raucous display, as the sisters’ voices carried
down the corridors with every ounce of festivity they could
muster.
After a while though, Ivy suddenly began to look agitated.
Lou began worrying that something was wrong and leaned
down to speak to her grandmother. Not noticing anything was
amiss, her sisters continued singing.
Lover Girl 45
“Are you OK, Lover girl?” asked Louise tenderly. Ivy was
now looking increasingly vexed and began mumbling in a
voice so low that Lou could barely hear her.
Ivy seemed to be muttering something under her breath.
A portrait of Ivy when she was a young woman.
Still struggling to hear, Lou asked if she would repeat her-
self. Ivy drew upon every skerrick of strength left within her and lifted her head up towards Lou.
“No more carols!” she hissed. They were the first and only
words Ivy had spoken in weeks.
Upon this, silence engulfed the room for a brief moment,
after which the family began to laugh. Ivy herself lay smiling in her bed, seemingly grateful that peace had been restored.
“Right then!” said Lou brightly, “that’s enough of the car-
olling!”
46 Lover Girl
A little while later, Ivy began staring at an area directly above her bed, with an expression so peaceful and happy it could best be described as rapture. As she continued to stare unblinkingly, her right arm (which had been all but immobile for as long as
anyone could remember) began to rise up from the bed.
Palm up and with the elbow perfectly straight, Ivy’s arm
lifted upwards, as though indicating some wondrous sight hov-
ering just beneath the ceiling. All the while, Ivy kept serenely smiling. She lay there with her arm in the air for several minutes, seemingly immune to the fatigue which surely must’ve
started to overcome it.
Her family looked towards the place where Ivy was gestur-
ing, and seeing nothing, began to theorise as to what was going on.
“She must be seeing the light!” said Lou, starting to feel
teary. “Maybe she’s about to go into the light!”
“Or is it Grandad?” asked Lou’s older sister, Vanessa.
“Maybe he’s come to get her …”
“Maybe she can see the spirit world!” someone suggested.
Either way, Ivy maintained her state of rapture without
sharing what she was actually seeing. She was so transfixed by the vision before her that her room and those in it, faded to
the point where she was once again oblivious to the material
world around her.
A little while later, Ivy became aware of the room once
again and beckoned to her daughter, Val. Val leaned in towards her mother, as Ivy desperately tried to form a sentence. But
try as she might, she just couldn’t get the words out. No more carols were to be her final words.
Ivy’s secret was never to be revealed, as five days later she
passed away. The Christmas day gathering was to be Ivy’s last
hurrah. She left the world on her ninety third birthday.
Lover Girl 47
A week later, Lou came to see me, sharing with me the
snippets of Ivy’s final days. She told me that her parents made it to Ivy’s bedside just in the nick of time, and they hoped Ivy had been aware of their presence as she passed away. Lou
and her two sisters were not quite so lucky, arriving ten min-
utes after Ivy’s passing. The family sat at her bedside talking to their much loved mother and grandmother for a couple of
hours after she took her final breath. According to Lou, Ivy’s energy was still very present in the room.
It was a peaceful, loving transition and Lou hoped that Ivy
was aware of her loved ones around her as she passed away.
“We could always ask her,” I suggested. “It might be too
soon, but it’s worth a try.”
So with that intention, Lou and I sat at my small wooden
table, lit a white candle and asked if Ivy would like to come through.
We began by using the pendulum. Louise asked a series of
questions, until we were sure it really was Ivy we were speak-
ing to. Ivy