Author's strange encounter with a healing angel

When I went to the clinic I saw a no-nonsense guy and explained to him my myriad pains and accidents. I told him that I couldn’t function without some relief from the pain and described in detail my pitiful attempts to find a position to sit or stand in that did not leave me in misery. He reviewed my pharmacological history and told me that I was taking enough pain killers that he should be able to hit me in the side of the head with a baseball bat and I shouldn’t feel it. I almost wish that he did. He told me about a type of pain relievers called beta-blockers and wrote me a prescription. He also mentioned that some people with chronic pain had found relief through acupuncture. I was willing to try anything because even I realized that I was taking a monumental amount of drugs with little to show for it in terms of relief. The beta blockers helped me a little, taking the pain down from a nine to an eight on occasion. So I went to the needle man, who stuck me with various sharp objects and turned a lamp on the silvery spears and left me to simmer in his office. I was fully ready for Mr. Placebo to come in and save me, but after a day of dulling the pain I was back where I started, ready to have somebody take me out back and shoot me like an old carriage horse. I called the clinic a couple of weeks after my first visit, desperate for some sort of intervention. The constant pain, like a low-speed drill to my brain, had worn me down and darkened my mood as never before. In a fit of recollection the hapless receptionist told me that there was one more thing we might try: there was a guy who came by occasionally who was great at “bodywork” and massage, and I might be able to get an appointment to see him the next time he was at the clinic. I had never had my body ‘worked’ by anyone, and the whole prospect seemed a bit remote. But nothing else had helped so I told her to call me when she could arrange for me to be seen by this guy.

A week later she called me and told me that I could be seen by the bodywork guy at 10:30 the next day. When I arrived she brought me to a back room with a massage table and a man appeared at the door. He had long, dark hair and a peaceful, gentle look in his eyes. He introduced himself and had me take off my shirt and pants and lie in my underwear on the table. He began asking me questions about my life, and had me describe the various occurrences that had brought me to the table, as it were. Instead of some sort of massage he began asking me to resist him as he pushed down on my arms and legs. As much as I was apprehensive about the prospect of ‘bodywork’, something about his demeanor put me at ease. He commented on how I was ‘torqued’ and twisted and he seemed to focus on my legs, asking me to raise them against his downward pressure. And then he started telling me things I never thought I would hear. He said “Something happened to you when you were ten years old, and it was very traumatic for you.” I knew he was talking about my year of terror. Then he said, “You’re trying to punish yourself for something you did in your past life.” I didn’t know how to respond to that, but it was pretty clear that I had been acting like my own worst enemy. Something about his knowing my secret pain of childhood made the hair on my arms stand up. He said, “You used to kill people. It was your job. You worked for somebody and your job was to murder people.” All this time he was manipulating my legs and speaking to me in a loving, matter-of-fact tone, as though what he was saying was as normal as commenting on a sunburn. He said a few more things to me but I was in a state of other-awareness, and I felt his energy going into my skeleton and muscles like a clear tone cutting through static. After a few minutes he was done. Who was this guy? How could he know these things? I felt lighter having heard someone tell me something that I had hidden away deep inside me.

I thanked him for his time and he gave me his business card. I walked to the car and put the card in Dawns’ unused ashtray and slid it closed. I was feeling relieved and not noticing the groaning pain that had accompanied my every movement for months. My head was filled with wonder: how did this guy know about my secrets? My pain? I had tucked the memories of that year of horror away like a child files away the memory of sexual abuse. It was in a closet and nobody had a key or even knew what hall to find it in. And yet this guy picked up on my inner life after two minutes of touching me. It was bizarre.
What was even more bizarre is that over the next few days I began to feel better.

After months of pain killers and acupuncture and long hot baths and misery, the pain was retreating like a sunset on the horizon of my awareness. For the first time in a long time I could sit and stand without wanting to die, and it all began with the visit to the clinic that weekend. Not realizing how the pain had darkened my spirits, as it lifted I felt a renewed hope and optimism for my future, a sense that all was not lost and I might be able to lift myself back into the mainstream of people who are fully engaged in living. I felt such gratitude for this guy who had told me the things he couldn’t have known, and although he didn’t really manipulate my body to any degree something had begun that day and I was feeling altogether better because of it. I started to rave about what had happened to Dawn, who was just happy to see me out of the realm of deep funk. I didn’t know whether to consider his treatment physical or spiritual or psychic, I just knew that it was working. When she started to express the idea that maybe she would benefit from this guy’s insight, I ran out to her car to fetch the business card out of the ashtray. It was gone. That was a bit strange because no one had been in the car except Dawn and me, and she never even opened the ashtray. Undaunted, I called the clinic to get the man’s name and find out when he would be there again. When I called I spoke to either the same woman who referred me or someone who sounded just like her. I told her that I had benefited greatly from the man who did volunteer bodywork but that I had lost his number. She told me that she didn’t know who I was talking about. I explained to her again that I had been to their facility and seen a man who had treated me, a guy who wasn’t affiliated officially but volunteered to see patients. She told me that I must have called the wrong clinic because she had worked there for years and they had no record of anyone who did volunteer bodywork as I had described. She didn’t know what I was talking about and began to treat me as though I was delusional. The more I insisted the more she became adamant and it was obvious to me that I was getting nowhere. I searched Dawn’s car again obsessively, hoping to find the little cardboard rectangle that would confirm my sanity. It was not there. The man didn’t exist. He had appeared for me and then disappeared off the face of the earth. He knew about my life and saved me from a desperate battle with mortifying pain. Either I was crazy or something very strange had happened that day.

excerpt from Opening a Dented Can, J. A. Mills

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Last Edited by Jump Room 2012 on 06/27/2012 10:42 PM