Tales from the other side

June Casagrande

If there’s one message Bonnie Cox hopes to convey in her new book,

it’s that death is not final. She knows this, she says, because she

has been to the other side.

For Cox, it was a difficult decision to share her hard-to-believe

experiences in “The Lightbearer: A True Story of Love, Death and

Lessons Learned From the Other Side.” She knew she risked being

ridiculed.

Even Cox’s brother, Jerry Gold, took a skeptical approach to his

role as editor of the manuscript about his sister’s supernatural

experiences. But research helped him suspend his disbelief.

“I realized that she wasn’t alone,” Gold said. “A lot of

experiences like this have been documented.”

The same forces that taught Cox about “the other side” also pushed

her toward a decision to write the book.

“Basically, this is a memoir about a really remarkable time in my

life that happened after the man I was in love with died,” said Cox,

a Newport Beach resident.

In 1981, Michael Jenkins, a skydive photographer, died during a

jump over Lake Elsinore. Cox, who had been in a relationship with

Jenkins for nearly four years, was devastated.

“I was in bed in my room crying, in my apartment in Anaheim, and I

looked up and saw him above me,” said Cox, now 56. “It was as if I

was in a dream, but then somebody all of a sudden sharp-focused the

dream. All of a sudden he was there with me, and I could feel his arm

around me.”

Though she might have written off any one such incident as a trick

of the mind, other unexplainable things soon followed.

And all these things happened against the backdrop of Cox’s

already extraordinary life, which included a near-death experience

during surgery at age 13 and other experiences she can only describe

as psychic.

Shortly after Jenkins’ death, lights in her home started playing

tricks. Cox said curtains started moving while windows were closed.

“I was getting strongly suspicious that it was Michael trying to

communicate with me,” she said.

For about two years, such visitations became common. She kept a

journal of her experiences and began to realize the reason for his

visits.

“I believe he came to me in spirit form as a guardian angel to let

me know that I needed to stay here and not join him,” she said,

explaining that she was distraught enough that she might have been in

danger of suicide.

Two years later, when she was out of the woods and the visits

stopped, she put the journal away. She filed away the experience as

something personal, never thinking it would become public.

But about seven years ago, a number of serendipitous circumstances

pushed her years-gone experiences to the forefront.

She was one of a small group scheduled to share the stage with a

well-known psychic on the “Vicki Lawrence Show” to talk about

supernatural experiences. Due to a last-minute programming change,

Cox ended up not being on the show. But she did volunteer to be a

subject for the psychic on stage.

“She asked for volunteers in the audience to do a reading, and I

volunteered,” Cox recalled. “She immediately saw a man with the

initial M around me, and some others, and said that they wanted to

tell me to write my book and they will help me.”

Seven years and countless rewrites later, “The Lightbearer” was

published this month by Black Heron Press. Tying her adult

supernatural experiences into extraordinary experiences in early

life, the book also discusses the 22 surgeries she has endured,

beginning with open-heart surgery at age 5 and one of three spinal

fusions, in which she died briefly on the table.

Cox is now happily married to a man, whose name is also Michael,

whose support and understanding have been pivotal to writing and

publishing her book.

“I can feel Michael Jenkins’ presence in our lives. It’s very

positive, and I believe he was part of the reason we met,” Michael

Cox said. “I’m very proud of Bonnie for writing this book.”

Bonnie knows that not everyone will be as open to her story as her

brother and her husband, but if she reaches just a few people, that

will make it worthwhile.

“I think the most pertinent thing is for anybody who’s ever lost

anybody that they still exist,” she said, “and when you go you will

continue to exist.”