautiful ting. Books, oils, small figurines, jewelry and more filled the small space but, in a clean not cluttered way.

The woman turned back around and stepped towards me saying, “There. Now how can I help you?” Standing closer to her, I noticed how strikingly pronounced her features were. She was slightly taller than me and had very high, round cheek bones. Her hair was long, dark in color, and remarkably shiny. She wore a long colorful, flowing shirt with flecks of glitter in the fabric. She adorned a lot of jewelry, but she pulled it off nicely. “Modern day Gypsy,” is what went through my head.

I felt a sense of calm being around her. “I haven’t been to a psychic before. I’m not really sure what services you offer.” She started to giggle and said, “Well psychic is kind of an old outdated term. I am more along the lines of ‘Medium’.” She went on to explain all that she could offer. Everything from energy work, massage, readings, to even some teaching, and all in between. More than half of it I had never even heard of. “I think I will go with a reading”, I stated. “Wonderful”, she chimed. “Please, follow me.”

I trailed behind her to a quaint, dark room that contained a small seating area and a few lit candles that gave off enough glow to see. “Have a seat,” she offered as she pulled an indicant hand crafted wooden chair from the small round table that we were going to congregate at. As I sat, she took her seat in front of me at the table, gathering what she was going to need. When she was finally ready, she looked across the table, smiled once again, and extended her hand to me. I looked at her hand and slowly started to move mine closer to hers. As my hand was extending, I was looking at the woman, noticing how her features were even more breathtaking in candle light.

It made me nervous to give her my hand. I've seen this in a movie before. The “psychic” holds your hand, closes her eyes, feels you and your energy, and tells you your future. “Oh boy, here it comes”, I braced myself. This was intense. I slowly inched my limb closer to hers. I was so nervous. What was she going to tell me? What was she going to see? My heart was racing.

I slid my hand into hers as she gently tightened her grip around my fingers and then...shook my hand? She shook my hand and said, “I’m Luna.” That was it? She shook my hand? With a slight sigh of relief crossed with somewhat of an embarrassed giggle I responded, “I’m Kali.” She smiled and said, “Kali, huh? Pretty name. What’s that short for?” I gave her a small grin and said, “Kalia.” Her smile widened, “Beautiful.”

“Ok, Kalia, I have a few decks of tarot cards here for you to choose from”, she stated. She laid out three decks of cards before me. “Pick the one that you feel the most drawn to.” I ended up choosing the one with the whimsical illustration on the front. “Great choice, these are my favorite”, she expressed. “Now, what I want you to do is shuffle the cards and while you are doing that, I want you to really concentrate on what you would like to know”, she instructed. “What you would like the answers to.”

I thought to myself, “How do I choose just one thing to concentrate on?” There are so many questions to what I want to know. I could feel the lump start to come into my throat as I thought about my dad. How I missed that man so much. The male voice that keeps telling me to “sleep” crept into my head. My life. How is my life going to turn out? I felt like I was shuffling the cards for an eternity. I feared that maybe I was going to irritate Luna for taking so long. But she patiently waited, her soft smile never leaving her face. I gave the deck of cards back to her and I watched as she started to lay out the card spread. When she finished, I examined her face while she studied the cards that sprawled out before us.

I couldn’t help but notice the few times that her brows furrowed and she chewed one the side of her lower lip. Finally, she sat back in her chair, letting out a huge breath of air. Luna looked up at me and said, “Excuse my language, but you have gone through some major shit.” It wasn’t a question she was asking me, but a statement she was making. “Yes”, I answered back.

“You lost someone.” Yet again, Luna making another statement. “Yes”, I answered again.

She was quiet for a moment, seeing the cards, but really not looking at them. “A man”, Luna said. “Yes”, was all I could say. I could feel the lump rocketing back up into my throat again with a vengeance. She was quiet once more, almost as if she was looking through the cards. I started to feel clammy. I was trying hard to get that rock in my windpipe to go down. Luna raised her head slowly up to me, her eyes mirroring mine. “Your Father”, she whispered.

Looking at her with shock and disbelief that she could possibly know this, I could feel the mass that occupied my throat was now broken up into large droplets that poured over the brim of my eyes. I returned the whisper, “Yes”. My face fell into my hands “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry”, Luna apologized. She got up from her chair to come to my side and hug me in comfort. She stroked my hair and let me cry.

She placed her hands upon my shoulders so that she could look at my face. “Do you want me to stop?”, she asked. Did I want her to? How could she have known this? As I thought about it, I realized that maybe there was a reason that I noticed this shop for the first time on my way home. The way that I have taken a million times before. “No, I’m fine”, I answered to her, shaking my head. She walked away back to her seat, still concerningly watching me. She handed me a tissue. “I am sorry about that”, I told her. “Please, continue.”

“Don’t be sorry about that”, she stated like I was being ridiculous, but in a loving manner. Luna sat back in her chair and took another deep breath. “I just want you to know that he is ok”, she said. “He is happy”, she continued with a gentle smile and her head crooked to the side. “It was very fast and there was no pain, he tells me.” I was trying to absorb everything that she was telling me about my father. Something about a pod of light he had to “incubate” in for a short amount of time due to the harshly fast nature of him leaving the world and going to the other side. It was very difficult to comprehend everything while my brain was going 100mph.

I asked her if my father had any messages for me. She sat for a thoughtful minute as if she were listening to something that I couldn’t hear. “He says that he knew he was going to go. He said that he could feel something was different that morning and that you could feel it too.” My mouth fell open when I remembered back to that day and the wave of strange energy that crashed over me the last time that I hugged him. “I did feel something wasn’t right, but I didn’t know that it was going to be that.”, I responded.

This was all so incredible. I felt so close to my father right now. I just wanted to keep asking her questions about my dad when she interrupted me and said, “Kali, I don’t mean to cut this off, but I have a client who will be here shortly.” I looked at the clock and noticed that thirty minutes had already gone by. The time had gone by so fast that it felt as if I was in a time warp. “Oh! I am so sorry!”, I exclaimed! “No, Honey, It’s ok. I just want to tell you what else I seen before she gets here.” I was kind of excited now that there was more. I found all of this fascinating. “I need you to be very careful around a male figure that I see is in your life. I can see that he is around your age. A sporty type who is very competitive,” Luna explained. My thoughts went to Luke immediately.

 I nodded my head slowly as she was describing this man. “I’m assuming by your gestures that you know who I am talking about,” she speculated. “Yes, I do”, I answered her back. “Why do I need to be careful?”, I asked. Luna looked me square in the eyes and stated, “From what I can see, his mind has a darkness to it. In a way, he seems to embrace it.” She looked serious. “If he continues this way, it could be dangerous for those around him, including you.” I listened to Luna with intent. “You may not think it or see it, but you must trust what I tell you.” I nodded my head and said, “Ok.”

Just then the shop door opened and the bell rung. Time was up. For as nervous as I was to even walk into this place, I found myself not wanting to leave. “Well, thank you so much for everything”, I expressed. We both walked to the door and stood face to face. Luna embraced me in a comforting hug and said, “I hope this was helpful to you. Maybe gave you a little bit of peace.” She seemed so caring. “Grieving can be one of the worst feelings that anyone can go through, but we must find some light in the darkness”, she said. I gently smiled to her.

“Just remember that your father truly is happy and will always be by your side. If you are ever feeling like you are lost in a dark place, just speak,” she smiled softly. “You would be surprised to know all of the good around you, wanting to help you. People and beings that you can’t see. It's quite amazing.”

 I smiled and started to walk away as Luna stopped me again and said, “Oh! Hey, Kali?” I turned to look at her. “Make sure you are getting enough sleep.” My mouth open and my eyes widened. “Oh my Gosh!”, I shrieked. “I totally forgot about that!” Luna looked at me perplexed. I began to talk low because other people were around and I didn’t want to get crazy looks. I explained what was happening. “I haven’t been sleeping well with everything that has been going on. Well, now I keep hearing a man’s voice telling me to ‘sleep’. It scares the s**t out of me when it happens, but then, boom, I fall right to sleep.” I could tell by Luna’s expression; she knew what was happening. “I even attempted to stay awake to see if I see anyone, but I never do. I think I may be going crazy. Maybe I need meds! Do you think I need meds?”, I rambled. Luna started to giggle and said, “No, Honey. I don’t think you need meds. That is just your Guide.”

Now I was confused. “My Guide?”, I asked. She nodded. “Yes, your Guide”, she said. “We all have one. Some people have multiple ones.” I was silent and I knew that she could tell the wheels were turning in my head. She walked over to a bookshelf in the corner of the small space where we stood. She scanned the books and took out the one she wanted. “Here, read this”, she said handing me the book. “This should answer most of your questions on what a Guide is.” I looked at the black leather book that I held in my hands. The cover simply read, “Spirit Guides,”

“I..I”, I started to stammer. Luna put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Just read it and bring it back to me when you are done. No rush.” I looked back down at the book before looking back up. “Thank you, Luna. How much do I owe you for the reading”, I asked? She closed her eyes and said, “You coming to visit me today was payment enough, really.” How could someone I just met be so kind and feel so familiar? “I really appreciate this, Luna.” She smiled at me. “I appreciate you, Kali”, she replied genuinely. I turned and walked out the door when I heard Luna call out from behind me again, “Come back and visit me real soon.” I turned to look back at her with a smile. “I promise.”