My Sweetie is gone. My dearest, darling Carla Lisbeth Rueckert-McCarty passed into larger life this evening at 6:50 pm EDT. I had just awakened from my afternoon nap and was watching the national news on television when I noticed that her eyes were open and she seemed to need something. I offered her water which she pushed away twice with her hands. Then she got a look of total surprise on her face, gasped three or four times, and left her earthly body as I held her in my arms. Her passing was peaceful and quick.

Just a few hours earlier she had been visited by her best friend from high school, Helen D., who had driven down from Vermont with her husband to see Carla one last time. Helen made her smile and they had a good talk before they said their good-byes.

She died on the first day of April, and immediately I thought of The Fool in the tarot deck who, having mastered and balanced mind, body, and spirit, walks off the cliff seemingly with no sure footing for the next step, but when successive steps are taken solid footing appears under each one.

Carla was a warrior of the heart, fearlessly loving each soul that came before her. She saw everyone as a soul, no matter what the outer behavior, and she loved all she saw and those she never saw. She had a gift for being a mother, a comforter, a counselor, and a companion all because she had such a big heart and such free access to the Love that she naturally channeled through her heart. She looked at every opportunity that came her way as a chance to be of service to someone. Her dedication to the service-to-others path was total, and it was thanks to her teachings to me, over the 34 years that we were together, that I now have an open heart that feels compassion for others and for myself that I lacked before I knew Carla. I was not a precocious student. But she was a persistent and loving teacher, and I can never thank her enough for being with me and sharing her great open heart with me every single day of these 34 years.

I am sure by now that Carla has reunited with Don and the rest of our spirit family in the world of the Spirit, where all things and entities are seen as portions of the One Infinite Creator and planet Earth is seen as a school where we learn the infinite variations of Love.

She wanted her memorial service to be held a couple of weeks after her passing so that people who live a distance away could have the time to make plans to attend. We will post the date, time, and location of the service when those details are set.

So now let us rejoice that this wonderful soul, who blessed each of our lives with her infinite love, is finally free of all pain, having successfully completed her life's work on Earth, and has returned to her spiritual home, there to continue to shine her light and love upon our wobbly old world. And let us remember always that we all shall meet again, and again, and again.

Gary and Austin produced another great day's work in the L/L office:

• (This report was written yesterday before Carla went through the gateway.)
  

• Austin and I managed to see to the daily operation of L/L, but my mind was never for a moment away from what is transpiring right now. It is very hard to accept that it's happening. Though it feels selfish to hold on as Carla will for the first time in a long time be liberated and free of all the pain, able to dance and sing and express in full the spirit that's been somewhat muffled by the physical body, it is very challenging to let go. And it's surreal that in the midst of this we are keeping the organization running and reporting on both our work and deeply personal emotions in such a public way. But Carla set the template-she did not have a partition between those compartments most call private and public.

• Weighed the various options for altering Kindle pricing of L/L books for some of our Kindle library based on recommendations from Kindle in which lowering the price would increase revenue due to increased sales. Started the pricing experiment.

• Heard wonderful news back from Simon: not only he is willing to translate a page on the archive website for us so that we can host the Polish AWH, but he proactively offered to translate the second half of the book, as the Polish publishers who broke the book into two are withholding part two. Thanked Simon but did not fully get the ball rolling as a more focused mind is needed for the task. Did however do a strictly mechanical task that served as a great way to keep the mind occupied with details:

• Did the weekly bookkeeping a day early in the event that the opportunity is not available tomorrow, including the ever tedious monthly Kindle and CreateSpace reports.

• Received word from a seeker who was having issues with our Mobi file on his Kindle, launched an investigation.

• Continued the digitization of the channeling archive, repairing some cassette tapes along the way.

• Processed and shipped a book order and a prisoner book request.

• Posted notices on Carla's personal Facebook account - sidetrack: Carla, ever eager to enter the unknown, had me help her create a Facebook account some years back. I wrote up the most simplified version of instructions I could think to create. She tried in earnest to keep up with it but its complexity was somewhat daunting and her medical condition precluded her from further participation, so after a time it fell under the dusty spell of things unused, until we began posting updates to it of our weekly "In the Now" shows. Meanwhile people wanting to connect with Carla kept friending her during that time. So posted a notice to her Facebook account, to L/L's Facebook account, to Bring4th News, and to a Bring4th thread notifying all who love Carla that she is readying to embark on the journey home. Off and on throughout the day relayed to Jim the outpouring of love that surged in reply. Thank you everyone who has sent a message. As Austin said it is a truly moving thing to witness the scope of Carla's reach in this life, and to see how much love can be shared. I know it means so much to Jim. And on some level Carla is receiving and uplifted by this love.

• Austin and I each had some time to spend with Carla today. I read some more of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet softly to her again. During one of the readings she was suddenly awakened and looked upon me, aware. It was a true joy. (It is absurd that it takes her leaving to really know and so profoundly feel that.) She didn't recognize me at first, thinking I was her brother Tommy, but after some time it came to her. We were able to exchange a hug and I was the lucky recipient of an "I love you sweetheart" that reignited this thing my eyes keep doing lately.

• Kept contact with Jim throughout the day who is just an extraordinary person, not just for the way he's carrying himself while attending to every possible portion of Carla's needs, but that his road to this point has been the second-most intensive human experience I have personally seen someone experience outside of Carla's odyssey. Though the world is full of such heroism, our good friend Steve T. being another such example.

• Had a tearful phone call with Jochen this morning and Austin and I both corresponded with friends and loved ones about Carla, including feeling the comfort of hearing from, by my time-relative standards, "old" friends like Romi, Vara, DW, and Tiffani. One of those, our dear friend Lana, shared this anecdote of a moment she had with her daughter, Alina: "...also explained to Alina this morning that the reason to why I might act a bit absent is because one of my good friends is in her final days. She hugged me and then asked if Carla believes in Ra to which I had to laugh a little. Yes, I said, not only does Carla believe in Ra, she is one of those who are responsible for giving us Ra material. Good, Alina said, then Ra can maybe help her to come home...
  
  Aren't kids amazing? I also told Alina that all humans on this earth are light, but that only some of us have learned how to shine it, and that Carla is one of those persons."