101 Uses of a Dead Person

Thursday June 6, 2013

Time for some truth...I think sometimes we abuse the ability of others to read and the cooperation of spook in our lives. Is my boyfriend really a bastard? Will I win the lotto? What is my partner thinking about my new hair do? I am as guilty as everyone else out there of doing this. But today I had yet another peek into the usefulness of spook when they aren't being asked for trite and meaningless (in the context of this story) information that we should be working out for ourselves or asking a live person the question at least.  

Enter Esther, a young woman who had a very troubled life. She came through via a reading for a lady who is doing the family tree thing. True to particularly the early Victorian era, records can be sketchy and even a little creative especially if there is the slightest whiff of scandal! One swipe of the pen and that little indiscretion is covered up or gone entirely! Esther came through and sat on a box in my room crying so we went through her story; some bits her living relative and the sitter for the reading filled in, some Esther offered and were validated and some we can only hope my connection was strong and true and the information is correct. 

I want to tell her story in the very short version so she knows she has a relative these days who cares and there are at least two people who understand. Esther was to be married to a man 30 years older than her, only he was unable to wait until she was 18 years old and in her own words, "availed himself of a 13 year old child, something which in your time would see him receive a worse sentence than that which I received for stealing. She was married to this 'gentleman' within weeks of her 18th birthday. Yes she still refers to him as that despite the fact he wasn't. By the time she was 19 years old she had lost two pregnancies and run away from her husband the intention being that she find some way of making enough money to leave. I assume by leave she meant the country in which she was born, being England. Esther got caught stealing in concert with a young male friend who was also 19 years old. Unfortunately Esther was caught with the goods and in the usual way she ended up coming to Australia. Esther had rather a lot of partners and rather a lot of children by these partners. At least one of her marriage certificates was fake and two of her children died in childbirth (both girls). Her last partner in life in her words "owned her." Which I take to mean she worked and he took the money. I am not going to degrade her by spelling it out. from humble beginnings a Jewish father and a non Jewish mother, her Father tried to arrange it so she would marry into a better life, into money. He accidentally married her into misery.

Why am I telling this tiny part of her story? Well firstly because I think it is important we start thinking more about the way we use spirit but we can talk about that more later.  Secondly Esther did what she had to do to survive in the day.  At the end of her life she "wished she had been loved" (quote).  I just want her to know her struggles weren't in vain...and she was, she is. I truly enjoyed using part of what I do to highlight Esthers life and put a few more pieces in the family jigsaw.