Lost and found

My past life

On my screen came a result about the real A Nutter.

Alice Nutter – a witch from Pendle, Lancashire. The same place that Joe was born!

Alice was hanged in August 1612 having been falsely accused of causing death by witchcraft.

She had been raised as a Catholic, like me.

And although Catholicism isn’t something I felt connected to, I just knew that Alice and I were the same person.

I had been her in a past life. I was so sure of it.

No wonder I’d been drawn to that pseudonym for my memoir.

I sensed there was more to my connection to Alice Nutter.

A message?

Confiding in a friend, she said: ‘Lisa can spell out Alis, which sounds like Alice. And the letters of yours and Joe’s birth names – Lisa Ann Higgins, Joseph Griffin – can spell out “on Spanish sea…”’

‘Oh, my God!’ I said. ‘I can see “in rif” in the rest of the letters.’

So our names say: on Spanish sea in rif – as in the Rif Mountains in Morocco.

Was this fate’s way of showing me the boat Joe was on had been hijacked and the passengers taken to the Rif Mountains?

I’ll never know for sure, but I felt closer to the truth than ever before. wasn’t there when the picture was taken. Was it Mary Ann showing me her presence? Or Joe’s protective arms around his little boy? Or was it both? I don’t like to think of Joe as dead, but it’s comforting to think that if he did die, Mary Ann is with her father. It’s now been 18 years since Joe went missing and I still can’t make sense of it all. People ask me if we had cross words before he left and we did, but only because my instincts were telling me something was wrong. The truth was, we’d never been happier. Losing Joe and Mary Ann was so distressing and yet strangely, in doing so, I found the person I once was, a long, long time ago.

Joe, I have no doubt it happened so that Joe could be with Mary Ann, to look after her, just like he did in another life. And that cloud of mist in the photo? There’s always someone with a scientific reason for things like this, but it doesn’t matter to me. If spirits, especially soulmates, can send us a sign from spirit, they will, and they may even use technology to do it. I believe Joe was letting Lisa know that Mary Ann was safe with him. I’m sure in their next life they’ll be together yet again, and have a happier outcome.’

Was the mist a comforting presence?