Eight Difficult Deaths: 

Marty Spring 1992

Marty was a person with AIDS who was active in a meditation group. His lover had died and he moved in with his friend Sarah, one of the group members. Sarah got frustrated because Marty was not interested in even the most basic self-care or spiritual work. He was pretty depressed and Sarah ended up asking him to leave her home when she began to get depressed, too.

Several weeks after Marty left and moved into an apartment of his own, he drowned accidentally while bathing. It seemed that he had been left alone in the bathroom by the aid he had hired. He was pretty weak and disoriented, and somehow managed to drown.

Sarah was seeing me for craniosacral therapy. Marty’s death was only one of a number of issues she was dealing with and for several sessions, she didn’t mention him. Then, several weeks after his death, I learned from her that Marty’s meditation group was feeling him “hanging around”, experiencing it as unwanted, difficult and tense. Sarah especially felt oppressed by his nagging presence. She felt a mixture of anger and guilt. As Sarah was talking about Marty, I suddenly perceived a naked man, dripping wet, wearing little canvas shower shoes. He had a turned-up nose, blue eyes, and strange, choppy hair, curly in places. He had an erection. He stood dripping, facing Sarah.

I described what I was seeing and she said “That’s Marty!” It seems his hair was straight but he had started pulling it out and it grew in curly. I decided to work on him using the same off-the-body techniques I would use on a living person. I also sang to him as I worked, as I would with any of my clients. As I began to work, he turned to face me.

Almost immediately, I perceived a woman on his right, a man on his left, and someone or something behind him. The woman and man took his hands and from behind him light shone. I had a sense that the being behind him was his deceased partner. After a time, the image I saw of Marty changed to a beautiful rose-colored ball of light that seemed to take the shape of a heart for a moment, and then the images disappeared.

Later, while Sarah was lying on my treatment table, I perceived Marty again, this time wearing a beautiful white short-sleeved shirt and khaki pants. He seemed to lean over Sarah where she lay. She suddenly spoke, saying, “I just got a message from Marty. I understand now why he was doing what he was doing. It’s OK.”
Sarah told me later that after our session Marty’s parents, who had been ambivalent about accepting his ashes, called up and made arrangements for them to be shipped home. Going through the last of his belongings, she found his address book -my name and phone number jotted inside the cover. Sarah felt certain that Marty had been planning on doing some work with me.