Learning of My Ex-Wife's Death in a Novel

by Gregory Allen Butler

Earlier this year on a Sunday afternoon, my current wife and I were sitting at our dining room table eating lunch. I got the thought in my head that I haven't called my friend Marc in a long while, and that I should plan to do that before the weekend is over.

Right then my wife Maggie said, "You haven't talked to Marc in a long time. Why don't you call him today."

I was surprised that she was reading my mind. I responded to her comment with, "You remind me of my ex-wife, Karen. She was so psychic, always reading my mind. I was just thinking about Marc."

Maggie smiled and then asked me if I would drive her to the library after we ate due to her having a bad knee and the fact that we have a car with a stick shift. I told her I would.

I'm not much of a library person. When I read a book, it's usually to learn something and thus I like to keep the book for reference. I'm more of a bookstore fan. I usually read non-fiction books on politics, computers, mysticism, spirituality, or personal development. And one thing I almost never do is go to a library and check out a novel. They're just not my cup of tea. I don't seem to have enough time.

But on this day, I went into the library and decided to check out a novel. I looked at a shelf of books and one caught my eye. Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan. Weird title. I had seen the movie, The Joy Luck Club, which was based on her novel, and I knew she was a respected writer, so I decided to check it out.

When we got back home, Maggie went to the bedroom, sat on the bed and started reading one of the books she checked out. So I joined her and start reading the one I picked up--Saving Fish from Drowning.

I opened the book and saw that there was an author's foreword. Amy Tan told the story about how the novel came about. She was walking in New York City and got caught in a sudden downpour. She ran up the stairs of the nearest building to get under its doorway. Then she looked up at the name on the door and saw that it was the American Society for Psychical Research. Being open minded to strange stuff, she went in.

She then told of reading an account written by none other than my ex-wife, Karen Lundegaard, channeling the spirit of a wealthy woman from San Francisco who was murdered. I turned the page. I discovered that Amy Chan flew out to California to see Karen, for research, to find out more about the story. The next thing I know I'm reading about Karen being very frail and weak, suffering from breast cancer.

I turned to Maggie and said, "Amy Tan is talking about Karen in the foreword of this book."

"That's strange," said Maggie. "Do you think you'll ever see her again?"

I didn't say anything. I continued reading, And after a few more paragraphs I found out that she finally succumbed to the illness and died. She had no health insurance.

I turned to Maggie, "No, I'm not going to go see her. She's dead."

I was shocked, not only because she was dead, but because of how I found out.

I called my friend Marc in California as asked him if he knew Karen was dead. "Yes, she died of breast cancer," he told me. "I thought you knew."

But no one had ever told me. I guess I was meant to find out by reading this novel, as paranormal as that might seem. After all, this was the first day in years that I had even thought about Karen (by my current wife Maggie reading my mind), and then I go to the library and I am inwardly guided to pick up the only book in the world that would have that information in it, and fittingly enough, it's a novel about channeling the dead. As a rule I don't read novels, and much less their forewords. And how many novels convey information about real people dying.

I found this whole episode to be a very synchronistic. I can't explain it other than to paraphrase physicist David Bohm--that when we approach reality with wholeness, we get a response of wholeness. Or, to quote Carl Jung: "Synchronicity reveals the meaningful connections between the subjective and objective world."

In some unexplainable paranormal way, I think Karen set the whole sequence of events up for me that Sunday afternoon, letting me know that she has passed on, in her subtle and yet paranormal ways.