Leaving my parents and small hometown at eighteen, I moved to the city to attend university. After I finished my counselling degree, I became a clinical medical social worker in a large teaching hospital. At any given time, I could be involved in an attempted murder or industrial accident, an attempted suicide, a shooting or car crash, or a political trauma and torture case. The job was intense and high stress. The two-hour commute usually gave me time to de-stress.
During my first few months, I came to know the Director of the Haematology Department. Almost every morning we’d walk past each other, meeting up somewhere around the operating theatres. There’d always be the same warm smile, a light ‘good morning’ or ‘hello.’ Soon this forty-something, tall slim strawberry blonde-haired man became part of my work life at the hospital.
Early one evening, about six months after I began working at the hospital, my colleague Rebecca and I left our office and walked along the glass walkway past the theatres to sign off for the day. Chatting lightheartedly, we rounded the corner from the operating theatres to the old section of the hospital, and saw the Director of Haematology making his way slowly towards us.
As I continued to talk with Rebecca, I noticed he seemed strangely dishevelled and had a vacant stare. Though he was tall with pale skin, his skin seemed even lighter than usual, almost translucent in the fluorescent light of the corridor. As we passed, I felt suddenly drawn to look directly into his face and quietly offered him a friendly ‘hello.’ Rebecca also lifted her eyes to acknowledge him. He simply turned his head ever so slightly towards us, and in one fluid motion gazed at me. He seemed almost to stare through me. His demeanour was flat and unresponsive.
Rebecca and I continued down the corridor chatting, as our workday drew to a close. We signed off for the evening then walked to the nearby train station for the long journey home. Another uneventful Monday night had passed.
Late on Friday afternoon Rebecca and I were sitting in our office, when we had an unexpected visit from the Clinical Specialist Social Worker from the Communicable Diseases Unit. He told us how the Director of the Haematology Department had hanged himself the previous Saturday evening at his home. His wife had found his body.
Looking across at Rebecca I replied: ‘No, that can’t be right! Rebecca and I saw him about 5pm on Monday night in the corridor near the theatres. I know it was Monday night because I’ve been off sick since then.’
‘But Monday was two days after he killed himself. How can that be?’ said the Clinical Specialist Social Worker.
Now perplexed, I said: ‘But you saw him too, didn’t you Rebecca?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I saw him in the corridor. I just looked up to see him briefly. Elizabeth spoke to him.’
Shocked and searching for an explanation, I wondered how we could have seen this man walking past us in the hospital two days after he had actually ended his life. As I kept coming back to this question, I began to sense this was another piece in the picture puzzle of life that invited me into its reality. Somehow I just couldn’t let it go. It wasn’t so much that I had witnessed something unusual or confronting. These extraordinary experiences showed up in my ordinary moments and broke the trance I had been living in, altering the very nature of my reality.
Since then I have met and worked with many people who have had unusual life-altering experiences. Overcoming the obstacles of feeling alone within their experience, feeling misunderstood and marginalised, they have each learnt how to use their ‘unusual’ experiences to galvanise their personal and spiritual growth. This is the gift of these experiences. They are life’s invitation to better understand ourselves and see our world in a whole new light. They help teach us resilience, so we can better navigate a society that is still largely unaware and unconscious of deeper experiences.
My life, I realised, was rich and multi-layered. I’d survived the trials of feeling different as a child. My clinical career was burgeoning and romantic love was blossoming. I felt that the life and love I longed for was crystallising.
The day finally arrived to attend my university graduation ceremony. I hired a white stretch limousine to take us on a sunset tour of the city harbour, before our celebratory family dinner. Sitting in a restaurant high above the city, I raised my glass to toast my parents for supporting my higher education and qualifications. As we clinked our glasses, my eyes met those of my boyfriend Mark, who I’d met in the third year of my degree. Classically handsome with dark hair, strong masculine features, athletic and a little over six foot one, he was hard to resist.
Within weeks, we had become engaged and the following year we were married. Two years later, when I gave birth to our beautiful daughter Jessica, my life began to take a more profound turn.