Miraculous Power (Outage)
by: Angel Friend Pennye

Saturday Ramblins, Vol. 2, No. 2 (January 23, 1999)

There are many loved ones in my life who are no longer here. I was able to make peace with each of them but there is one who I could not let go of until a year ago at this time. My father. Being house bound because of illness and in a great depression, which almost had me starve to death, I turned to Alcoholics Anonymous online and began sharing of myself again. Four years of separation from AA - even without drinking through it - created a void in me.

Through my new friends a miracle occurred. Someone who was in my original home group was in the first online group that I joined. A person of over 35 years of sobriety and who experienced a wonderful life as a result of living the spiritual steps of AA. I knew him well and trusted him without question. I slowly asked him to help me through my current lesson and he agreed. I wrote a dialogue that was long and involved and while proof reading it the lights in my apartment went out as did the lights on the block around me. The screen in front of me flickered once and I saw a name flash onto the message I was working on. Silence ensued and I sat there, staring at the blank screen, in the dark, feeling a fear I'd never known. Tears fell as I thought about my great "mistake" lesson going to unknown persons or a cyberspace bulletin board somewhere.

Five minutes later the lights came back on - and so did the computer! There was no backup system in place and I should have had to turn the machine on manually. The message was gone. I looked in the sent file and saw that it went to a man named Joseph.

It took me a week to drum up the courage to write to him and apologize. When I finally did, he met me with AA wisdom in the spirit of love and friendship. He signed off by saying "tomorrow evening at 5 p.m., EST, I will cherish you for five minutes..."

Those are my father's words! That is what he used to say to me, and I honestly felt him with me at that moment. In a few exchanges Joseph walked me through releasing my Dad and the pain holding on to him caused. Today I cherish Dad's memory but feel as if he lives on in the spirit of others such as the man I almost didn't meet, Joseph.

Dad died in 1950, three days before Christmas. I was only 4-1/2 years old and remember him clearly. He died of Leukemia. I no longer cry in sadness. Today I can rejoice in the spirit living on.