Watching and Waiting

The truth is often the body that floats to the surface, long after the searchers are gone.

It’s a new year, and like the others before it, it brings with it hope. The failed outcomes of the year before fall into the “should have been” file, and we move forward, all of us, toward the dreams yet unfulfilled.

With Graeme’s passing in November of last year, Justin lost not only a dear friend and lifelong colleague, he lost the redemption he’s been waiting for since his early twenties. He lost the opportunity to say to his friend “See? I’m not crazy. All the dedication you put into our music on my behalf has now paid off. We – you, John, Mike, Ray and me – we’ve done it. We’ve proven to the world that death is not the end but instead the open door to the resting place, the learning place, where we all assess and absorb, ready to make our next entrance into the world as better people than we were before.”

I know that the losses of Ray and then Graeme have brought him great sadness, and even more frustration than before.

We can only hope that with death comes greater understanding, and with that some divine help.

And thinking about that I wonder what control we all have over our lives. Both Justin and I remember the purpose with which we were sent into this life, and yet we, despite years of effort, have not fully realized it. How much does free will count for? How much is decided before we’re born? What is our fate to be?

It may be a moot point, in that Justin did receive my note July 4th, 2010, albeit too late for us to meet. He did produce Spirits quickly thereafter and stress over and over that it was a labour of love, that those things needed to be said. “Other restless spirits cry for the dreams that pass them by, but we were mortal – you and I – we were going down. As I loved you then I knew I had lost you – I’d lost you, like the crystal mountain dew in the sunshine. Cos I remember the days when we swore we would always be true. What on earth am I supposed to do?”.

“I would have given you the world to stay. If I’d only known what I know today.” What forces were at play that evening when I’d arranged with the stage manager to meet with Justin? When he came to look for me as I drove away? To talk with him about our past.

That’s all I want to do.

I don’t want to disrupt his life. I wouldn’t hurt his family for the world. I don’t need his money. I am comfortably well off on my own, well loved and surrounded by a cherished family. And his fame has never been something I sought. Ironically it is the thing that brought him back to me and yet still holds us apart.

I know I should be content with the fact that I know and he knows, but the spirit of the Guardian, that glowing, loving but authoritative figure (that I think we all see but can’t remember) still pushes me to make it known to the world. And so I continue to bear disbelief and even abuse, because I know it to be true.

(If none of this makes any sense to you, dear reader, scroll down to the bottom and make your way back up. To those loyal followers, thank you. Together we will see its fruition, someday.)

Going Home

Welcome back, and thank you to those faithful followers who have checked back regularly (hello Germany, Finland, China and the others). I apologize for taking so long to continue – it has been a trying time for us all.

If you are joining me for the first time, be sure to scroll right down to the bottom – Justin’s story is there. Then work your way up to join us here.

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Self-deception is the ego’s trip wire, and so in the weeks, months and years that followed I bought every Moody Blues album I could find and listened with a skeptic’s mind to disprove what my heart and soul acknowledged. But I found the opposite, as you might if you choose to do the same. Almost every song, written by Justin or the other members of the Moody Blues, confirmed it, albeit with some projecting forward to a successful outcome. If you’ve ever wondered about some of the mysteries in their music – some of the thoughts that are expressed that don’t quite make sense in the context of everyday life as most of us know it – you will know that I speak the truth.

I was struck by the extraordinary strength it took for Justin to persevere against all odds for all those years, and the love and loyalty that Mike, John, Graeme and Ray showed toward him.

A year went by. I kept my silence while I carried on with my life – caring for my husband and children – but I was exhausted by the effort it took to keep my two worlds separate and safe from each other.

But of course that was impossible. My husband demanded to know what was going on. I knew that once I began to speak nothing between us would ever be the same. He would never see me as the person he knew so well again. I would have to hurt the man who had done nothing but love me well since I was sixteen years old.

It was agonizing, as you might imagine. He reacted as anyone would but in the end he held me close and promised to help. If I could prove it he would change his thoughts about life, about love, about death.

If I died on the Titanic, then who was I? He wanted to know. He said I should know that, if reincarnation was real.

But I didn’t know for sure. I only had a vague notion that we had been on honeymoon. That I had chosen to stay with my husband. I was deathly afraid to think that I had had children – that they had drowned and I hadn’t been able to save them.

My husband, sons and I traveled to Halifax and the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic where I donned white gloves and was ushered up into the freezing room where they keep the archives. A woman in a steely grey suit and sensible shoes chatted as we rode the elevator and made our way down the hallway. “Halifax of course played such a vital role in the Titanic disaster,” she said. “We sent the MacKay Bennett to retrieve the bodies and set up a morgue to receive and process them. Gruesome task. Some of them just babies. They say the tarpaulins over the bodies rose and flapped with the wind and the motion of the ship as she came back to the harbour. Made them seem to still be alive. A good many bodies are in the Fairview Lawn Cemetery here in Halifax, but I guess you already know that, as you’re doing research. Anyway, here we are.” She lay a large volume on the steel table, and looked at me sternly. “Here is the ship’s manifest. Handle it carefully. You have twenty minutes. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

As I scrolled down the list of passenger names – I felt sure we had been in second class and some references in the music suggested the same – my finger lit upon the name Benjamin Howard. I looked across at the point of origin – Swindon, Wiltshire. Justin was born in Swindon, Wiltshire, backing onto the tracks of the Great Western Railway. I looked at the profession listed. Mr. Howard worked for the GWR!

My mind leapt to the possibility of a grand design. What if Justin had been reborn right back where he had lived before? What if the familiarity of the surroundings were designed to help him bring the possibility of reincarnation to the world?

Some time later I flew to England and drove to the Maritime Museum in Southhampton. The Titanic left from that port in 1912 and the museum there had a large exhibit. It was there that I found out that Benjamin Howard’s wife’s maiden name was Truelove. Ellen Truelove. Surely this was the universe telling it’s story.

I was seduced by the simplicity and beauty of this answer for many years, but all the while I felt unsettled. I let all sorts of fantasies cloud my own feelings – (the common letters in both Benjamin Howard and Justin Hayward are “in” and “ward” – surely the word “inward” was significant – and other things of that ilk.)

And that left me to relive all the deaths of the people on that passenger list. Had I been Augusta Goodwin, scrambling to gather all her six children to her as the crowd pressed against the cages that kept them locked in steerage? “Frederick, for God’s sake make them open the gates! Let us out! Don’t be afraid my darlings, Mother’s here. Frederick!” Had I held Sidney, my infant son out of the freezing water as long as I could? Did I fear that I might die first and drop his tiny body in the sea?

Or was I Bess Allison, holding my five year old daughter’s hand and frantically searching for my little son, Trevor. “Come out of the boat, Lorraine. Yes, out of the lifeboat. We must find your father and that blasted nurse. She has your brother and I don’t know where she’s taken him! Hudson! Hudson! Trevor!”

Over 1,500 people died that night on the flat stillness of the north Atlantic, under a sky studded with stars. Justin and I had been two of them, I felt sure of that. But who?

In Saved by the Music by Justin and John on Blue Jays they sing “This time I’m saved by the music – saved by the song we can sing – the song that you bring.” The band played well on until they could stand on the slanting deck no longer on that fateful night in 1912, but could save no one. Of course no one ever figured that the Titanic would be found, as Justin mentioned in You – again on Blue Jays. “I- I believe what is lost forever has brought the change in me.”

But Dr. Robert Ballard did find the ship, and by some strange cosmic alignment, James Cameron at precisely that time made a film about it. I slipped away while the boys were in school and my husband was at work and sat, shivering in an icy cold theater watching the frigid water race down the hallways. Watched the bodies float by the Grand Staircase. Watched the ship stand on end and then plummet to the sea. Still I felt like I had amnesia.

It was years later as I drove to Cornwall, Ontario to lay the ashes of my mother-in-law that the answer came to me. Her name – Isabelle Sarah – had always haunted me. Sarah. And I remembered how I’d felt in another Cornwall all those years ago when I’d first stepped onto English soil in this life. A sense of coming home.

And then I knew. I was Sarah Elizabeth Lawry, lately married to John Chapman. We had lived in St. Neot, Cornwall. It made sense. As a child I had named my doll Elizabeth. I called the statue in the garden Elizabeth. I had been Sarah Elizabeth Chapman. John had always called me Lizzie.

I finally felt settled.

It seems that John and I had stood by the rail that night and watched the lifeboats being loaded. But when it came my turn to step in I turned back, saying “If John can’t go, I won’t either.”

So many questions. Was I really that brave? Or had I felt safer on the ship with him than in the lifeboat? Had he cajoled me into staying? I sometimes think that he believes that, and that this demand put upon us, this dedicating his life to finding me is somehow, in his mind, karma. A life for a life.

I don’t feel that way. I hope someday to tell him so.

Until next time…. thank you for joining me.

And Soon, The Other Side of the Story

If you’ve just joined us, please scroll down to the beginning of the journey, starting with Why You’re Here, and learn the truth behind the beauty and depth which is Justin Hayward.

I will be continuing with the other side of this epic, the part that makes what he has accomplished even more of a miracle, but it will have to wait a little while. Please check back often. Perhaps in August.

Until then, thanks for sharing this with me. I know you will treat it with the respect it deserves – both for Justin and his family, and all the members of the Moody Blues, past and present.

Sincerely,

Andrea McDonald

A Breakthrough

Welcome. As you know, the latest post is at the top, but this is near the end of the first half of the story. Please scroll right down to the bottom and start with Why You’re Here, then Something Happened That Changed Everything etc.

Something had to give. The MTV age had put the Moodies back on the map and they were in demand again, but still Justin was suffering personally.

The solution was to go to Red Rocks in Colorado with a full orchestra.

The significance of this site cannot be overlooked. Not only was it considered a sacred, spiritual place by the Ute tribe, it is bounded by Creation Rock, Ship Rock and Stage Rock. The significance of those names will become clear as I reach the second part of the story, as will the fact that the area of the amphitheatre in which they’d perform was called the Garden of the Angels, later renamed the Garden of the Titans – both meaningful references as you will learn. Those meanings were not lost on Justin.

The group came with high hopes for a breakthrough – especially Justin. His nervousness is evident in the video made that night – he sang the wrong words at one point – and his angst is clear when he sings New Horizons. He throws back his head numerous times to swallow the emotion that would threaten the delivery of the song, and his eyes are glassy.

The song itself – so rich with emotion – was written when Justin built his house on the sea in Cornwall, where he could look out to the west over the ocean to somewhere, someplace where she existed, unaware of his longing to find her.

He was paying a penance, he’d decided, for the circumstances of their death, and her refusal at that time to leave him. The weight of that thought sat so heavily within him and is so beautifully expressed in the song:

“Well I’ve had dreams enough for one, and I’ve got love enough for three.

I have my hopes to comfort me. I’ve got my new horizons out to sea.

But I’m never goin’ lose your precious gift – it will always be that way.

Cause I know I’m going to find my own peace of mind – someday.

Where is this place that we have found? Nobody knows where we are bound.

I long to hear, I need to see, cause I’ve shed tears too many for me.

On the wind, soaring free, spread your wings. I’m beginning to see.

Out of mind, far from view, beyond the reach of the nightmare come true.”

That moment proved how lonely a person can feel among the company of thousands. Ray glanced over with sympathy and concern before singing his own tribute to the situation – For My Lady. When Gordy Marshall, the group’s new supplemental drummer, smirked at Justin’s display of emotion, John shot him a look that quickly took it from his face.

But perhaps the most telling moment was when Justin introduced his song called Bless The Wings That Bring You Back. This is what he said:

“This was written for someone very special, who’s a long, long way away, but always in my heart.”

Was it a sacred place? Did forces come together to move things along?

Because they did. When the group continued their tour and played in a sudden cold snap that November 6th, 1992 in an ancient, elegant venue called Massey Hall in Toronto, a woman sat with her husband in the upper balcony. She strained forward, unable to sink back into her seat, listening, and wondering why her eyes would not leave the man in the middle of the stage.

It had begun again.

Desperate Measures…

As the blog format places the latter posts at the top, it’s important to scroll down to the bottom to read the story from the beginning, starting with Why You’re Here.

Meanwhile other musicians outside of the group – it is a tight community after all – heard of Justin’s search and the pressure increased. He shunned their offers of help but couldn’t escape the humiliation as year after year passed and he had to admit failure.

It was taking its toll on his psyche and testing his strength. Night after night performing before adoring audiences, applauded by millions, impressive record sales, awards – yet so mired in failure where his heart resided.

It seemed so unfair – to saddle him with such a responsibility and then not to provide a way forward. He felt left to the whims of fate. Or were they whims? Perhaps the trials were part of the requirements. Perhaps it was all part of the plan.

“Is it just a game that we’re playing now? Were we born to win? Can we lose somehow?” he asks in Is It Just a Game.

The full force of this dichotomy blew out in 1981 when the Moodies recorded Long Distance Voyager. Think about that title. Justin speaks of his lost dream and humiliation in Meanwhile when he refers to the fact that he thought it would be easy, that he’d be a hero, and his jealousy. “Meanwhile and far away, as the night draws in, he’s holding her right now and I can feel it all begin.” Graeme Edge penned 22,000 Days, driving home the the fact that there was only so much time in anyone’s life and to “start the show and this time feel the flow and get it right!”

John must have determined that the failure lay in a choice of words, some lyric that turned her away. Justin carried this thought for years and it was, in fact, true. Hence Talking Out Of Turn. Nervous also reflected the level of anxiety at the time.

The Present in 1983 marked a major turning point – Justin whispered the name of his lost love three times and begged her to come home in Meet Me Halfway, perhaps only audible to the person it was directed to (as he’d hoped). In appealing to one, there is always the danger that you will appeal to millions and the message will be misconstrued and in turn, devalued. Having followed the story thus far, you will now appreciate that the title of the song holds two meanings. Justin is a master of the double entendre.

Two years later, with the admirable focus and perseverance that he’d developed over his life, he set off on his own to record Moving Mountains – a collection of beautiful songs dedicated to their mutual growth. In fact there isn’t a track on the original release (including The Best is Yet To Come, written by Clifford Ward) which isn’t. “Who Knows what the morning brings us,” he sings on the penultimate track, “the moment of truth, the power of love. I know where the future leads me. It’s leading me back to you, my love.”

When still she didn’t come forward the Moodies tried again. Though The Other Side of Life in 1986 has many tracks on it that deal with frustration, Your Wildest Dreams puts the truth out there. It is direct and to the point, as is I Know You’re Out There Somewhere which followed in ’88. Justin wrote them despite what it might do to his own personal security. But she didn’t make her way through the crowd as they’d portrayed in the video. She was, figuratively, left behind as Justin was swept away by his fame.

The album – Sur Le Mer (again, an evocative title to the one who knows) – is filled with longing. Want to Be With You. River of Endless Love. Miracle. Breaking Point was written to make her see past everyday life, to look deeper, to reach the breaking point where the past could crash through the protective wall of the present.

Many have interpreted Deep as being sexual. It may be that, but it is also a reference to the death that they now believed was too traumatic for her to recover to memory. At this point they were willing to try anything.

Justin turned to a sympathetic outsider – Mike Batt. Together they selected songs written by other artists that might say things too odd for the Moody Blues but that she would understand. Devotion – MacArthur Park, Scarborough Fair. The art that he could see that she created and the ability to see spirit in everything – Vincent. Death in The Whiter Shade of Pale and Bright Eyes. His double life in Tracks of My Tears. Heaven in God Only Knows and, as the finale, her central role in proving life after death in Stairway to Heaven. Justin’s voice married to the London Philharmonic carried a weight beyond the scope of the Moodies. Surely that would do it.

Nothing. No appearance, no psychic connection from her end. Only from his. Watching her at a distance.

The Hope and the Burden

Please scroll down and read the previous posts – Why You’re Here and Something Happened That Changed Everything – to get the story from the beginning.

Mike, Ray, John and Graeme did become aware of all this early on and supported Justin. It gave them a direction for their music that jibed with the mood of the time. Mike’s mellotron provided the haunting background needed. And because Justin had successfully predicted events they accepted his premonitions and revelations. A new, much needed, direction for their music emerged.

The hippie movement gave Justin the cover he needed to write songs about heaven, eternity and rebirth. Soon the other Moodies – all so talented – were writing in a similar vein and the band became known for their cosmic sound. The timing couldn’t have been better.

Their audience also sensed their knowledge of things beyond the norm, and though they couldn’t identify what those insights were, many looked upon the Moodies as sages.

Justin’s contributions to the first seven albums were fueled by the need to reach the young woman he had seen so clearly in his mind. He’d even heard her voice – “The sound I have heard in your hello – oh darling, you’re almost part of me. Oh darling, you’re all I’ll ever see.” (The Actor.) And “Listen we’re trying to find you. Listen we think we can see you.” (Dawning is the Day) Later (Nearer to You) “I see you so clear in my mind.”

The most extraordinary aspect of this is that a flood of love was coming back to Justin from this young girl. It wasn’t the adulation of the teenage girls in the audience. It was a deep, mature love – an unconditional love. It was a love he couldn’t escape – one which he didn’t want to ever lose.

Because of this, he assumed that she knew what he knew and would find her way home to him. The mixed emotions brought by this were difficult to maneuver. Every night wondering if she was in the audience. The angst of that is apparent in Leave This Man Alone. He expressed the horror and confusion of their death in Gypsy (of a Strange and Distant Time). But mostly he was hopeful that she would come back to him and this wistfulness permeates his early songs – Candle of Life (with John Lodge), Watching and Waiting, Dawning is the Day and so many others.

But as the years went by and she failed to appear, disappointment crept into his music.

Meanwhile he was a man, with all the earthly needs for love, sex, companionship and family. He couldn’t wait for someone as elusive as a vision. He married Marie on the 19th of December 1970. She has given him a wonderful life full of love and the home base so needed by someone on the road so much of the time.

He loves her still as she does him. But he couldn’t tell her about his former wife and their long history over the centuries. That secret remained buried in his music. He kept his writing largely separate from his personal life – It’s like a secret room that no one else can enter, he has said – and as a rock star he was supposed to sing about love so he was safe, and so was she.

It must have been so trying – praying each night on stage that his former love, and one who still filled his heart, would come forward – while feeling the need to protect his wife from any such intrusion into their lives.

And when Doremi was born, he had his daughter to protect as well.

It would have been a relief to just forget the revelation, forget the one who lived across the sea. But he couldn’t do that. It’s impossible, for better or worse, to ignore a directive that seems to have come from heaven. Besides, the love had been returned. Surely she wouldn’t forsake so sacred a love.

It was clear to him that he had been given a mission – to prove that love survives death, that we survive death and are born again and again. Each life a new chance to better ourselves and the world.

The world needs to know this. It’s his duty to tell it. “It seems like the world has been waiting to show us a secret it’s kept for so long.” (Crazy Lovers), and “…the seed that the garden requires.” (When You Wake Up). If two people who have never met in this life share the same information about prior lives together, that would be proof. How could he walk away from that responsibility?