Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 1, 7/8 by Estelle Roberts

Life was desperately hard during these years, full of worry, work and discomfort. But, looking back, I am convinced that it was all part of the pattern of things to come – indispensable training for the work I was to do. If you have not suffered, how can you understand the suffering of others? Without sympathy for those in distress, how can you help to alleviate burdens?

At the time, of course, no such thoughts entered my head; I was much too busy coping with more immediate problems. Nor indeed did I understand the significance of the presence of the spirit people who continued, as ever, to share my everyday life. They were as much a part of my environment as were the ordinary people in the street; the world would have been a strange and empty place if they had suddenly ceased to be there.

The months passed. My husband became progressively weaker, until the day I returned home at lunch-time to find two of the children standing at his bedside. He was obviously very ill, much worse than when I had left him that morning. With an overwhelming sense of shock I knew that he was dying. Quickly I sent the children to a neighbour,

who I knew would look after them. Then I sat alone in the room with him and held his hand. He was only spasmodically conscious and did not know what he was saying for much of the time. But every now and then he would have lucid moments, in one of which he said to me: “You will be alright, darling. God will take care of you.”

I stayed with him until far into the night. He died while looking at me. At the moment of his passing I heard strange, terrifying noises coming from the kitchen. It was as though someone was rending linen and, every now and then, cracking a whip. It was an eerie, uncanny experience which, coming at that particular time, was unnerving. For some moments I sat unable to move; then the sounds ceased.