How May I Serve

CHAPTER 1

E very morning, right after waking up, I would ask God, How may I serve? How may I be of service to my highest good?

And every night, just before I went to sleep, again I would ask God for guidance: How may I be of service? How may I serve to my highest calling?

I just never thought God would take me literally. I asked to be of service … and now I am a server again. A waitress? Really?

Now I am serving many people, all day; however, I am not so sure that this is my highest calling. I have so much to give; so much I desire to offer. I have so much knowledge, wisdom, inspiration, and motivation that I want to bring forth. I feel like I am trapped between two worlds, one being a light worker—someone who is helping to heal the planet and is ready, willing, and able to assist in transmuting the world to a higher frequency—and the other in this dense, dark, old carbon-based world, dragging me down back into my reptilian brain.

I get up at 4:20 each morning. I feed my four cats, wash, get dressed, meditate for fifteen minutes, and then walk my cute little ten-pound, long-haired Chihuahua. I give him a treat, make my bed, and off I go at 5:30AM to work. I live on Long Island, and it takes me about twenty minutes to get to work.

I start my shift at 6:00AM and always get there a bit early. I like my habits. I like being punctual, and I like being organized. I have learned, and still believe, that being late is a sign of disrespect. My shift is from 6:00 in the morning to 3:00 in the afternoon, Thursday through Monday. My weekends are Tuesdays and Wednesdays. My work shifts are long, with most of the time being spent on my feet.

I am a morning person, so I really enjoy this time of day the most. It is quiet and magical. I can think of many other things I could do with my mornings rather than head off to the Mystic Luncheonette, but this is where I am called to be at the moment. This is where I am serving and giving what is needed of me to raise the consciousness of people’s lives as well as my own. This is my ministry for now. There are lessons to be learned here too.

I do sometimes get to spread my light-working wings, but so much of my passion is sucked from me by the energy vampires who only want their eggs cooked just right and their toast dry.

Yuck! I don’t sound very spiritual, do I?

Being a waitress is truly a study in psychology. Anyone who wants to go into psychology needs to be a server to some degree. You really get a full spectrum of human behavior when you serve food to people. To be a good server, you need to have people skills, ask lots of questions, be quick on your feet, be able to multitask, have a good memory, balance well, and smile at all times.

Food is such an emotional issue for so many people, and at a luncheonette in a small community, you get to see a lot of the same people day in and day out. They sit at the same table, (if it is available). They order the same thing day after day, only switching it up on weekends, and they like to be served in the same way, by the same server. We are all creatures of habit.

The Mystic Luncheonette on Long Island, New York has quite the history. It has been around since 1932, so you can just imagine the array of people who have passed through these doors. I believe places hold energy. When you walk into a beautiful church or any house of worship, you can feel the calm, peaceful aura in the space it holds. The Mystic Luncheonette also is holding the energy of all the people who have come and gone before. It is very active and highly unpredictable.

Working here as a server, I sometimes feel that I am also locked into a paradigm that is in desperate need of change. I see the world, our Earth, crying out for help. I see people manifesting disease in their bodies and minds, rather than ease and peace. How can I serve better? How can I be of help? How can I use my skills and talents to wake them up from the nightmare they are in?

Before working at the luncheonette, I had a successful horticulture business for twenty-three years. I worked for the crème de la crème of clients. I have a degree in natural health. I am a certified reflexologist and life coach. I developed an aromatherapy body spray, made to balance your chakras, called Hygiea, after the goddess of health. That is where we get the word hygiene, and where all health began. I am a biodynamic gardener and an amazing dancer. I studied with the best teachers in the world in personal development and spent tens of thousands of dollars on my education. I have traveled the world and experienced more than most people do in a lifetime.

So being a waitress really threw me for a loop. I don’t believe in accidents, so I know I am here for a reason and that there is purpose lurking here somewhere. The key is to discover this reason.

I want to scream from the rooftops that it is time to think differently, to live differently. But sadly, no one hears me; no one is interested.

Oh, yes, there are a few lonely souls like me out there with whom I can converse, but most people just want their pancakes, french toast, eggs, and burgers. They want comfort, routine, and habits. They don’t want change, and they certainly don’t want to shake their lives up; unless, of course, it comes in chocolate.

I love people, and I love to help and teach the laws of nature and of the universe. I am fascinated by metaphysical phenomena, healing, energy, consciousness, nature, the mind, and the capacity we have to explore the infinite possibilities that we can tap into when we make the quantum shifts within ourselves, those minute changes that will alter our lives in a big way.

Is that how I am here being a server again? Is that why I wound up at the Mystic Luncheonette, waitressing at fifty-six years young?

Let’s see. Let’s go back in time … way, way back, before I was even a twinkle in my parents’ eyes, to discover how I ended up here, shall we?

CHAPTER 2

B oth of my parents were from Germany. My father was born in Berlin in 1926 to extremely wealthy Jewish parents. My mother was born in Munich in 1929 to a lower-income but educated family. Her mom was Catholic and her father was Jewish. They never married because of this. There was already unrest in Germany at this time, and marriage was not advisable. So Mom was an illegitimate child, which was also frowned upon. Neither of my parents had siblings, so I have no aunts, uncles, or cousins. My dad’s life was full of nannies, servants, expensive clothing, Rolls-Royce automobiles, and all the other finer things in life. From the stories I am told, his dad was the jovial one. I was told my grandfather spent more time with my dad than my grandmother did, and from the pictures that I still have, you can see that this was the case.

I never saw pictures of my grandmother with my father; only my grandfather and the nannies are posed with him. I never did get to meet my grandfather, so I have to recount all of this only from the stories that were told to me. He was a womanizer and loved playing the horses. This did not sit well with his wife, my grandmother. She was very proper and snooty. They had friends in all the right places (including some high Nazi officials) and connections to get what they needed and wanted. My grandmother, whom I did know, was a real bitch, I’m sorry to say. She was very cold. (I know that doesn’t sound too spiritual, but hey, who says being spiritual and having a potty-mouth can’t go hand-in-hand?) From the tales I was told, she was off skiing, gallivanting at parties, and doing what she wanted while my dad was left with the nannies and servants. Again, I have pictures that back up this scenario, so it must be at least somewhat close to the truth. It was their lifestyle, for a while at least.

Then the shit hit the fan. The war broke out. Chaos, unrest, hiding, bombs, and uncertainty all came to play in my parents’ lives. My dad had to see his father off on the trains, heading toward a concentration camp. I’m sure my dad wasn’t told his father was going there, but it was a cattle car, so it must have been awful. I can’t even fathom what my dad or my grandfather was experiencing and feeling.

I was told that my grandfather could have been spared. He might have been able to leave Germany, since they had connections with high officials; however, my grandmother did not want this to happen because of his flirtatious nature. She could have saved his life; instead she let him die. Horrible, simply horrible.

My dad was able to get out. He was sent to London, England, the only country accepting German-Jewish children. When he arrived, there were families ready to adopt children into their homes. They only wanted the very young children, though, since they felt that they would be easier to handle. My dad, being a bit older—around sixteen—was not taken in by any family, so he wound up living in several orphanages and working in factories. When I think of what he had to go through, my heart bleeds for him. What a sad story. My grandmother eventually paid her way out to London. Everything was taken from them by the Nazis. Their home, belongings, bank accounts—anything of value. To this day, all that I have from my grandmother is a diamond ring and some pictures that she was able to smuggle out. My grandfather, well, we found no record of him ever arriving at any concentration camp. So we had to assume he must have died on the train and they just threw him out. The whole story is just awful.

My mother lived in an apartment building in the center of Munich with her mom, and her grandparents, who lived nearby. She, being half Jewish, was considered just as bad as being fully Jewish. My mom always felt alone and unloved. My grandmother had her at a young age, and she never had the patience to care for her in a nurturing way. Besides, with everything that was going on in Germany at this time, my grandmother felt it difficult to express her feelings in a healthy way. It was a tough time for everyone, and my grandmother had a lot of suppressed anger, guilt, and shame—both about having a child out of wedlock and having conceived a child from a man who was Jewish. My grandfather was a Sephardic Jew, born in Amsterdam, Holland. He was a chemist and a gifted horticulturist. (I sometimes wonder if somehow his spirit surrounds me, since I have the same gift.) He loved people and loved to engage in conversation about philosophy, nature, and life. He did not live with my mom and grandmother, and I’m not sure how he got to Munich or how he met my grandmother. I do know that my mom had major abandonment issues due to the fact that she was an illegitimate child and half Jewish. Many things were kept hidden from her to protect her from the Nazis, which she didn’t understand. This caused her to develop phobias and insecurities that have remained with her to this day. As a child she was often in hiding from the third Reich since her birth certificate showed that she was half Jewish. This was tremendously stressful for her and my grandmother, who was trying to protect her from being taken away.

She was sent to school, but never wanted to go out of fear that something would happen to her mom and grandparents. Nothing and nowhere was safe. At home, there was always the chance of an unexpected interrogation by the Nazis. There were air raids and bomb attacks daily. Once, while at school, the air raids sounded off and all the children were told to go into the shelters at the school. My mom recounts that instead of hiding, she ran home, bombs going off all around her. She didn’t care; she just wanted to get home to her family. The next day, she told me that she saw the devastation all around, and that her school was gone. Her intuition must have been very powerful to have told her to run home instead of stay there. She would have been killed.

After the bombing at her school, my mom was sent to another school. My grandmother had studied dressmaking and so she pushed my mom to do the same. She has an amazing talent for it—she is very artistic. I still have some pieces of clothing in excellent condition that are so detailed that any designer would be envious of the workmanship that went into them. At this time, my grandfather was sent to a place in the country where he could hide and have protection from the Nazis. Unfortunately, he died of malnutrition and loneliness. They couldn’t get food to him and no one came to visit because it was too dangerous. I wish I’d been able to meet my grandfathers.

My maternal grandmother had one sister and three brothers. I was fortunate to have gotten to know my great aunt, Tante Annie (in German, Tante means aunt) and Onkel Oscar (in German, Onkel means uncle). Oscar was an engineer. I never did get to meet the two other brothers. Onkel Irving was studying to become a doctor and in order to complete his thesis, he had to go to the front lines in battle; it was there that he was killed by shrapnel. When my great grandmother received the news of his death, it killed her. She had a heart attack that she never recovered from.

Before her death, she was a brave woman during the war. I was told that she took many people into her house that were in hiding and couldn’t find work. They had a carpenter, a strip teaser, and many others, such as Gypsies and Jews who would have been sent off to concentration camps if it weren’t for my great grandmother. It really is amazing how one’s true character is revealed during times of crisis and stress. Looking back, I admire her strength, courage, and open heart, and I often feel her presence around me. I’m not too sure what happened to the other brother, Onkel Hans. He had a few children, I was told, but I never knew or had any contact with them. Between my father’s story of tragedy, and my mother’s story of despair, it really is a miracle they were able to find each other.

CHAPTER 3

T he war went on and on until one day it was over. The bloodshed stopped, the bombs were muted, the concentration camps were liberated, and the damage was done—which continues from generation to generation until we learn to live in peace with one another.

Now my parents were young adults. They should have been exploring their freedom and having fun. While things were better for them after the war; however, they both had deep psychological scars that would have lasting effects. My father, at this time, was working as a civilian for the American forces and was transferred to Hamburg, Germany. It was there that he met Francis Koch, a businessman who owned a few small women’s retail shops in Munich. They became very close friends and he asked my father if he would like to go to Munich with him. He did, and that is where he met my mother. Ah, so romantic. An after-war love story. They were both, by chance, invited to go out to dinner one evening. Sometimes you have to wonder about these chance meetings. I don’t believe in chance or luck;