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It was March 1965. My mother, Gloria, was pregnant with my twin sister and me.  I was supposed to be born first, but I got my arm stuck. My feisty twin was born via C-section and I suspect she knew even then that she would leave the world ahead of me and managed to push her way out first.

We weighted two pounds eleven ounces each and were the first twins ever born in the small Catholic hospital. The doctor told my parents that we were too small and were not expected to live. One of the nuns suggested we be named after English queens in order to appear more elegant on our tombstones, hence the names Elizabeth Anne and Catherine Mary. The nuns kept a vigil at our bedsides twenty-four hours a day. In the end, we survived. My mother said that we survived because we had an important purpose in the world.

We lived happy-go-lucky lives growing up in sunny San Diego. Our biggest concerns were our boyfriends and making the cheerleading team. That is, until one night in 1984, when my mother dropped a bomb on us, she had cancer. And after a two-year battle, our mother died at the age of fifty-four.

My mother’s death plunged my sister and I into years of struggle and loneliness. But we persevered and graduated from San Diego State University. I had a degree in Communication and Cathy in Business Management. After college, Cathy promptly decided that a nine-to-five job was not for her and was hired by American Airlines as a Flight Attendant. She was selected as an American Airlines Ambassador and attended a United Nations conference in Turkey. Cathy’s job was to pick up an international dignitary from the airport and bring him to the conference. She was assigned to chauffer a holy man from India.

She realized immediately that he was special. He was kind and gentle with a wonderful exuberance about him. It was her first encounter with an enlightened soul. He was an impish little man who was constantly giggling. She was surprised by his joyful manner. When Cathy questioned him about it, he counseled her to look inward to find the happiness that had escaped her.

One night, Cathy ran into a mystical looking woman on the street who said, “Your mother misses you. You should talk to her. She is with you and sees your struggles.” These encounters in Turkey deeply affected Cathy and caused her to begin her search for answers to life’s bigger questions.

She became tired of traveling and serving drinks with a smile and longed to do something that she felt was more meaningful. She decided that a career in law enforcement would be a more suitable match for her passionate personality. She traded in her dress and high heels for boots, a gun, and a badge and was hired by the United States Border Patrol. She had many interesting assignments, but her favorite was her role as the head advisor for the Border Patrol Explorer Scouts, a program that mentors young men and women wanting to choose law enforcement as a career.

Meanwhile I took a different path. I worked for Nextel Communications in Los Angeles and then moved to Chicago to help with the opening of their new market. For the next few years, I climbed my way up the corporate ladder within several large telecommunication companies. My days were filled with discussions of profit margins and sales reports.

Cathy, on the other hand, began volunteering with homeless children and continued her spiritual search for understanding. She read many books and spent hours writing in her Border Patrol notebook as she sat watching the U.S. international border with Mexico.

Soon I felt the same calling to do something more meaningful and also turned to law enforcement. I gave up my corporate job and became a Reserve Deputy for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and began working as a 911 dispatcher for the San Diego Police Department.

On October 25^th, 2002, as I was about to began my ten-hour shift, I was suddenly called to the Chief’s office. That was odd. What could the chief possibly want to say to me? When I arrived I was greeted by the Chief of the Border Patrol, his deputy chief, and another grim-faced member of Border Patrol brass.

 “What had Cathy done?” I wondered. My sister always seemed to be getting into trouble for minor infractions like losing her binoculars and not reporting it quickly enough.

But that wouldn’t make sense. Why were they here to talk to me in the office of the police chief? I remember looking down at my black pants and white t-shirt. I thought I was underdressed to be in the chief’s office. 

Then time stopped. I will never forget the look of pain on Chief Veal’s face when he said these words: “There has been a tragic accident.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My feisty, constantly-on-the-move twin sister was dead at the age of thirty-seven.

I learned that she was positioning her jeep to get a better look at the border and lost control of her vehicle and plunged down a steep embankment into the Tijuana River Valley below. She was ejected and killed instantly. I knew at that moment that my identical twin sister was gone forever…or so I thought.

My grief was so deep it was unbearable. On the third day after her death, as I was preparing to meet with the Border Patrol to plan her public funeral, the enormity of what I was about to do hit me. I fell to my knees sobbing and praying for understanding.

Suddenly I heard a clear voice say, “Your sister Cathy is fine. Remember what she was doing and reading before she died.” That stopped me in my tracks and changed my life forever.

I knew that my sister had experienced a deep spiritual awakening just before she died. She had been trying to tell me about her newfound wisdom, but at the time I wasn’t interested.

But after she died, I began to read the notes and books she left behind. I had vivid dreams where I heard someone say, “There is a message,” and woke up to see blue lights near my bed. I felt Cathy’s presence around me and began communicating with her.

It was clear that my twin sister had an important message for the world and I was the one to deliver it. She was proud to be a Border Patrol Agent and felt it was important to guard our country’s borders. But somehow she knew that in the bigger scheme of things, there had to be a better way.

Ironically, she died on the exact location where a new border barrier fence is being argued over in congress. I understood that her death at this location was meant to symbolize the difficult issues facing our world.

My sister conveyed to me that we have begun the Golden Age, a time in history that has been predicted for thousands of years. As humanity chooses unity, spiritual healing, and universal love, the boundaries between countries will disappear, we will no longer feel the need to guard our borders, and the lines between Heaven and Earth will begin to fade.

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