I get a lot of questions about "guides" from clients who frequent my studio. Friends and clients alike want to know how I connected with them in the first place, how I realized they were, in the classical sense, "spirit guides," and why any of us need them at all. Each one of those points has a whole different answer, each worth exploring, but, for today, I want to address one: how I met my spirit guides. More specifically, how I met my first.
Right off the bat, you should know, guides are like everything else; they come in all shapes and sizes, from all over the earthly, spiritual, and ethereal planes, and they come into your life in the most unexpected ways. Sometimes, you move through so much of your life with a spirit guide right there with you and never know it. And sometimes, you discover there was one with you all along simply because you learn how to spot them.
One of my spirit guides was physically present in my life until just a few years ago when she left this earth and now, she's with me still, I just have to reach out to her in different ways. Her name is Angie Abromitis, but to her grandchildren she is known simply as Grandma.
In my life I have been lucky enough to know all four of my grandparents. Until I was nearly 10, I had my mom's parents and my dad's parents all alive and a major part of my life. For a time, I lived near my dad's parents and I spent a lot of time with them out of need and geography. My dad's father, Red, died when I was in the 3rd grade and we moved the following year to the same town where my mother's parents lived. It was in this town, in this new place where my mother's family took center stage and it was in this time period where my grandmother, Angie, became my champion and protector.
At Jack and Angie's house in Hackettstown, it was a whole different ball game. Sure, there was other family around but, when my brother and I were spending time at their house, we were the center of their world and the sole focus of my grandmother Angie's energy.
If you had to have a champion for the awkward and insecure years of your life, there was no better candidate than Grandma Angie. Man, Grandma knew what was up. When we lived for years without TV, my grandmother would hear our sob stories about missing The Smurfs on Saturday mornings and worse yet, our beloved Pee Wee's Playhouse. "They're cruel!" she would exclaim as she ushered us into the living room and sat us down in front of a TV that not only had cable, but "Home Box." "Let's find you a show."
At home, my mom gave us snacks of sugar free candy from the health food store and 100% fruit ice pops. At Grandma's my brother and I each got our own bag of Orville Redenbocker's Flavored Microwave Popcorn. My flavor choice was always Sour Cream and Onion and my brother's was Caramel Corn. To wash down our freshly popped family sized bowls of popcorn, we were given ice cold cans of Coke Classic or ShopRite Brand Orange and Grape sodas. And, if we had to spend the night, we always got Dilly Bars from Dairy Queen, to boot.
Food wasn't the only way Grandma made me feel loved. Grandma was there to save me when my own parents wouldn't or couldn't. Once, when I thought aloud about joining the swim team and my parents dropped me off at a practice ten minutes later, my grandmother answered the payphone call to come get me. Upon my very first dive in the pool to warm up, I was seemingly attacked by a much larger, much stronger swimmer. Apparently when you dive in the pool to warm up you're supposed to start immediately swimming so that the swimmers standing in line behind you can follow suit. The swimmer behind me landed on top of me, sent me underwater, and tossed me around with her kicking thighs of steel.
I was a chronic quitter in a family of super-joiners. My brother, who signed up for everything and became an expert at it all, would only quit momentarily and that was only if a ref was making bad calls. But for me? I had a legendary track record of quitting everything.
Even still, when I stood at the payphone at the town pool dripping wet and feeling the burn of water in my nose, it was no surprise that my parents decided to make me go through the entire practice instead of coming to get me immediately.
"Pleeeeaaaasssseeee come get me!"
Who turns down a collect call from their kids when they're begging to be picked up? Parents of quitters, that's who. Who accepts a collect call from a barely intelligible caller named, "mrsa, Grandma PLEASE!"?
Damn straight, you know who.
"Will you accept the call?" Grandma sure will.
Grandma walked down her street and up the steps that led through her neighborhood and to the town pool promptly upon hanging up the phone. In her knee length skirt with her short sleeved blouse tucked in, she marched through the entrance, gave me a big hug, and said, "let's go" loud enough for the coaches to hear. And with her trademark squint-stare and condemning tone, she let them know that they had wronged me. Back to Grandma's I went. "Your parents are cruel." Hell yes they are, Grandma.
Grandma never asked me to go again nor did she ever bring it up. She gave me more than just the contraband that my parents had forbidden in our world. She gave me a safe harbor. She loved me no matter what, was there no matter what, and she said "I love you," no matter what. And she was beautiful and sharp witted and so much fun to talk with.
When Grandma learned that she had cancer, the bad kind, she didn't fight it. She just gave into the idea that her time was coming to an end and let the last weeks of her life move by with a quiet grace about her. She stopped doing the cooking but we all still congregated at her house to eat at her table with her. She stopped being able to leave the house and we all came and sat in her living room around her. And she stopped being able to really see but we all came to be in her presence to let her know we were all still there and that she was so very loved.
Grandma embraced the imminence of death so much that she welcomed the visit from my 5 children for the sole purpose of kissing her goodbye. My young kids each sat around her like normal, though they were aware that this wasn't a normal visit. And then she said goodbye to them and they to her. "Goodbye Gigi, we love you!" They all yelled that together as we left in a rather festive tone because it was too hard for me to leave on a serious or somber note.
One of the privileges of my life, besides being rescued from the clutches of the town swim team, was to be with Grandma during her last two days alive and to sleep on the couch next to her hospital bed the last night of her life.
When I walked into the house and up to my grandmother's bed for that last weekend of her life, having heard that she stopped speaking anymore, I grew terribly sad for this end. I leaned over and kissed my grandmother on her forehead and said loud enough for her to hopefully hear somewhere in her failing body, "I love you, Grandma."
Without moving, without showing a sign of being conscious in her body, she responded.
"I love you, too, Marisa."
And that was it. She never spoke again and she died about 40 hours later.
I think a spirit guide is more than just a benevolent being that yanks us back onto the sidewalk when we're about to get run down by a speeding car. I think they are more than just beings that exist on a plane that we can't see until we die and get to meet officially. I think a spirit guide is someone who sees your true nature at birth and sticks around you long enough to make sure you never forget how loved you are, how special you are, and how much you deserve to have candy and soda once in a while.
In my studio, when I do a healing session on someone, I reach out to my spirit guides. When I stand over someone's body on my massage table and I pray to be a channel for messages meant to heal, I ask my guides to come and be with me. I ask them to protect me, to aid me, and to help me.
And, as in life, Grandma always answers the call.
