Bernie

Mary Sunshine asked me on the Heavenletter Spiritual Community Forum to write about how Bernie Siegel and I became friends. Mary lives in Connecticut and knows Bernie in person. It was Bernie who told Mary Sunshine to check out Heavenletters, and what a blessing she is.  Read her comments on the forum and become enlightened!

Well, so many years ago, when I was still in Massachusetts, I read Peace, Love & Healing. It made a deep impression on me.

Today there are many books on mind/body/spirit healing. Back then there weren’t. Bernie was a first.  Bernie, incidentally, was a surgeon at Yale University Medical School, and he also taught there.

One of the things about Bernie is that he is gutsy. He doesn’t let anyone or anything hold him back from saying what he thinks. Maybe you’re like that, too, but I never was. In fact, I have to say I have had a long history of timidity, but I'm getting over it.

When Bernie’s book had first come out, some of his fellow doctors snubbed him. Some scoffed, but the tide was with Bernie, and he became admired as he always should have been.

A woman in one of Bernie’s support groups who subscribed to Heavenletters™ used to write me. She had known Bernie twenty years. She had outlived all the other people who started in the same support group with her.

Bernie is an open book. His life is not in compartments. Bernie IS. When you know Bernie, you know Bernie.

This lady who had been in pain for so many years told me that Bernie, the surgeon, was also a man of heart. She told me about one time when he had just finished hours and hours of surgery, he came out and sat for four hours with a little boy who was dying. There was no one there with him. So Bernie sat with this little boy until the boy did die. I have wondered – did Bernie sing to him, tell him stories, or just sit with him and hold his hand.

What I do know is that Bernie gave to that little boy as he would have given to his own son. This was enough for me to know about Bernie so that I would love him forever.

Well, way back when I first read Peace, Love & Healing, I was very  struck by it, but that was the end of it. I had read it, was impressed, but that was it,  until so many years later when, here in Iowa, I came across a used copy of Peace, Love & Healing, bought it  and reread it. I was electrified.

By this time, Heavenletters had come on the horizon, so, when, in his book, Bernie spoke of the inner voice – he spoke of it often – I wondered if he meant God, and I wrote to Bernie. I wish I still had that letter and his reply. I told him about Godwriting™ etc.

Bernie wrote back, asked some tough questions, and soon enough subscribed to Heavenletters. He questioned some of what God would say, but he loved Heavenletters. Incidentally, he funded the Heaven CD.

At first I was dazzled that a famous person spent time emailing me – for many years, he emailed me every day. But soon, I got past that, and Bernie and I became just friends, a very nice thing indeed to be. Bernie is always right there, do you know what I mean? He is constant. With him, friendship is, and that’s it.

When I first asked Bernie if I could publicly use some of his good words, he said: “Look, kid, if I said it, you can use it.”

In my experience, Bernie’s response is not typical, but that’s Bernie, one of a kind.

If I had to have only three words to describe Bernie, I would choose: Kind, outspoken, real.

God bless you, Bernie.

http://berniesiegelmd.com/index.htm