Kathy Collins- The Mystic Chaplain

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Throughout my own life and fitness journey, I have had the privilege of meeting incredible people who've shared valuable insights on mindset, health, fitness, and spiritual growth. The profound impact of this knowledge on my own life has inspired me to share it with all of you. I'm Erica Sweeney, host and founder of My Fit Tribe Podcast. Join me as we explore inspiring conversations with experts, thought leaders, and everyday heroes who offer their stories and practical tips to help you on your own journey. From nutrition and fitness to mental well-being and personal or spiritual growth, our mission is to empower you to take charge of your health and live your best life. We are more than just a podcast, we are community. Through coaching, a wealth of shared knowledge, and a strong support network, we are here to guide and encourage you every step of the way. Come be a part of our tribe. We also share the deeply personal story of how our paths crossed and talk about the comforting, often magical signs we receive from loved ones who have passed on. My heart is full of gratitude for Kathy and the bond we share. If you are grieving the loss of someone you love, this episode offers hope, connection, and a gentle reminder that love never truly leaves us. With me for this episode is my friend Kathy Collins. Kathy's journey to becoming a hospital chaplain was shaped by her diverse life experiences. From navigating the corporate world and volunteering as a hospice caregiver to overcoming her own battle with cancer, each chapter of her life equipped her with the strength and insight needed for her profound spiritual transformation. She is the author of Mystic Chaplain, a book I hold very dear to my heart. Hi, Kathy. Thank you for joining me. Hi, glad to be here, Erica. If I could put into words how important this episode is to me, as I have goosebumps already, uh, I wish I could come up with them, but I still thank you. And we'll get into why I thank Kathy so much. But she's a very special part of not only my life, but my spiritual journey. So it is an honor for me to have her with me today. Thank you. So let's just start with August of 1994. Who was Kathy way back at the beginning of your book?

SPEAKER_04 2:36

Um, I wasn't supposed to be at that business event I was filling in. And um it was uh it was held at uh Mitchell Field in Milwaukee. And it was a hot day, and everybody got uh raffle tickets when they came in. And I've always been one to watch numbers all my life on license plates. I add them up, just never knowing what it really meant until later in life. But this day when I got my my ticket, our table had eight people sitting at it. And when they started giving prizes away, everyone at our table had won something except two, myself and another lady that was at the table. And I commented to her they the next prize was going to be the big one for the evening. It was a trip to England for two, all expenses paid, flight and hotel. And I thought, well, I've never won anything in my life. I took to her and I said, Well, if the luck continues at our table, you're gonna win this prize. Well, when they started reading off the numbers, all of my numbers, two together, like eight and one, or five and four, they all added up to nine. And I had four nines, and four times nine is thirty-six. And if you take three plus six, that's nine as well. It's part of numerology. I never knew that I was doing numerology until later. But nines are very significant uh in the numerology. It means you're finishing up in this in the earth world and you're moving into your spiritual world. Again, I didn't know that at the time, but of course, when they called off the numbers, I looked at my numbers, I saw them, but I couldn't speak because I had won. And my vocal cords didn't work. I was just frozen, and I remember the woman next to me leaning over and she said, I don't have the tickets numbers. Do you have them? And I didn't even look at her. I was still looking at my ticket, and she looked at it when they were reading them for the second time, and she poked me in my arm and said, You won't and it was just that's where the journey began. The trip off to England, but prior to going, I discovered uh that I had a indented breast nipple, very slight one day. And um I kind of ignored it, getting ready for work. I was in a hurry. And then about a month later, just before the trip was supposed to take for England, I saw it again. Only this time it was a crater, and I knew I was in trouble. But I wasn't going to let this trip get by me because I was taking my mother and we had a wonderful time. And when we returned, the day I returned, I had to we returned on a Sunday and I had to go back to work on Monday. So I told my mother Monday morning what was going on, and she was just speechless. Couldn't believe we had such a good time on this trip, why I didn't tell her. I really wanted some good memories. Because I thought if it's going to be bad news, I'm going for it. We're going to make it worthwhile. And then I went in to the um doctor that afternoon. She got me, I had my mother call and ask the doctor about getting an appointment for sometime in the week. And I had gotten to work at eight o'clock, and I was in the doctor's office at two o'clock in the afternoon.

SPEAKER_03 6:09

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_04 6:10

And from that point on, it was a whirlwind for me because I had had a uh breast mammogram three months before my trip, and everything was fine. And I started to doubt that somebody goof up on the reading of the mammogram. Wouldn't be the first time something like that happened. And I truly was starting to get very angry inside. And I insisted when they took the the mammogram again that I wanted to see both of those results of it. And they sent it up to my uh doctor's office, and I went up there and she confirmed it. And there was nothing on that first one at all.

unknown 6:51

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 6:51

But the second one that they took that day was lit up like the star of Bethlehem. It was so bright. Um, and I didn't have a choice like some women did at that time. They were just really starting doing lumpectomies, and I thought maybe I'd be lucky. But I wasn't, I had to have a full mastectomy. Now keep in mind at this point in my life, we'll share some personal thing here. I couldn't fill a bra if I tried. Only when I was pregnant with my son that I fill a bra, and as soon as I gave birth, it disappeared. And they were insistent about seeing a um surgeon about having reconstruction done. And I thought, why bother? Nobody's ever known if I was wearing a bra or not. And it didn't bother me. Only when my sister would tease me. Most sisters. Um, but other than that, uh, that's when the journey began. And for me, it turned out that in my all my life, I've never been able to take medications well. I can't take a cold tablet without passing out for 24 hours. So I could never take anything when I was working. I'd lose a job if I fell asleep on my desk. So with the type of cancer I had, it was very fast growing. And they ended up giving me three different types of chemo for my treatment. And they said by the third session, every two weeks, you would get this. Didn't have to worry about losing my hair until the third session. Well, 48 hours after the first session, I lost every hair on my body, and I ended up in the emergency room. And here's where life gets interesting. Coming into the emergency room, I met a very young doctor who was on duty, and he really knew what I was dealing with was beyond his repertoire, and he asked if he could get some doctors from the clinic that was attached to the emergency room that I was in. And I said, fine, they set me up in another room waiting for them. Three doctors came in. And this young man went on being the emergency room doctor, meeting people coming in. He no longer was working with me. And while the three doctors were working on me, they couldn't find a vein to get a needle into me in my arms. And I remember hearing one of them call out to the other, can't find anything. Then they said, look at her legs. And at that moment, my body shifted to be in two places at one time. I was in two worlds. And while I was in those two worlds, this young emergency room doctor came by the door and looked in and we made eye contact. And he left. And a little while later he came by again, and this time he came into the room, and he only came up to me and talked to me as if we were in our own world, no one else around. And he asked if there was anything he could do for me, and I told him my head was cold because I didn't have a hair on it. And he brought over one of these gooseneck lamps and put it over my head so I could feel the warmth, and he left the room. And that's the last I saw him that day. Now, after these three doctors finished on me, they sent me to a hospital downtown in Milwaukee. And during that time, I thought, I never got that emergency room doctor's name. I should have been thinking the three that saved me were the ones that I needed to have, but there was something special about this one young man that we connected somehow, and I never forgot him, and I never forget a face. I'm terrible with names, always words all my life, but I never forget a face. So in this next six months, I'm bedridden, and I talk a lot about him to my mother. I ended up having to move back home because I couldn't take care of myself, couldn't work anymore. And during that time, I would talk about him, how I wished I could have thanked him for what he did. That lamp over my head to me was greater than the three doctors saving my life. Now that sounds really strange, but it was so powerful to me. Six months later, after everything I go through, many more trips to the ER, but never saw him. On the last day that I got my okay, everything was fine, I took a welcome basket to the clinic for the nurses. And when I was there, their head nurse gave me a hug and she whispered in my ear, would I be willing to talk to someone that just came in with the same kind of fast-growing cancer that I had? She was in her 30s and she said she's frightened to death. And I said I would. And when I went into that room, that's the first time I felt other people's thoughts. Never had that before. I sat down next to her and was listening to her talk, and people were sitting in a in a row along the wall. And while she's talking to me, I could see someone on the other side of her kind of lean forward. I didn't make eye contact, but I could perfectly could see it. And it happened a couple of times. And then the last time it happened, I looked up and I saw this young man. And I said to him, I know you. He said, Yes. I was the doctor in the emergency room when you first came in. This is my wife. I get chills just telling me.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Every time I read it or hear it, I get chills.

SPEAKER_04 12:40

Yeah. Um and that's when I realized how connected we all are, not just us as human beings in the world, but everything. We're all vibrations, our trees, our every blade of grass and a rock.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

There's a line that you say in your book, which I I highlighted a couple years ago, but I'm gonna read it for everybody. Um, when you tell that story of being in the hospital with that doctor, you say, I thought about him and talked about him often. It was as if both of our souls were connected by an invisible thread. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 13:18

And that thread goes through our hearts. That's how I see it. We're all connected. And that vibrational heart, that's where the memories are. And I don't know if people realize it, the heart has more neurons than your brain. I did not know that.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

It's amazing. So after you go through this experience, some people could talk that up to a coincidence. How did that open up your world to what comes next?

SPEAKER_04 13:45

Well, for me, uh, as I shared when I was in that emergency room, I I shifted, my body shifted. I didn't go up to a ceiling like a lot of people talk about. I went sideways. Like I was over here and I was in a bubble, and I could hear a vibrational sound when I was in that feeling of a bubble. And it the sound reminded me of the wings of a hummingbird. And a hummingbird to me is very, very significant now in my life. But I could see everything, hear everything, but it didn't matter to me. It was like I was on another planet watching television.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Right.

SPEAKER_04 14:29

I had no concern for my life that I was gonna make it or not at that moment, which I should have. It was amazing, and and I've experienced that a number of times since where I can be in two worlds at one time. And often I know as a uh hospital chaplain, when I talk to people that are losing their loved ones, I know when they're between the worlds.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Yes, you do. And we're gonna get into that story in a bit to uh to get the listeners familiar with it. But I want to hear also about um in chapter seven, you talk about hearts and butterflies and numbers, which is a super special chapter for me to. And you also talk about colors. So you want to touch on some of that a little bit. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 15:19

The for me, um a lot of the things I was showing, I was shown visions, I had specific dreams. And um, these are dreams that if you've had a dream at night, and by the time you've taken your morning shower, you can't remember what you've had. These dreams are never erased from my memory. The details and the colors are all very significant. And in the beginning, I started to see a very bright uh purple, and I also saw uh a very bright emerald green. And on one of my events, I went to have a hot stone massage in my book, which I wasn't expecting to have. And during that time I found out that the woman that was going to do the massage was an energy worker. Well, I'd never heard of any of this thing before. But she told me that day I came to see her for a reason. And I thought I was supposed to be on the golf course that day. Anyway, uh, and then she said, by the time you leave here, you'll know what it is. I gotta tell you, I was speechless.

unknown 16:24

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_04 16:25

I asked a couple questions during that time, but just basic because I I didn't know what was happening to me, or truly didn't, on this virtual journey. But anyway, when she was working on me, I started to see this emerald green circle come. And then around that was the bright purple circle, and they were pulsing like a heartbeat. And my eyes were closed, but the colors were so vivid. It's almost like if you close your eyes in a bright room and the lights on, you can kind of know the lights on. And if you put your hand in front of your face, even though your eyes are closed, you can see a shadow. Well, I did that, but there wasn't that shadow. I I was seeing these colored circles and hearing this pulse beat. And they started getting bigger and bigger, and they went out beyond my peripheral. And then I became just a little frightened, not knowing what was happening. And I stayed with it, and then it just took me out. I was in the cosmos, I was in the universe, I got to see beyond what we see, what our scientists see. Now, this was back in the early 2000s. They're now just talking about some of the things that they're sending up, and they know they're going beyond, and they're seeing the planets. I saw all of that. And I realized how insignificant we are in the size of our universe. We're nothing but that green of sand on the beach, our planet.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Right.

SPEAKER_04 17:56

And there are many more out there. Um, but those colors eventually in time would come to me in different ways. And the first time they came to me, other than their circles and blobs, uh, were hearts. And that's when I started working through the heart and whatever I do for somebody. They came to me. Just one came and then the next one came, and they're just floating in front of me, and I'm awake this time. This is not a a vision or you know, the of a dream. This is in my room. So it's amazing. But this is how I know there's more to life after because I've been in both worlds. And if I can go back a little bit on that first time in the ER when I had that experience, I did a lot of research on near-death experiences because of it. And I met all the requirements of what I felt and saw and experienced. I even reached out to Dr. Grayson at the University of Virginia at the time, who researches this. And I asked him, I said, I meet all the requirements, but I know I didn't die. And he said, There is something, there's many near-death types, and one of them is a near-death-like experience. And that's what I had. So I'm able to experience both sides.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

I'm a little speechless right now. So I'll just touch base. I'm gonna start a little bit about what happened with my dad, if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_04 19:29

That's fine. Yes, it's very special.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Um, so in 2023, my dad had COPD, um, had a couple tough couple years with COVID, couldn't see him very much. Um, but I would I would stop by his house once or twice a week. My dad and I were very close, we'd bring him food, and um, it was the end of April of 2023, and he wasn't feeling well, had got a bug, so I always tried to stay away because I didn't want to get him more sick, and he just was not feeling well. And he uh called me that Monday morning, said Erica, I hate to do this, but I need your help. I'm really not feeling well. So I went over there and stayed with him, you know, came and went and went between his house and work that day and um checking on him, and he just refused to go to the hospital because he's like, if I go there, I'm not gonna ever leave. And I so I respected of his wishes, and I said, Dad, um, I don't want something to happen to you. Like, I can't deal with that. He's like, I'm not trying to be a hero. I'll let you know if I get super sick. So I was there until pretty late that Monday night, and he was in and out, you know, sleeping really heavy. So I went home and I woke up really early the next morning and got to his house probably about 6.30 in the morning and the light was on and his nebulizer was running. And I went in his room and he was barely conscious. Um, I couldn't really, he could get a noise out of him, but no consciousness. And so I called the ambulance and they came and picked him up and they got him to the hospital and they were gonna intubate him. And I said, You need to wait a little bit because if you intubate him, I'm never gonna talk to him again. And a couple hours later, he started, you know, becoming a little bit more aware. And then he started flirting with the nurses. So I'm like, Dad's back, yay. And so we laugh. And I said, I said to him, I said, Dad, um, they told me when you were in the ambulance and when they left the house that you stopped breathing. So I want you to know I had to bring you to the hospital. And he said to me, he goes, sorry, folks, but when I died, I didn't see anything. There were no bright lights, no angels. Sorry, there's nothing. And I said, Well, Dad, clearly it's because it wasn't your time. You know, trying to make light, because he was very scared, you know, obviously, as anyone would be. And I said, when it's your time, you can send me a sign. I said, I don't know what it is yet. Let me think about it. I'll let you know. So next day, I go to the hospital. I'm like, Dad, I got it. It's a hummingbird. You've got to send me hummingbird. And he just rolls his eyes at me, like, oh, another one of Erica's silly thoughts. You know, if you knew my dad, oh, I can just relive. This whole experience. But that his final journey is a spiritual journey for me because what happened in those next 10 days, um, he was able to, you know, say his I love you's and say his goodbyes. And he said he was gonna go on Friday. We're trying to get him into hospice. Like, I'm gonna go on Friday, and so we're trying to get him in hospice. And he would have his egg salad sandwiches every day for every meal. If it's not broken, don't fix it, as my dad would say. And we get to that final Thursday, and we had had a chaplain from the hospital that had come in and spent some time with us. And that Thursday, he was very talkative, and then, you know, the morning he'd talk a lot, and then in the afternoon, uh, he would they would drug him to help him calm him down. He would sleep, he'd just be out. So I was there with him, and then I went back in the evening and he was sleeping. I made sure he ate his egg salad sandwich. And then I went home because I was so exhausted. I'm like, I just need to get some rest. So I went home, it was like 8:30. And one of the things, back up a little bit, one of the things that he had said when the palliative team came in is that he didn't want to die alone. Like that was his biggest fear. So I'm at home and I get a phone call from the hospital, and they say, Your dad woke up and he wants you to come to the hospital. And I went, Okay, I know what that means. So I went to the hospital and I walked, and I remember I walk in and here's Chaplain Kathy coming in almost like at the same time. I'm like, what are you doing here? I'm not ready for you. I don't know what you're doing here, but you got the wrong room. But I had not seen you before. And you weren't supposed to work that day.

unknown 23:38

No.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

And I asked, you had said Psalm 23 for me. That was a request that I had for my dad. And I told you that he had stopped, that he thought there was nothing when there was ambulance. And you said to me, You said, Erica, I've seen the other side, and it has the most beautiful colors.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

And I can promise you it's very beautiful. And I know that my dad could hear that at that moment when he was so afraid. And that was the most biggest gift I could have at that moment. Because we're both afraid of what's not or what is, despite your faith. So sorry, everybody. So don't apologize. So then fast forward, Kathy leaves. I'm sitting on the couch and watching my Netflix, and um, all of a sudden I fear footsteps and I feel like this presence. And I'm looking around, I'm like, well, nobody's here. Like, that's weird.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Just kind of had my thoughts about it and dismissed it. And shortly thereafter, a nurse comes in and goes, Eric, I need to tell you that your dad has declined and we don't think he's gonna make it through the night. So it was a you know, buckle up buttercup. You gotta be strong enough for this. So we move forward and as the night progresses, then Kathy's able to come with me. And as we're, you know, saying goodbye to him and giving him comfort, I say to him, I said, Dad, you can't forget the hummingbird.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

And Kathy looks at me and she goes, What did you say? I just turned over your face. Like, what? And you got it, you and you said a prayer and you came back and you looked at me and you show me your necklace. And she has this beautiful she's wearing today. We'll get a picture of it. Beautiful, large hummingbird necklace on. And we all went, What?

SPEAKER_01 25:29

And I again I know that my dad sent it or could hear it, or could I know that it had to give him comfort in those last moments. And he fought and went until the reason he said he was gonna go on Friday, it wasn't talking about hospice, he was talking about going. And my nephew's he was that day was between my nephew's birthday and my niece's birthday. And I know he didn't want to go on either of those days. So that Friday was very important for him. And he waited until after midnight to take his last breath. And we were all there watching, and before he passed away, he got the most beautiful smile on his face. And, you know, after he passed away, then um I remember the nurse was like, Well, you can stay as long as you want. And I looked at him and I was like, he's it doesn't even recognize him. Like it just was so apparent that we aren't just our bodies, like it wasn't him anymore. And I was able to leave that three o'clock in the morning, and I had so much comfort and so much peace. And I it was just like I felt like I was being held in the light. And I'm just eternally grateful that God put you there next to me at such a difficult time.

SPEAKER_04 26:50

So it was my pleasure to be with you and your father. Oh give peace to both.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

It w again, it was just it was amazing. And the hummingbird story will go on, we'll get more into that. But how how did you go from going through your cancer journey to realizing that you needed to be at that bedside to be a hospital chaplain?

SPEAKER_04 27:12

When I uh was bedridden, it was uh with my cancer, it was six months. And I really was very grateful that my parents took me in for that time because they were in their 70s at that time, and it was just something they didn't need to be dealing with. And uh after I was okay and went back to work, there's a journey in here where I ended up, we left our hometown and came up to the Sun Prairie area, and my mother wasn't gonna come if I didn't come, and I wasn't expecting that. But then I ended up taking care of my parents for 14 years. They both lived to 94 years old. Oh wow. And my dad went into the um nursing home at 91, and my mom went in at 92.

unknown 28:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 28:03

And then in those years, I went back and forth uh from where they were to in Sun Prairie every weekend because I was still working. But I did what I did those 14 years, a lot of people would ask me at work too I don't know how you do this, you know. And I thought it wasn't a problem for me. I was so grateful to have those 14 years and they took care of me for six months. I thought that was an equal exchange. I truly, and to this day I still feel that way. Um but while I was taking dad passed first, and that was a very special event. My dad would not let me talk to him about the spiritual adventures I was having, but my mother was very open to it when I finally told her five years after I didn't tell anyone because how do you tell somebody this? And what's in the book is just a smathering of what happened to me. Um, but anyway, when when the day before my father passed, I was with him. He was going to have a minor thing taken care of. It was not life-threatening at all. But when I got to the emergency room to be with him, he let me know that at that moment, that it'll soon all be over and I will be alone. And I thought, nah dad, not today. I said, when the time comes, I'll be with you. And he just grinned at me. My dad's Irish. And I knew then that he knew something that I didn't know, but I I understood it. And then uh later, they couldn't help him at the hospital he was at because they didn't have anything, anyone in that department on duty. So I had to have him uh ambulance down to Madison. And before I could even park my car and get in, they already had him taken care of, ready to go back. But while I was with him, I was at the base of his bed, and he called past me in a loud, loud voice that even the um EMT guys jumped. He called, Ma. I knew he saw his mother. And they always say, someone from your soul family comes before you leave to help you on that journey. So I knew she was there. To me, that was the greatest gift he could have given me, those two things, to tell me he knew he was leaving and that I would understand it, and then to be there when he acknowledged his mother was in that room who had passed away decades ago. So that was beautiful. Now I've got mom to deal with in the nursing home. And on Saturdays I would go up, we'd have cookies, and we'd sit in the sunshine in a special little corner in a room, great room that they had. And there's this voice that happened behind me. And with everything that had been happening to me, I thought, where's that voice coming from? And it said to me, Hi, I'm Chaplain Monica. Mind if I join you? And I'm going, whoa. I could see my mother get excited. My mother lost her ability to speak. She was able to understand everything that was going on around her. She could relate to you in other ways, but she lost her total speech. But she lit up like a Christmas tree when she saw Monica. And I had never met her in the time that mom was up there. She sat with us for about an hour and we shared stories. And she shared how she left nursing career to become a chaplain. At that moment, when she said those words, I had the rolling chills go through me, which is part of how messaging comes to me. And I thought, well, it's impossible. I don't have a divinity degree, you know, and I'm struggling with my faith at that time. But she told me who to contact if I was interested. And when I got that message, as it'll be in the book, it talks about how I can touch books and I know which ones I have to read and not read or to get, and it'll let me know when it's time. So I did reach out and I applied. And two days before I retired, I got a phone call wanting the uh supervisors for the program to interview me. And I had to write my life's part of my life's story and some of the things I shared with them spiritually that were happening to me, but not everything. I thought I didn't want to scare them. So anyway, I turned that in. And when I went in, if I back up a little bit, I had one of my visions during this time before this all happened, and I never understood it, but I recorded, not recorded, but writ wrote down all my events. And one of them was I was on the other side, I was in a classroom, and there was a bright white stone table tall, and a man standing behind it, black pants, white shirt with a Nero collar. And I didn't understand this Nero collar. And he had beautiful gray hair, tall, and all the others in the classroom, you know, colors were there of their clothing, but and I was the last one in the first row. And he came out from behind that stone table, came down the row, and embraced me, and that was the end of the vision. Now, go um 10 years ahead, I am coming for this interview, and this man gets off the elevator while I'm sitting in the waiting room, and he looked down at me and he waved like he knew me. And I thought, who's that? Well, when the the office girl came to get me to take me into the room there, he's sitting along with the other head supervisor, and we're going through the interview, and like I said, I don't forget faces. I thought, I know this man. He was the man in the vision, and he became my supervisor when they brought me into this program. And on that same day, the other supervisor, the head supervisor, he read my dissertation that I turned in, and he told me that day, he said, I can't classify you with any particular religion. He said, I have to call you a mystic. I had never thought of myself as that, but that's really how the title of the book came. The mystic chaplain. Uh, it's not the title I wanted. I wanted the soul as a living star. But those words had to be in the book and they are. But that's how that all came about. And then some when I got into the program, every two weeks you got to meet with your supervisor. And as he would say it, you could drive the bus, you could talk about anything, what's going on in the hospital, what's going on in your life, what's going on in the classroom that we're in, or the studies. And I happened to take my journal in one day. I told him, I said, I've met you before. And he looked at me so surprised. He said, Well, where did we ever meet? I gave him the date, and he had this look on his face. He said, Well, I wasn't even living here at that time. I was in St. Louis. And I let him read it. And I describe him to a T. Oh, wow. And he's my teacher. He was the best teacher I ever could have had. Oh my gosh. And they I felt they took a chance on me. I thought, who's gonna who's gonna take me? I was happy that they even just considered me for what I had sent in. But they they hired me. My at the end of the six months that night, I had a job. There was one opening and they were interviewing, and I interviewed and I got it. You're exactly where you're supposed to be. Right. And the other thing I felt as time went on when COVID hit, we had about 30 night chaplains, enough to do one night a week for where our shifts in the beginning were 24 hours, then they went down to 15, and now they're at 12-hour shifts. But anyway, um when COVID hit, out of all of the chaplains, they were ministers, they had their degrees. I'm the one they asked to come full-time and work every day during COVID. I felt that was my gift.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

You have lots of gifts. How hard uh is it to be with the family when they're losing?

SPEAKER_04 36:29

I I'll tell you that uh in the beginning, uh, I had a very bad experience with death at the age of three. Lost my brother Michael, who was nine months old. And the last morning with him, I was able to stand by the bassinet and protect him, and I would reach up and always touch his arm, soft, warm arm, and tickle him until he laughed. And then that morning, mom was gave him his bath and they got dressed, and mom and dad left with Michael. And being three years old, you didn't have any other information. You just knew that you had to wait till they came back. So my older brother and I and the babysitter, our day went on. Well, when mom and dad came back, Michael wasn't with them. And it's what I call in the book the first experience as a child, the secret silence that you feel. You know something's wrong, you don't know what it is, but as a child, you sense it anyway. And then you try to become invisible that you're just there, you just know. And it didn't seem Michael until a couple days later, and then I thought, boy, he got a new bed. He's in a beautiful white bed. There's lots of flowers around him, and there's even a step stool for me in front of his bed, and there's lots of people. And I got up on that riser, which is what it really was, and I reached up and again wanted to touch his arm, the routine that we had. Only this time it was hard and cold, and he didn't giggle when I tried to tickle him. And then I got my hand slapped by a relative and I was lifted up, lifted up very quickly and away from the his bed, which was his casket. And I never understood as time went on for decades, until I was in my 50s, that whenever I went to a funeral, the minute I walked through the door of a funeral parlor, I broke out in cold sweat. And getting up close to the casket, um, if it was closed, I'd get some relief. If it was open, I couldn't look at it. But after these things started happening to me, in my first experience of the near-death like experience, I had no fear of death at all. It was taken away. And that's where I'm at my happiest when I'm working, when I'm in the ICU, where we have some really hard things to deal with, with patients and with families dealing with that. It's my calling. And and when that time I went out into the cosmos again in that event, I was held by something in that bubble again, and I heard the heartbeat, and it wasn't mine. But there was something that a peace that came over me, and I know that there's more. Death is not an end, it's a transition.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

I think it's so important. People have different religions and beliefs that give them comfort and give them their faith. But I I think a lot of people, especially when confronted with it, there's that little bit of doubt for some who may not have a very strong faith. And that's the hardest part when you lose someone that you love, because you don't know for sure when you're going to be reacquainted. And when you have an experience where you have those signs that are undeniably real, how reassuring and comforting it is to know that this is just one chapter, you know, one story that we're living, and there we go where we belong. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 40:06

To me, it's it's a beautiful time. It's so sacred, so absolutely sacred. I don't make light of it at all. But I am always happy to be there as I was with you that night. I'm so grateful to reassure you and your dad. Somebody else has experienced something. You know, to give them that peace before they leave us. And I as I said to you that night, keep touching him, keep telling him you love him. When families do that with their loved one, the transition is so much easier for the patient, I find. There's no struggle, they're at peace. And they need to hear those words. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Just taking me back. Oh my goodness. It's just one of the, you know, and the thing too, after my dad passed away, for probably four or five months, I would have the recurring visions of his last of him trying to breathe. And that was very hard for me. It was not how I wanted to remember my dad. And I remember you saying to me that night at the hospital, you're like, you're gonna have a dream with your dad. And so about four or five months after he had passed away, I finally I had a dream, and it was him, you know, when I remember him as a kid. So it wasn't, he was probably in his 40s, whatever, but he was breathing well, he was walking around, he was strutting his stuff, he was he was my dad, my favorite version of probably his favorite version of himself. And after that night, those images of him struggling at the end were gone. It was like it just flipped a switch, and it was like would you say he might have been around in his 30s?

SPEAKER_04 41:43

30s or 40s, yeah. Yep. I don't know if you're uh remember in the book, I met my brother, Michael, on the other side. Yeah, talk about that. Uh in this uh event, I was sitting again on a white stone bench on a top of a hillside overlooking valleys of flowers, all different kinds of colors, colors we know, and colors that are not of this earth. And all of the flowers were vibrating. And I had this presence sitting next to me. And I thought, too, in his 30s, handsome, and he communicated with me, not the way you and I are talking right now, but telepathically. And he let me know that he was my brother Michael. And at that moment, I felt, and I I can't even describe it enough or well enough, but I said it's like a thousand of our sons in our universe exploding and going through my heart, and I didn't want it to stop. That's what that connection was.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

How warming. We'd we've talked over the last couple of years about grief and about um how to help people. Do you have any for me, hearing stories like this and being able to talk about your loved ones is my number one advice for people when it comes to grief. But um, what are some things that you've learned that you want to share with people who might have recently lost a loved one? Okay.

SPEAKER_04 43:11

With grief. Um First of all, I want to tell you, you we're all aware we all have our own fingerprints. No one has the same one in the world. Amazing, isn't it? Do you know that not one person grieves the same? That is uh something that one has to keep in mind when you're dealing with people that have lost a loved one. Some will think, well, well, she doesn't shed any tears, or he doesn't shed any tears. What's wrong with them? Well, sometimes they've already let them go before they died because they were suffering for a long time. And they let that go. Each person approaches it differently. And grief never goes away, it just morphs into something more beautiful in time if we let it. Take the good memories and the thoughts and the conversations with other people that they have stories about them to cherish them. That that's the thing that people have to get past. Um a lot of people are lonely. Uh they go within themselves, they can't make it. Or they feel this is this is the finalness. When I say watch for them in your dreams. And when you get that, there's no describing how you feel. Right. It is a lift that takes you to the the outside the universe. It does. And it stays with you, and you hold on to that. I've had people tell me, you know, that uh they've seen their husband in their kitchen turn around and see them standing there. Or that they're cuddled with them in bed at night, they can feel them against them. Those are special moments, those are gifts. So those are the things to, or the messages that come while they're grieving. It could be the cardinal outside your window singing to you, could be the butterfly that lands on your hand and stays longer than it normally should. Or the hummingbird that comes nearby. There are many things. If you're open to seeing it, they're beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

They are so beautiful. And when you're open to it, all of a sudden you see them everywhere, which is even more beautiful. So for our listeners, uh, fast forward after my dad passed away, I had it was a day I had to pick up his ashes. So I stopped and I grabbed a um hummingbird wind time to drop off at the hospital for you. And I dropped it off, and I went to go meet my husband and my daughter for lunch at one of the restaurants we go to, and I walk in the door. And what is the special of the day? But an egg salad sandwich. So if you remember correctly, that's what my dad ate for every meal in the hospital. And I was like, well, I'll be darned, I know what I'm having. So I go sit down, and the waitress comes over and I go to order it and I look, and she has a giant hummingbird tattoo on her leg. And you can't make this stuff up. Nope. And then fast forward to last February, we were buying our home in Mexico, and I had envisioned a beautiful sunset off the horizon that first day, and we get there and it's cloudy. And I'm like, well, I guess we're not having a beautiful sunset, which was fine. We're busy, whatever. And I go and I look up at just the right time, and the sunset is just starting to glow, and the sky turns this vibrant shade of pinkish-orange that I've never seen before. And I'm yelling for my husband, and we're standing in this place, this dream place that we couldn't have never imagined being at at this moment with the sky, and we're crying and grateful and loved. And what happens? But a hummingbird comes up and swirls around us and hits my husband in the head. And I'm not kidding. And I just was like, that couldn't have happened. Again, I denied it. I'm like, maybe it was a some cicada. I didn't know what was. I didn't even know if Mexicanbirds were in Mexico. But I was just, I'm like, did that really happen? And I just, it's been so many like in your face, obvious signs for me to go, okay, it's you can see those beautiful things and you don't have to deny them. Like love them, feel them, own them. Like, what a gift. Take the gift and enjoy it.

SPEAKER_04 47:20

Absolutely. And it's nice that you're open to understanding that. Uh many people are not. But when it happens, they're looking for more. Right. They want more. So awesome. I love it. That's beautiful. Oh my goodness. Well, he was definitely with you. Yes, he definitely was. And a lot of times I'll tell um families too, when they've lost their loved one, they really don't understand just how close they really are. They're with us at all all times. Talk to them.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

I love that.

SPEAKER_04 47:50

Share it with them. Share your thoughts, your concerns, your tears.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

Yeah. Tell them when you need them the most. Oh my goodness. And Kathy and I have some more exciting stuff coming up together in the future because the universe keeps pushing us together, which I love so much. Um, anything else you want to share about your book and your story before we wrap up today?

SPEAKER_04 48:13

Well, if anyone wants to read it, like I said, there's things in there that uh hopefully will help other people if they're experiencing things and don't know how to deal with it as far as being able to share it. I was one that was very open uh to friends that were close to me. And that's another thing. Once these things happen, other people gravitate to you or you to them if they're experiencing it. And I know there were some people around me for maybe three, four years before they even opened up that they had things happening because people are very cautious. Yeah. But I never was. I was even told to be quiet, and I said, I'm sorry, this is me. And if they don't like it, you know, can't accept it, I said then we need to move on.

SPEAKER_01 48:54

I love that. Because it is. You you know, you're afraid of judgment, or I don't know why.

SPEAKER_04 48:59

It's a beautiful gift, but yeah, that's very I want to share it and I want everyone to understand how connected we are through the heart and the giving through the heart to each other, especially in a world we're in right now. Yeah, we're so divided and so angry. We need to uh work on the compassion for everyone and our self-compassion for each other.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

One thing that you say in your book, when we realize the power within each and every one of us, our souls become living stars. You mentioned that one. And there's another quote too I want to read before we wrap up. That was the one I said I wanted the book to be. Yeah. I had highlighted that. Some this is a little bit longer, but I just want to read a clip of this. It says, All souls while on the earth need to experience growth expansion by learning new lessons and also by improving on the old lessons that still need fine-tuning. I was able to step outside of the box of conformity on the earth plane, and I listened to a heart's call to action from the spiritual plane to make it this all happen. All the events shared in this book are as real as the air I inhale today. It is my journey through this season of life to experience the negative and grow from it, which I think is so important because you have to learn from those difficult times, right? And it's those difficult times that make us what we are. Oh, absolutely. Call it wisdom learned through trial and error. I learned to turn the fear and pain around into love and forgiveness, which is also just you have to. Oh, it's just beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 50:19

I had a um a father that was kind of gruff, went through World War II, lost a lot of time of his life that he should have been not having to be dealing with war. Right. Um, but he also had an alcoholic father. And because of that, his anger and what he experienced as a child carried over into our family. Not not drinking. My father wasn't an alcoholic drinker and all, but his anger would surface. And we walked on eggs for a lot of this. Um, and I wished that he would have been able to forgive his father. And at one point in my life, towards before he passed, he wanted to know why he was still here, why God didn't let him go. And I said, because he's still asking you to do something.

SPEAKER_01 51:10

We have lots of things to accomplish. Yes. That's something that I've told myself at a very young age. I've knew that very early, that things that happen to me are for to learn because I'm gonna need to know something from that to get me through the next thing. I don't know how or why, but I remember from a very young age understanding that I was very blessed with that gift early.

SPEAKER_04 51:33

I took a um a year course with a psychologist. Matter of fact, she did the foreword on my book. Um and um it's called the Zero Agreement. And within there was 12 women that did this. And within that 12 months, each month somebody had to write their pain story. And I put it off to last. I was the 12th month, and I talked about the things I dealt with my father. And during that time, everyone would listen, but nobody could comment, no one could make any remarks. The only one who could speak would be the one that ran this uh zero agreement program if she wanted to. And when I got done with my story, she said to me, Kathy, in the beginning, I disliked your father so, but in the end you made me love him. So that's what it's all about.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

Yeah, it really is, right? I'm learning to breathe as I'm if you listen to other podcasts, it's breathe, breathe, breathe. I uh opened up my book, which I will put a link in the show notes for Kathy's book. I have sent it out to many people over the last two years because it is just so so close to me. But I have a card from chaplain Monica in my book, and I also have some other cards that I found from my dad's when I was going through his things that I keep here close to me. So um I'm gonna wrap up the podcast here by asking you the same question I ask all my guests. It's a two-part question. The first part is if you, Kathy, today, could have a conversation with Kathy of the past, maybe Kathy, who was sitting in that hospital room with cancer when you saw the doctor, what would you say to her?

SPEAKER_04 53:20

Thank you for listening and uh being aware of the nudges that were given to you and the research that you did to move forward.

SPEAKER_01 53:31

So now if you could talk to Kathy of the future, what would you ask her and what do you think she would say back to you? Thank you for sharing your knowledge with others. Yeah, you've got a lot to share yet, and I'm looking forward to it. Thank you for joining me today. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure. Thanks for listening to MyFit Tribe Podcast. Tune in weekly for our latest episode for more health and wellness insights and inspiration. For more information, visit myfitribe.org. Please note that the opinions and comments presented here are those of the guests and do not necessarily constitute medical advice or the opinions of MyFit Tribe. Copyright 2024, all rights reserved. This podcast is a production of MyFitTribe LLC. Don't forget to download, subscribe, and follow the MyFitTribe podcast so you don't miss an episode. Thank you for your support.