Part Two

(To read the history of the mine collapse, read part one and Malcolm’s story)

He Didn’t Run Off!

Walking a bit more on the dirt path, I looked around for others who may seek us out. Very quickly, I saw a young woman with her daughter standing near a low bush. I didn’t think it was the previous man’s wife. I was pretty sure they were not his family. This was only a feeling…

Almost immediately, she began speaking.

“We kept looking but not finding anything. Then it got dark. I had to bring her because no one to watch her. I wanted her to be here when we found her father. But there was no one around. They gave up. They didn’t list everyone. My husband was missing. But they tried to say he ran off. I knew he was in there. He didn’t run off. But then they didn’t have to give us anything, so I came to find him. I was going to be the one who didn’t give up. But then it got dark. Then it was raining. We huddled together. It got cold. Please tell me where he is. Please tell me that you found him. I always knew it was about money, greed. I told him we need to leave. Those snobby wives…look down on us. Like we’re poor. But we had each other. Please tell me you found him.”

After acknowledging her and what she shared, I turned to everyone (physical) around me.

“We can suggest to her to cross over. I don’t know if her husband is there, so I can’t promise that. But I can say it’s warm. And not wet or raining. Ones there who love her and her daughter.”

We all stood verbally silent for a few minutes offering her our support for moving on.

After watching her for another moment, I said, “They can see the light. The mother is telling the daughter, ‘do you see it?’. The mother said thank you, picked up her little girl and walked toward the light they see.”

Before anyone had much of a chance to say anything, there was already another person waiting for us. But this one, I was not expecting. At least not his age…

This child looked like he was seven or eight years old. He had a dusty face and a helmet. He looked like he had just worked in the mine. He began crying.

We waited for him to speak.

“It was so dark.”

His communication came more in pictures than words as he showed me what happened.

He suffocated pretty quickly. He breathed in a lot of dust into his lungs. His health wasn’t in great shape to begin with. He didn’t have the best of lungs anyway, but he was put to work. He opened his palm and showed me some dimes. I didn’t know if he was paid in dimes or why he was showing me dimes. He was crying and coughing. He still couldn’t breathe very well.

When he was down there, it was really dark, and he crawled off to the side and under something the best he could. There was something else down there that frightened him. He could not breathe; he was scared to death of something else. When he was down there, he was sitting, knees pulled up and his head between his knees. Hyperventilating, he began coughing. He saw some sort of entity or energy. He didn’t live much longer, he suffocated. Until then, a lot of fear, crying and coughing.

“I didn’t know we could come out, I thought we had to stay in. They told us not to come out.”

He was hyperventilating again.

“Who can help him cross over? Dennis?”

“I can too,” Jaylene said.

“I think Dennis needs to,” I said.

“Why do I need to do that?” Dennis asked.

“I don’t know why; I just think you need to. He’s standing right here. Just talk to him.”

Gently, Dennis encouraged the boy to relax and breathe and that he can go. He doesn’t have to stay here. Dennis repeatedly encouraged the boy to relax and breathe as I watched him do just that.

“They said we couldn’t go.”

“You can go, you don’t have to listen to them. You can go,” Dennis said.

“You remind me of someone,” the boy said to Dennis.

“My pappa…” he continued, “I can go? They won’t hurt me?”

“You can go, they won’t hurt you.”

“I was punished before, for leaving early because I was coughing.”

He was beaten as punishment.

“Just leave here and don’t look back,” Dennis encouraged.

Crying, he said, “Ok.”

His breathing became easier and he saw where to go to continue receiving assistance.