Jeffery Wolf: Virtual Healer

By

Pooja Shameem

Few days ago, a Facebook post I had made three years ago popped up as a memory.  Memories being one of my favorite features on Facebook, I regularly scroll through the posts and read the comments. While I was scrolling through the comments in the memory I noticed a GIF of Snoopy posted by a very dear friend, Jeffrey Wolf.  I wondered how he was doing. I naturally drifted to his page to check.  

The second post on his page read “Posting this evening in memory of our dear friend, Jeffrey Wolf.”  I didn’t understand. I scrolled further down and the next post read “This memory of Jeffrey Wolf I call him Uncle and Friend too.” What? When? How? I frantically scrolled down to find out when he had passed away.  I had to scroll through for quite some time to come across a post that was posted on July 11th 2019 that read

 ‘My Dearest  Friend Jeffrey Wolf had died early morning at 4:07 AM …”  Which was now an entire year and a half ago! On quickly checking  my personal messages, I found that my last one to him was on July 9th of 2019, exactly 37 hours before he had died.  

Was I in a coma all this time!  How could I have not known? I had unfollowed his Facebook page,  the daily posts made between him and his FB friends were always flooding my feed as he was a very popular and dearly loved person active on Facebook. I had neglected to read the eulogies  his well wishers had been making all these months. Our common friends too had drifted away. I was overcome by shock, disbelief and pain. Guilt gnawed my heart for having neglected him.

 My little one who was sitting next to me was confused with my plight and kept consoling me.  Hearing my cries and noticing tears flooding down my cheeks, he gave up, left the room  and ran down the stairs for help, 

“Mamma is crying.  I think somebody died,”  he told my husband, who with my elder son ran up and met me.  My sons were unaware of Jeffrey Wolf, however as soon as my husband heard his name, he understood my loss although he had never met or spoken a word with him. Well, I must confess that  I had never met him in person either; I was captivated by his words of wisdom spoken in a divine voice through his kind heart.

All through, my acquaintance with Jefferey had been mostly one sided with him leading and me being the follower. On no occasion did I have an opportunity to render any assistance to Jeffrey, fully aware that he would not easily take anything from anyone. I did take upon myself regularly to communicate with him when he fell sick and kept at it until he was on his two feet. 

Accepting Jefferey’s death has been rather difficult.  I wonder what makes us grieve for some loss more than others. There could be many reasons, perhaps it could be summed in this anonymous saying, “Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love.  It’s all the love you want to give but cannot. All of that unspent love gathers up in the corner of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” 

It was normal for us to be in touch for a few months and disappear for another few months to revert to being in touch again. Jeffrey understood my nature, my friendship was value based.  I am close and connect with those who have something of value to add to my life and vice versa, exactly similar to Jeffrey’s.

He  always called me “my Creator”.  Not that I had created him.  But I had indeed created a Universe, a virtual site for having 40,000 members. This virtual Universe was a safe haven where the inhabitants could freely express their kindness and love. Jeffrey was one of the 40,000 who had come to take refuge in the Universe. He first contacted me in July of 2007 to be a torch reporter of an American Idol concert tour.  But slowly and gradually he had become the conscience that guided the creator herself.  Not just for the virtual Universe but her personal Universe as well.  So, I affectionately called him “my dear good Sir”.  

Back then there was no audio social media to keep in touch, so I had no way of reaching out to my dear good Sir when I needed to.  I didn’t even have his telephone number, however, he did have mine.  He preferred to keep his number private and would say just think of me if you need me and I will call you. Intuitively he seems to be aware whenever I need the trusted friend to talk to. The moment I wished to reach out to him, my phone would ring within a day or so.  Before I could say hello he would start his usual greetings, “Hello! my Creator. How are you, my darling? Hope you haven’t missed me too much!” in his calm, compassionate, hypnotic Godly voice.  It seemed he was my guardian angel who was always watching over me. I often wondered whether he was even real or just a figment of my imagination.  

 I must relate an interesting incident involving my late mother in law (MIL) that exemplifies his actual presence.  

My in-laws had just arrived from India to visit us for a few months. Sitting in the family room I was chatting with my mother in law one afternoon when the phone rang.  Since she was closer to it, she picked it up.  After about twenty seconds or so she curiously smiled and responded to the caller saying, “Oh, I think you got a wrong number.”  As the person on the phone kept on speaking, I saw her facial expression showing confusion.  She handed the phone to me with disgust reflecting on her face.  On hearing the voice on the phone, I knew exactly what had happened.  It was Jeffrey, who  apologized to me for speaking out without even knowing who was on the other end and possibly creating an awkward situation.  

 I ran upstairs to my room with the phone. I decided to tease my MIL and mentioned it to Jeffery. We continued chatting for a while. Phone calls with Jeffrey was never a short one. I would always have so many things for which I needed his guidance. He would guide me with examples of  his own colorful life experiences or relating to some philosophical/spiritual ideologies. He had lived a very interesting life, full of ups and downs and twists. I did consider myself lucky to have him as a mentor, a guardian angel.  

As soon as I finished speaking with Jeffrey, I called my husband and told him what had happened and narrated my plan to pull a prank on my MIL.I asked him to play along, which he agreed. I avoided her after the phone call until my husband got home. When my husband got back home, he sat down with my MIL, with the usual cup of tea she had made for him.  After a while, she mentioned about the strange phone call she had received. She was very concerned that something fishy was going on between me and the caller.  My husband replied back saying that he was aware of it all, he had endured a lot, and was fed up and tired of all my shenanigans.  

I came down to the family room and sat next to them pretending nothing had happened.  The atmosphere was very heavy and my MIL had a very disgusted angry look on her face.  She said in a very stern and controlled voice , “This kind of behavior is not respected in our culture.  Have some shame and stop this nonsense.” 

Both me and my husband looked at each other and started to laugh. She became more confused and angry. To save her from further agony, I then told her the entire story about Jeffrey Wolf. She heaved a sigh of relief and gave me a gentle backhanded slap for placing her in hell through the few hours. After hearing the entire story about Jeffrey Wolf, she appreciated his wise and kind presence in my life. 

The Lotus Of our Hearts

I had never paused to think about the journey I shared with Jeffrey all these years or how profoundly he had impacted me.  He had entered my life out of nowhere and had always been there when needed.  He gave freely, unconditionally and with no expectation of reciprocation.  It was a very easy, no drama, no maintenance relationship.  In fact, it was so easy I had absolutely no insecurities about losing him even with months of no contact.  So I took him for granted.  I appreciated him for sure and felt grateful to have him there and expressed my gratitude to him frequently.  But I never realized just how much he had given me and impacted my life until the news of his death forced me to contemplate on our friendship of twelve years.  He had loosely been there through my life’s small ups and downs.  But he had especially been there when life had brought me to my knees, twice.  When everything around me had collapsed, leaving me to question my beliefs, my relationships, my very existence.  There were many other loving, kind and supportive friends and family who helped me through those difficult days.  I am grateful to all of them.  But Jeffrey’s presence was of a different kind.  He was the one who awakened my conscience, the inner voice at the back of your mind that seeks your attention but gets drowned by all the noise of the crazy world around us.  He would remind me of that voice.  He would remind me of my strength.  He would remind me of the magnificent me that was capable of handling any challenges life brought.  He would also make me realize the insignificance of the situation in the grand scheme of things.

I never realized just how much he had given me and impacted my life until the news of his death forced me to contemplate on our friendship of twelve years.  He had loosely learnt of my life’s small ups and downs. He had gifted me “The Power of Now”, the book that has become one of the most trusted companions in my daily spiritual practice.  When I asked him how did he always know when I needed him, he taught me how to sharpen my intuition.  He gifted me a deck of tarot cards to help me hone my intuition, which I opened until years later and now have become one of my handy tools to sharpen my intuition. It was Jeffrey who introduced me to guided meditation/hypnosis, of which he was a licensed practitioner.A couple of sessions with him had really helped me manage my depression at one point in my life. Spirituality and spiritual practices were not new to me when I met Jeffrey.  In fact I had been on a spiritual journey since a very young age.  But I have had a tendency to wander off the path and get lost every now and then. Having him there definitely saved me from a lot of unnecessary sufferings, helping to sustain and expand my spiritual practices.

Jeffrey was never too busy to be there for me, he made me feel like I was a very important part of his life and he had all the time I needed.  It was until years later  I discovered from his FB page, that he had taken many others like me under his wing. He had thousands of followers and many who considered him a dearest friend, a mentor, a guardian angel, an Uncle, a Papa Wolf etc.  I have no idea how he managed to make so many special bonds but then knowing his nurturing and giving nature, I wasn’t too surprised either.  

The last time we connected over the phone was in early 2019 when I had reached out to him for his guidance. He had not called me though I thought of him multiple times, I therefore reached out to him through the FB messenger.  He was in a nursing home recovering from a back surgery.  He was in a lot of pain but he still managed to be there for me weeks until I had found myself in a better state of mind. I kept in touch with him for a while through the phone to make sure he had recovered from the surgery. Around the end of June he had started sending GIFs almost daily. I didn’t think much of it and replied once ln every few days, the last one being on the 9th of July 2019.  I noticed that he never responded back, giving me bad feelings. I kept telling myself, “no news is good news.” I avoided checking on him just like how I had refused to open the letter I had received from my sister decades ago when I had gotten the premonition of my grandfather’s death.  

When my Corporate office  unexpectedly moved to a different city in September of 2019, I gladly quit my high paying corporate job in which I had started to feel meaningless lately. I had gotten increasingly interested in wanting to be a healer in some way. I didn’t know what that meant or how I would be one.  All I knew was I wanted to influence people to live healthier, joyful and more meaningful lives, a dream that lay dormant all my life was now screaming out loud.  I decided to go on a long spiritual voyage, my very first one.  For an ambitious career driven person, although spiritual at core, it was a sudden and alarming change.  Truth was I needed some healing myself. I would learn a few tools and techniques to help others heal and in the process heal myself.  

As I look back and contemplate everything about my connection with my dear good sir, I cannot help but wonder about the timing of my sudden change of priorities and his physical departure.  Has his voice over the phone that awakened my conscience now transcended and become a part of my conscience itself?  Is that why I never feel his absence even though I had not heard from him for a year and a half?  

I sat pondering at my desk the other day, looking up to the sky and asked “Is that you, my dear good Sir?”.  A flock of about hundred birds appeared from nowhere in the sky and dropped to my window level and danced in circles for about 10 seconds before disappearing back in the sky.  How much ever my rational mind doesn’t want to give credence to these intangible experiences, my spiritual side believes “there is no such thing as accidents or coincidences in life.”

RIP my dear good Sir, Jeffery Wolf.