In December 2011 I opened a Facebook message from someone I didn’t know. ‘Laura, my name is Crystal,’ it began, ‘and I was compelled to write you after seeing you on The Dr Phil Show.’ At the time I was promoting my new book, An Invisible Thread, which tells the story of my friendship with Maurice Mazyck – an eleven-year-old homeless panhandler when I met him in 1986, and still my good friend today. I was getting emails from a lot of people who were moved by the book, but something about Crystal’s message was different. ‘I, too, was given a second chance on December 10 of 2009,’ she explained. ‘That was the day I died.’
It’s not often you read a sentence like that, so I kept reading. I soon learned Crystal McVea was a schoolteacher and a mother of four living in southwest Oklahoma. In 2009 she went into the hospital with abdominal pain and suddenly stopped breathing. In the frantic minutes between when she died and when doctors were able to revive her, Crystal went to heaven and stood with God. Now, that by itself was intriguing to me, because I love hearing anything about heaven and what it would be like to stand face-to-face with God. But I was intrigued for another reason. Crystal’s story reminded me of what happened to my mother.
When I was twenty-five my mother, Marie’s, long battle with uterine cancer neared its end. She’d bravely fought it off for several years until she just couldn’t fight it any more. Losing our mother was something none of us children could ever prepare for or even begin to comprehend.
On the very day I turned twenty-five, my mother asked me not to leave her alone. She said she felt strange and scared. I assured her someone would be with her every minute and through the night. The next morning she was unresponsive, and we called for an ambulance. Before it arrived my mother woke up and started weeping inconsolably. She was petrified and filled with sorrow, and she knew her life was ending. I’d never seen her like that and I tried desperately to console her. I even told her she was only going to the hospital for a check-up.
‘Promise me I will come home,’ my mother said to me.
Not knowing what else to say, I made that promise to her.
When she arrived in the ER at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York City, her oncologist examined her and suggested we have a priest come and give her last rites. My sister Annette and I said a prayer with the priest, while the doctor and a nurse waited just behind us. When the prayer was over, the doctor checked on my mother. He turned to us and said, ‘She is gone.’
Annette and I hugged and cried and tried to find comfort in the belief that Mom was at peace with God. That powerful belief sustains so many people in their darkest hours, and there in the ER it sustained us. Of course, we all yearn to know with certainty that our loved ones are in a better place, but that’s not a gift we can ever expect to get. Certainly it is not a gift I ever imagined I’d receive.
But then, just a few minutes after the doctor declared my mother was dead, a nurse in the ER said something unimaginable. ‘Oh, my God,’ she said, ‘your mother is alive! Talk to her; talk to her!’
The nurse had seen my mother start to breath again and open her eyes. We stood there in absolute amazement, and we looked at the oncologist, who was as shocked and baffled as we were. My mother had only occasionally been lucid in the previous weeks, but suddenly she seemed free of pain and in control of her mind and her body. Most remarkably, she had a warm, peaceful smile on her face, something we hadn’t seen for the longest time. She was glowing, and she no longer seemed scared. Then she shocked us even more by speaking in a strong, clear voice. And what she said was:
‘I can’t believe I’ve been given the time and the strength to tell you everything I always wanted to say to you but couldn’t.’
The next six hours were nothing short of a miracle. My mother’s vital signs were inexplicably strong and she was completely calm and in charge. She was moved to a private room and, one by one, she spoke to all five of her children and her husband, my father Nunzie, and gave us loving messages of hope and strength. ‘You have always been such a good daughter,’ my mother told me. ‘Laurie, I am so proud of you. I love you very much.’ Can you imagine what it feels like to have your mother tell you she loves you after you thought she was dead? Her doctors simply couldn’t explain what happened – only our mother could. ‘I saw the other side,’ she told us. ‘It is far more beautiful and peaceful than we could ever imagine. I know now in my heart that I will be able to take care of all of you from there.’
We asked the doctor if we could take my mother home. I’d made a promise to her, and, incredibly, I had a chance to keep it. The doctor didn’t know what would happen next, but he let us check her out. Then came the final shock.
‘I don’t want to go home,’ my mother told us. ‘I want to stay here until it is time to go to my new home.’
As much as we all wanted our mother to stay with us, God had a different plan for her. Still, He’d allowed her to come back and share a beautiful message with us – a message each of us would carry in our hearts for the rest of our lives.
Not much later, my mother sat up and told us God was calling her back. She asked us to all hold hands and say the Lord’s Prayer and then leave her in peace. A minute or two later, she was in a coma. A few days after that she passed away at the age of forty-seven.
I immediately thought of my mother when I read Crystal’s note and I was surprised to learn that, while she had seen me on Dr Phil, she hadn’t actually read my book. She did not know my mother’s story. She wrote me, because, as she absently watched Dr Phil while folding laundry, she suddenly felt a strong urge to contact me. She’d felt the urge before, and she knew just what it was. It was God putting someone in her path. ‘I am just a mommy and a teacher,’ she explained, ‘but I know God is leading me to tell the whole story of what I experienced, and I would like your help.’
I wrote back to Crystal, and eventually we spoke on the phone. She told me all about her time in heaven and I was blown away. It is a beautiful story, not at all what I expected, and as soon as I heard it, I knew I wanted to help her in any way I could. I put her in touch with my co-writer, Alex Tresniowski, and he was just as moved as I was. With our help, Crystal got a literary agent and a contract with Howard Books, the publisher of An Invisible Thread.
Even today, I am amazed by the events that led to this book winding up in your hands. I am a retired advertising sales executive and I was lucky enough to have some connections that helped me secure a publishing deal. But even with those connections, I knew I was beating incredibly long odds by getting a book deal. So many people have inspiring life stories, but only a tiny fraction get the chance to share their stories with the world. I felt so blessed to have my book published, and even more blessed after it spent eighteen weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. I have always known it was my mother in heaven who steered me toward Maurice on the corner of 56th Street and Broadway in Manhattan that fateful day in 1986, and I know she has had a hand in all the success that has followed for both Maurice and me. But I also know how very, very lucky I am.
Crystal, on the other hand, had no such connections. She didn’t know a soul in the media and she faced even longer odds than I did in getting her story published. In the months after she died she spent a lot of time praying about the strange position she found herself in – while in heaven, God had instructed her to share her story with the world, but He didn’t seem to give her any way to do it. She was a teacher, not a writer and she had no clear path to anyone in the publishing industry. For months she wondered when God would finally send someone to help her tell her story. And for months nothing happened.
Until, one afternoon, she saw Maurice and me on television. She was only half-watching it while folding sheets and towels, but even so she felt what she calls a ‘nudge’, and she knew instantly she had to find a way to contact me. The idea seemed absurd to her – why would a complete stranger believe her far-fetched story, much less help her tell it? She prayed for days and tried to summon the nerve to message me. Finally, she brushed aside her fears and followed God’s orders and contacted me. I could have ignored her email or sent a cursory reply, but I didn’t. My co-author, Alex, could have been completely uninterested or busy with another project, but he wasn’t. And the great folks at Howard Books could have shrugged at the idea, but instead they jumped on it. A million things could have gone wrong; instead, everything went right.
And that, I believe, was no accident.
The title of my book comes from an old proverb: ‘An invisible thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle. But it will never break.’ Just as Maurice and I were connected by an invisible thread, so, too, were Crystal and I. Our paths were meant to cross, and they did. Crystal hadn’t read my book or known about my mother’s experience, yet she could hardly have found someone more receptive to her story. This, I now know, is the way God works – He brings people together who need each other. I refer to the unlikely bond between Maurice and me as an invisible thread, but I could also call it God’s powerful hand at work. The long odds that Crystal beat in making this remarkable book happen are evidence of God’s glorious presence here on earth. And Crystal’s story itself is evidence of the many gifts God bestows on us, if only we open our hearts to His many unplanned blessings.
I am extremely proud of the small role I played in helping Crystal, and I can’t wait for you to turn this page and begin reading her story. I know you will be as moved and inspired as I was, and I believe Crystal’s story has the power to change lives. We live in difficult and treacherous times, and the world needs as many positive messages as it can get. The powerful message of this book – that God exists and heaven is beautiful and each of our lives is its own miracle – is one that you will carry in your heart for the rest of your life.
– LAURA SCHROFF
AUTHOR, AN INVISIBLE THREAD
OCTOBER 2012