APPENDIX B
Carla's Passing
Our seven-day interview concluded in mid-summer, 2014. Carla was then, as she had been for over three years by that point, bound to a hos-pital bed due to a spinal surgery in April, 2011. That surgery produced an open wound that never closed or healed. Even after three plus years in a hospital bed, though, she had had every hope that she would return to full health and resume her creative work of writing and channeling.
After the interview concluded, what transpired in Carla’s arduous jour-ney?*
She developed anemia. No tests could explain how she was losing blood. But she had to have infusions of blood and iron on half a dozen dates between September 19, 2014 and January 12, 2015. She also suffered increasing nausea, perhaps from the strong pain meds, and her stomach would not tolerate much food. She lost 50 lbs. between the end of the interview and January of 2015. The titanium screws used to fuse her three lower vertebrae also began to show through the wound and there was talk between the surgeons, both plastic and orthopedic, of removing the screws since they had done their job and any foreign object in a wound can cause infection.
Her health began to decline rapidly sometime in winter, 2015. What happened during that period?
A couple of months or so before she passed into larger life her hearing and eyesight were greatly diminished at the same time. An audiologist told us that was a sign of a brain tumor. We never were able to have an MRI to confirm this possible diagnosis. But a brain tumor would account for her frequently feeling distracted and slightly anxious. Her wound began a slow deterioration in the last two weeks of her life. In the last couple days of her life it, and the previously healthy skin around the wound, turned a dark purple, and the wound had a foul smell. It was a massive and rapidly moving infection that eventually ended her incarnation.1
* This interview and the previous in Appendix A were conducted via email with Jim in March, 2016.
A little over eight months after the interview, Carla departed from this plane on April 1, 2015. Can you describe the events of that day?
For the previous two or three weeks she had been sleeping a lot, which made me glad because that was her only escape from the steadily increasing pain. But it also saddened me because I knew that I was losing her slowly as she slept.
On what would be her final night I held her hand and I began to talk to her while she was sleeping. I told her how much I loved her, how much I would miss her, how much she has taught me about being able to open my heart in love, and a lot of things just came rolling out of me. Then she opened her eyes, and I continued talking about the same things, and as it turned out we had a good exchange of love pledges, special memories, and funny stories. We had shared all of these thoughts before but not with such intensity and emotion. It was tremendously therapeutic although I still choke up with tears when I think of her passing on and me being alone. As a spiritual seeker for many years I know that we have been together many times before now and will be together again because we are of the same "clan" or spiritual family. But my third-density, worldly personality needs constant assurance that all of this is true.
So that morning I did our usual morning protocol and gave her a bath in bed. I offered her food, but she had stopped eating the day before. She drank some water a couple of times during the day. She slept most of the day, but at mid-afternoon Helen D. and her husband, Eric, drove down from Vermont to visit her. Helen was her best friend from her senior year at MacDuffie School for Girls in Springfield, MA.
Eric and I walked around the yard looking at the flowers and the stone work as Carla and Helen talked some and Carla napped occasionally. Helen said at one point Carla roused into crystal clear consciousness and said, “This is real. I’m going to die, and I don’t know when.” Helen, who also suffers from cancer, told her that she was going to die soon too, and also didn’t know when.
Helen and Eric left after a visit of about two hours. I took a bath and then took my usual nap around 5:30. I slept for a little more than an hour and when I woke up and looked over at Carla I could see that her eyes were open. That was unusual, so I got up and went over to her to see if I could get anything for her. I asked her if she wanted some pain medication. I thought that she nodded yes, so I put two Dilaudid in her mouth and offered her a glass of water to wash them down.
She gently pushed the water aside with her right hand. Again I offered her the water, and again she gently pushed it aside with her right hand. Then I turned away from her for a moment to replace the glass of water on her bedside table. When I turned toward her again she had a look of shock on her face. I asked her if this was her time. I asked her if she was going to leave me.
Then I took her in my arms and told her that it was okay. I told her that it was okay to leave. I told her that I loved her. She took three long, slow, deep breaths, and she was gone. It was 6:50 pm EDT.
. . .
I immediately called Fr. Michael from St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and he came over and administered the Last Rites. After Fr. Michael left I removed the catheter and changed the dressing on Carla’s wound, washed her body, and put oil on it. I removed her jewelry and put a new outfit on her and her favorite socks. Then I called the University of Louisville Medical School to let them know that she had passed away and had donated her body to them for scientific research. Two people from the medical school came within 45 minutes to pick up her body, but we had to wait until the EMS came and certified that she was deceased, and then we had to wait for the coroner to come and issue the same declaration.
In all, the waiting time was about two hours, so I sat on the bed with Carla’s body, keeping my hand on her leg, and talked to the two medical school attendants about the books on our walls and the various topics in them, especially the paranormal section. After they left with Carla’s body I didn’t think that I would be able to sleep that night, but I did eventually go to sleep somewhere around 2 am.
Did you hold a funeral service for her?
She asked that we have the funeral service for her two to three weeks after her passing so friends and family from a distance would have a chance to attend. And she wanted it on a weekend in the evening so people wouldn’t have to miss work to attend. We had a beautiful High Mass at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on April 17, a Friday evening at 7 pm. She picked out every part of the service as all choir members had been asked to do, and it was glorious.2 It included the Magnificat which is Latin for “my soul”. When Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist, Elizabeth praises Mary for her faith. Mary’s response is to sing these words which basically say, “My soul doeth magnify the Lord.” This was Carla’s feeling about her life, that it should magnify the Lord Jesus Christ, her personal savior. I gave her eulogy and felt a great honor to be able to let people know what an amazing person of faith and love Carla was.3
How did people respond to her passing?
People were greatly saddened to hear of her passing. I heard from many who offered very thoughtful and loving condolences from around the world. It really made me feel loved and comforted to get such an outpouring of love from so many friends and strangers alike. I don’t think anyone can really know how much it means for the loved ones left behind to get condolences and well wishes from people who care about your loved one and about you too. When you lose the person closest to you in the world the sense of incredible loss is almost matched by the sense of now being alone in the world. When people take the time to write a letter, sign a card, or make a phone call to extend heartfelt condolences it brings a little light into a very dark inner life. I was much lifted up by people’s love and I would like to thank everyone who sent cards and letters of condolence to me. I love you all.
Do you get the sense that Carla was ready to bring this incarnation to a close?
She had asked me on January 1, 2015 if I thought that she would live to see her 72nd birthday in July. I told her that I really hoped that she would, but that things didn’t look good for that possibility. She seemed quite ready to go whenever the time came.
While on this side of the veil we can only ever speculate, do you feel that the soul we know as Carla accomplished her mission, or her pre-incarnational objectives, during her lifetime?
I have no doubt whatsoever that Carla finished her incarnational objectives. We talked a lot about how both of us were learning primary lessons as a result of her needing my attention and help 24/7.
She needed to balance the learning to give without expectation of return, that she learned to do in childhood, with being able to accept the love of-ferings of others. In order to be able to accept the love offerings of others she needed to work on strengthening her indigo-ray sense of self-worth.
She did both. And I was able to begin opening my heart in all compassion-ate love by being able to take care of her and do for her what she could not do for herself.4
Carla’s medical journey was difficult, to understate the situation. Most, myself included, would not be able to tolerate that chronic level of physical pain and dysfunction over such a long period of time.5 Do you feel there was purpose behind the distortions of Carla’s body?
Carla was aware that she had programmed physical limitations into her life to keep her from expending her energies all over the place because her personality was like the Tigger in Winnie the Pooh. She loved to do everything. The limitations kept her focused on the inner life of prayer, worship, meditation, and channeling. The [mental/emotional] pain of the limitations, according to Ra, didn’t have to be there unless she could not accept the [physical] limitations.6
How did you respond to, and cope with, your wife’s passing in the ini-tial weeks and months?
The day after she passed into larger life we got seven inches of rain, and our basement flooded. I had to clean it all up so her brothers and their families could stay down there when they came for the funeral. It was actually a blessing because it took my mind off of her passing.
During the day I have kept busy doing L/L Research projects that continue to give me the feeling of still being a team with her. At night I would talk to her picture and tell her what I felt and what I was going through. I also read her eulogy every night for a month or so and found unexpected comfort in doing that. Most importantly, I also began to pursue my spiritual journey more intensively, especially with more meditation starting within two weeks of her passing.
We’ve witnessed you undergo a profound transformation and flowering as a result of Carla’s passing. Among other ways that you’ve changed, your energy is much softer, more open, more approachable, and less anxious, tense, and hurried. You spend more time honoring interper-sonal dynamics.7
Have you experienced a transformation? Can you talk about that?
While Carla was still alive I was beginning to open my heart in compassion and love more and more for her. This compassion began to be focused on everyone and everything around me after she passed away. On
August 3rd I had a breakthrough when I was able to love and forgive myself for the first time in my life after one of my fits of anger. All my life I have been attempting to generate more compassion by using my pre-incarnative choice to program a lack of love for myself. When I broke my computer on August 3rd I felt horrible, and when I got into bed I told myself that it would be a tremendous breakthrough if I could, at that moment, forgive myself for what I had done. And then I felt a great wave of tears, relief, and love for myself pour through me, and I was able to love myself even in the depths of despair.
It has been almost a year exactly since Carla left us. What effect has her death had upon your spiritual seeking specifically?
Carla’s passing into larger life was a trigger for me to get me to focus all of my energy on seeking the Creator within. It is obviously a pre-incarnative plan meant to occur upon her passing. I have done this primarily by meditating many times during the day and by reading all of Carla’s works and those of Joel Goldsmith.
What roles did will and faith play in this process?
Exercising my will to grow and my faith that all was well helped, and still help me to make it through each day.
You wrote in your annual Christmas letter later that year that Jesus had come into your heart. Can you describe this moment and its impact upon your life?
In July, while working outside in our gardens, I became aware of silly nonsense ideas going through my mind, as if by their own volition. I decided to replace the nonsense with something helpful. I believe that Carla gave me the inspiration to sing “Alleluia, Alleluia” over and over. It’s a Hebrew word that means “Praise the Lord.” Within 30 minutes of doing so, and working while singing the phrase, I felt a welling up in my heart and some gentle tears in my eyes.
I incorporated the phrase into our Morning Offering for five to ten minutes before the silent meditation. On August 31st I was singing this phrase, and I got the impulse to ask the Creator to come into my heart. Nothing happened. Then I asked Jesus to come into my heart. Immediately I felt a very strong activation of my heart chakra and a river of tears flowing down my cheeks in joy and gratitude. I knew that He had come. I sat stunned for about ten minutes trying to take in the enormity of the experience. From that point on I have sought to serve with love wherever possible.
How has your relationship with L/L Research changed?
I feel more committed to helping to continue L/L Research activities as we always did as a memorial to Carla and to Don. I feel kind of like a caregiver as you and Austin do most of the actual office work. I am concentrating more on the “hands-on” kind of work—like cataloguing the library, making audio books out of all of Carla’s work, editing new books, and continuing on with the channeling meditations.8
Insofar as I understand, you have had to undergo a monumental con-version of paradigm. In your many years with Carla, your rules for life boiled down to one: care for and support Carla—in whatever way she needed. I’ve personally never seen anyone so single-pointed about any-thing as you were about Carla’s care and upkeep. Every other priority, need, and desire in your life was made secondary to, and bent toward, your absolute dedication to Carla.
With Carla’s passing you not only had to grieve the loss of your soul-mate, but to rediscover who you are and why you’re alive. Would you say this is true?
This is definitely true. I was very happy to be Carla’s caregiver. I was glad to do whatever she needed me to do. I looked for ways to make her life better or more comfortable. I would awaken in the morning, and before I got out of bed I would offer a prayer to the Creator to help me do my best to help Carla in the upcoming day.
Three of the sweetest words in the world to my ears were “thank you, Micky” when I did something to help her that she really liked. She called me “Micky” because her brother was Jim and her first husband was also Jim, so McCarty was shortened to “Micky” as her name of endearment for me.
When she passed into larger life I was lost as to who I was. For our 34 years together I had become, more and more with each year, her caregiver. And I felt that that was the best job in the world. But it took a few months of re-evaluation for me to get a handle on who I was without her. Then I began to get a feel for my own spiritual journey and how I needed to make that the central focus of my life.
How have you re-oriented your world? What are your new goals?
To seek the Creator within through meditation and to offer myself wherever needed to serve.
I don’t wish to make a Virgin Mary of Carla, but she is a thoroughly service-oriented soul, and is, presumably, offering what service she is able to from her new location in time/space. Some seekers have reported a genuine sense of feeling that presence, whether for a moment or over time; some describing a feeling that they are being aided by Carla in some way. Do you think this is possible?
It is quite possible and even probable. The Life-Between-Lives work of Dr. Michael Newton, Dr. Brian Weiss, Dolores Cannon, and Rob Schwartz all demonstrate how loved ones check in from time to time with various family and friends to give them comfort and even direction.
What did Carla teach you? What do you feel you learned from her?
How to open my heart in love and how to talk in blue ray to resolve any disharmony. We never let the sun set on a disharmony. We always worked it out before we went to bed.
What is Carla’s legacy to the world, and to you, personally?
I think that in general Carla’s legacy is the great body of channeled and written work that clearly illustrates the unity of all creation and the fact that we are all made by Love and are all seeking to learn how to love. Her life was an example of these spiritual principles. Specifically, The Law of One information that she channeled from those of Ra stands as her great legacy.
Her legacy to me is that she came into my heart, and she left it full of love. She invited me into her heart, and she taught me how to love.
Notes
[1] Jim reflects in the October 25, 2015 entry of The Camelot Journal: ↩
From the time of her lumbar surgery on April 15, 2011 until she passed into larger life on April 1, 2015 she traversed a death-defying gauntlet of medical problems. Seven debridements of infected skin at the wound site created a large open wound, and at three different times wound VAC machines were tried to heal the wound. We rented a Clinitron bed with warm circulating sand under her wound to try to heal it. At one point we even tried a skin graft. We went old school and tried Santyl ointment. And the pain pills would frequently make her so nauseous that she could not eat. But the wound would not heal.
Through it all she somehow kept a happy heart and always had a good word, loving smile, and heart-felt hug for the visiting nurses, friends, family, neighbors and strangers that came to visit her. It took us a while to discover that none of what was happening was a mistake or an accident, that it was part of a carefully made plan. We both were able to learn the most valuable lessons of our lives in this specific situation. She learned how to feel worthy enough to accept the love offerings of others, and I learned how to open my heart in all compassionate love by helping her. Back in the days when she sang in the Louisville Bach Society, at the bottom of the program for the performance always were the words that fit so well the ending of her life, that great symphony of love for the One Creator: "Soli Deo gloria"—Only for the glory of God.
The Camelot Journal, Jim McCarty, October 26, 2016, www.bring4th.org/
[2] In the September 2nd entry for the Camelot Journal, Jim wrote: ↩
Coincidentally Carla also planned her own funeral service, choosing all the hymns, the readings, the communion, and the time of day to have the service. As a result of Dannah's passing and making her own funeral plans she wrote:
"There is no use in fearing death. We might as well fear our birth. Both are markers in a long journey and constitute the beginning and end of a mysterious side trip into heavier illusion. We wrap the veil of forgetting about us and set sail in our ship of faith. And what a journey! Side trips do end, though, so that we can get back to the main journey. That is all that death is—a transition to the larger road in our soul's journey, from which this incarnation is a diversion, a learning experience and another way to learn to love and be loved."
The Camelot Journal, Jim McCarty, September 2, 2015, www.bring4th.org
[3] See the following appendix for Jim’s eulogy. ↩
[4] About Carla’s pre-incarnational programming: ↩
RA I am Ra. As we have said, this instrument, feeling that it lacked compassion to balance wisdom, chose an incarnative experience whereby it was of necessity placed in situations of accepting self in the absence of other-selves’ acceptance and the acceptance of other-self without expecting a return or energy transfer. This is not an easy program for an incarnation but was deemed proper by this entity.
This entity therefore must needs meditate and consciously, moment by moment, accept the self in its limitations which have been placed for the very purpose of bringing this entity to the precise tuning we are using. Further, having learned to radiate acceptance and love without expecting return, this entity now must balance this by learning to accept the gifts of love and acceptance of others which this instrument feels some discomfort in accepting. These two balancing workings will aid this entity in the release from the distortion called pain. The limitations are, to a great extent, fixed. 60.8
[5] Ra notes similarly back in 1982: ↩
RA This entity has been sustaining a level of the distortion you call pain which few among your peoples experience without significant draining of the energies. Indeed, the stability of the entity is notable. 88.6
[6] About accepting the limitations: ↩
QUESTIONER Secondly, she would like to know why she feels more healthy now after she does these sessions. She’s generally feeling more healthy as time goes on.
RA I am Ra. [First paragraph removed for brevity] Also, this entity has begun, due to this working, to accept certain limitations which it placed upon itself in order to set the stage for services such as it now performs. This also is an aid to re-aligning the distortions of the physical complex with regard to pain. 22.2
[7] Jim’s transformation has been palpable to the people around him. His efforts toward spiritual seeking and service have been re-doubled and focused to a fine point, his attitude more lighthearted, and his demeanor more gentle. Prior to Carla’s passing I had seen him cry once. Since that date, the tears stand ready, behind the eyes, for a moment of sorrow, beauty, or compassion. He has said that Carla’s death is the hardest thing he’s ever had to go through, but as he continues walking that difficult road, the catalyst of the loss is removing the hard and rough outer layers, forging a purer version of Jim—more crystalline and shining. ↩
[8] Jim wrote in the Camelot Journal entry for August 31, 2015: ↩
I continue to record Carla's Living the Law of One 101 and have decided that the reason it feeds my soul is because it makes us a team again. I am recording her words. It's a team effort. For the last few years of her being bed bound it was totally clear to us that we were a team and always had been. So she is not here physically, but we are still functioning as a team.
The Camelot Journal, Jim McCarty, September 1, 2015, www.bring4th.org