Thursday

The murder of a dear friend...

On 19th June 2006, my husband's and my business partner was going to bed in his London flat when he heard the sound of his 83-year-old upstairs neighbour falling over. He went upstairs to see if she was okay. She was not. A man who had helped her when she fell over in the street the week before had called round; she let him in and he attacked her.

Jon told the man to leave but the man then hit Barbara in the face again. Jon picked up the telephone and called the police.

The man then attacked him with a pair of scissors – and killed him.

How is this a prosperity story? In many ways. But sometimes it takes a gigantic leap of faith to see that. Catherine Ponder, the Unity minister and author, had a famous phrase ‘I can hardly wait to see the good that comes from this.’

Firstly, let me say that we are both grieving, along with Jon’s family (who live abroad) and that we miss him deeply.

Secondly, let’s look at this as a cautionary tale about the Law of Attraction. Jon was a lovely man; a man who always put other people before himself. He would help anyone at the drop of a hat – and he neglected his own prosperity in order to help others. He told the Universe time, and time again, that other people’s lives were more important than his.

He would never take care of himself and he undercharged for everything he did – despite my nagging! Consequently, he was heavily in debt, rarely got any projects finished and worked all hours of the day and night. He did all the accounts for the elderly people in his flats and he did their shopping for them too. The flats had problems with subsidence, burglaries and several of the people there were sick and needy.

Time and time again he said, ‘This place will be the death of me.’ Time and time again we, and other friends, asked him – begged him - to sell up and get out. There was nothing we could do; nothing we could say that would change him.

His flat and his computers were so filled with clutter that he could barely move; he was very overweight with thyroid and blood pressure problems and he told me the week before he died that he had a lump in his back. He also called in a financial expert to look through his finances and work out what he could possibly do. They both laughed when they said that Jon was worth a lot more dead than alive.

A few weeks before he died, Peter and I travelled down to London for the surprise 60th birthday party that some mutual friends put on for him and this big, generous, lovely man wept when he realised how much he was loved.

And so, he died, a hero, saving the life of a neighbour. His estate pays his debts; his son can now go and live abroad as he wanted to do but wouldn’t do because he didn’t want to leave his father even more alone; his oceans of equipment comes to us, to prosper us in expanding his business….and Jon is happy at last.

We know he’s happy because we can feel him around us – and so can many other people so it’s not just us fantasising - and because the cyclamen he bought for me when he came to stay at Christmas and which has sat neglected and dry in the laundry since February bloomed (in June!) with seventeen white flowers.

The man who killed him is in custody and going on trial for murder and attempted murder at the new Old Bailey. The police had suspected him of other crimes before but never managed to catch him; so he’s caught and that area is a little bit safer.

Jon believed in reincarnation and used to say that he had been a Viking warrior and also a crusader. He had killed many innocent people as a crusader in Jerusalem and he knew that he had finished his life in those days as a hermit through the guilt. The man who killed him was a Muslim.

Jon’s astrological chart for the time that he died showed Mars conjunct his natal Pluto (transformation through surgery). It was a red flag moment of choice. Astrology is what happens when you don’t use your free will. Jon chose to engage….to get out of his rut; to live magnificently even if it meant that he lived a very short time. The greatest honour for a Viking warrior was to die in battle.

The only thing that has been hard (the grief is not hard) has been the attitudes of those who think that the world is an evil place because of what happened to Jon.

Jon chose.

Jon saved his neighbour’s life.

Jon protected his neighbourhood from a man already thought to be dangerous.

Jon decided to go home.

Way-to-go Jon!

The greatest joy is that we – and the Kabbalah group that we go to in London, and which Jon went to (not the Kabbalah Centre, I hasten to add) – all know that the world is a wonderful place and that Jon is exactly where he needs to be.

Sometimes people ask me how you can have prosperity consciousness in the midst of bereavement. You can. You see the person’s choice to go – to prepare a way – at a time when they have had enough of this world’s weight. And you can cry and grieve and let them go and know that, one day, they’ll prepare a table before you where your cup runs over with joy.

Other deaths may be more difficult to deal with than this one - when my first husband died, I had no spiritual or holistic knowledge and that was unbelievably tough. I'm not trying to say that bereavement is easy...

But the choice we have to make is to live. To live fully, completely, happily and always to choose joy. We honour the dead by living our life the way we truly want it to be.

The last email that Jon sent to me, the day before he died, was a funny one entitled ‘Funerals are for the Living.’

So live, this month. Dance; celebrate; laugh – and hug and cuddle the people you love. Life is precious. Live for you. Live every moment of every day – and choose life. That way you prosper the world in every moment, with every breath you take.

Life is so precious - and we take it so very much for granted.

Time For Some Not Fake Food.