I received my own ‘Letter of a Lifetime’, from my ‘dead’ brother, and it has led to me regaining a purpose in life and embracing the life I now, unexpectedly, have – that of a Spirit medium. My wish is that your letter provides you with the same comfort, direction and fuel to last you a lifetime - as mine did.
My brother, Christian (Chris) Velten, went missing in Mali, West Africa, in April 2003. He was travelling alone, following in the footsteps of the 17th century explorer, Mungo Park. Chris was documenting this route to celebrate the bicentennial anniversary of Mungo’s book, which contained an account of the search to find the source of the River Niger.
Chris completely disappeared – no trace had ever been found. We lived in the nightmare of limbo for 13 years.
Then, rather miraculously, in 2016, I single-handedly set up a search using social media to locate my brother after receiving news that he could be active on Facebook. But after six months of intense activity, the search drew a blank – like all the other previous physical searches.
I was totally broken by the efforts I’d made – physically and emotionally – and the only way forward I could see was one of loss and pain.
We grew up together and were only 14 months apart in age – I was the slightly older ‘Big Sis’. How could I live without my brother? What was the purpose in my life now?
However, I was still convinced that Chris was alive and coming back home. Why, you are probably asking, when to most others it was obvious he’d either died or didn’t want to be found.
Believe me, I made every excuse under the sun for why he hadn’t physically returned. My hope of him returning to our lives was purely based on my developing ability to speak to him and to feel his presence. I need to explain this more – quite obviously!
I’d always been open to the possibility of beings in a different reality after growing up watching the medium, Colin Fry, on daytime TV when I was a student…. but I never thought I might be able to communicate with ‘ghosts’ and ‘spirits’ (non-material beings) – it was far too frightening to think about.
However, I began to have very lucid dreams during and after the social media search. I would feel my body fly to meet Christian. He was always in a bad way, nearly dead, being cared for by grandmotherly figures, or latterly he was a tramp, wandering around being ignored by everyone.
In my dreams, he was always pleased to see me; always ‘hugged’ me and constantly talked about making his way home. I totally believed this was my brother, Christian, and many times I expected him to turn up on my doorstep or receive a phone call from him. There was always an excuse, however, why he didn’t call or why he didn’t appear.
In the end, I stopped contact with him because it was turning me into a nervous wreck, waiting for the phone to ring. The knock at the door.
It was then that he told me he wasn’t sure whether I really wanted him to come home. Did I really love him? Did he trust that I wanted him back in my life?
And those words set me off on an almighty path to self-knowledge and unconditional love for myself and my brother. As it turned out, it took me 18 months before I was ready to receive my letter from Spirit…
After many months of meditation and quiet reflection – and many tears shed – Chris and I met as golden eagles in Spirit, as our higher selves. After this joyous reunion it was obvious to me that he’d return in the physical.
But still I waited.
Then Chris would come to me, rather than I travel to him. I would feel his present next to me – like an invisible bulk. We would talk together and gradually the trust returned and our bond was as close as that of our childhood. He then gradually came to sit within the right side of my body – as though we were one being.
I was complete: two halves becoming one.
This lasted for a few days as I carried my brother with me and after he’d left, an empty hole reappeared. He said to me: “I’m going back to my physical body, right now, and phone you. I know your number (of course).”
I was so expectant. Finally, after 15 years of searching and being apart, my brother really was coming.
But it wasn’t until a few months later, during a session with a Shamanic Practitioner, that the truth dawned on me. Narda said to me, near the end of the 2hr session, that “Spirit tells you what they believe to be true”. As I walked home, my surety that my brother would be coming home began to crumble.
When I burst into tears, gulping for air as my world imploded into pain and grief, my 7yr old daughter (Chris’ only niece) said, “It’s Uncle Christian, isn’t it, Mummy? He’s not coming home is he.” She’d said what couldn’t be fathomed, or spoken aloud. “Probably not,” I said.
Three days and three nights I cried.
Thankfully, I have a very strong support network on hand (in the physical and in Spirit) and I was able to regain my balance fairly quickly. I’d had to become strong in myself over the years and the truth of Chris’ death was delivered to me when I was ready.
My main question at the time, and after, revolved around the fact that I’d been deceived for 15 years. All along, myself, and my family, had been pulled along by hope. People, messages, objects, songs and the appearance of animals would all keep up searching for Chris and keep the hope alive. Even Chris himself was deceived – he thought he was alive all that time; when he was really dead in the physical.
But why had all this happened? What was the reason?
There had to be a reason for all this pain – if not, I could only see bitterness and anger ahead.
The answers came through to me by writing letters. I started by reading tarot cards and writing down what came intuitively to me (see below for Chris’ tarot reading). I then offered tarot readings in exchange for donations to Missing People charity and, after each reading, a message from Spirit was offered to me – I wrote these in the form of a letter for each recipient.
If I sat quietly, Christian would still come to me and he’d speak to me. We could still have a two-way conversation (via channelled writing), but this time we both knew he was physically dead.
On 2nd May, 2018, I received my ‘Letter of a Lifetime’ from Spirit. It was delivered by Chris. In it, he explained to me, as I wrote (dictating his voice), that he’d been knocked unconscious by a group of men (‘a few knocks to the head’) and that his body was put in the river. He had no knowledge of his death, so carried on as normal with his travels but he thought it odd that he could travel freely, across borders, and that generally people would ignore him.
He told me he’d been helped by a grandmother figure, and her son, when he was ill and they seemed to travel with him, but he was often alone on his journey, although he was perfectly happy. He also told me he couldn’t believe he’d been dead for 15 years, without realising.
He said how sorry he was for deceiving me, too.
He was now where he should be, and that he’d never suffered since his ‘death’.
There is much more to this story than I’ve explained here, but I wanted to show you how I received my own love letter from Spirit.
The letter I dictated to myself was healing in the most incredible way.
Even though I was in tears as I wrote, I could feel the love flowing, the comfort, and the reassurance being gifted to me. There was a lot of information in the letter for me, our parents, my children, my husband and for Chris’ friends – all designed to bring peace and closure to the search for him.
Instructions on how to contact him in the future were also included and how I could write letters for anyone now my channel was open and pure.
All the work I’d done on myself had created access to the non-physical realms and there were queues forming to ‘speak’ with me. But I would have to take care and only speak to the highest entities, bringing message of love and hope – to reignite people’s fires when they had never been lit, were on the wane, or needed refuelling.
And that’s the purpose I carry forward in life.
I know my brother is now in spirit (and where he should be, rather than in limbo) and that we’ve been fully reunited, although not as I/he expected, or hoped for.
We have only experienced ourselves communicating because I worked to clear my energies, healed myself and then worked on the energies between us – forgiveness and understanding played a huge part in turning our damaged love (mainly broken trust) into unconditional love. But that’s for another blog, perhaps!
Chris and I now write together – this blog being an example – and he’s very keen to share with me his explorations in the non-physical realm.
Even though I have a physical loss, I have been healed… Chris is in my heart and I can always speak with him.
As I said at the beginning, I received my own ‘Letter of a Lifetime’, from my brother, and it has led to me regaining a purpose in life and embracing the life I now, unexpectedly, have.