It was a rainy Sunday and I was washing up in the kitchen when I heard a voice.
‘Derek,’ it said.
I froze. As far as I knew I was alone in the house. Yet, a moment later, I heard the voice a second time…
‘Derek,’ it said again, quite clearly.
A trained reiki therapist and foot whisperer, I’d always been spiritual, so I wasn’t exactly worried by the voice. But as far as I knew, I didn’t know anyone called Derek! What could it mean?
I was still pondering when my friend Alison knocked on the door with an excited expression on her face.
‘I’ve just been to see a medium,’ she said. ‘And you’ll never guess who came up in my reading!’
‘Who?’ I asked, intrigued.
‘Derek!’ she grinned.
My face crumpled. Now I felt really confused.
‘Derek who!?’ I asked.
‘Derek McGillivray,’ she replied. ‘You remember! He called himself ‘A Happy Medium’. We went to see him months ago to get readings done...’
‘Oh!’ I replied, as the penny dropped at last.
Around eight months earlier, Alison and I had both gone to see a medium called Derek together.
I remembered that it had been strange, because as soon as I’d laid eyes on him, I’d had the strangest feeling that he and I had met before, but despite racking my brain, I hadn’t been able to work out where I’d known him from.
At the time I’d been feeling a bit run down and had been hoping for a pick me up. But although the reading had been really accurate, Derek had also told me lots of things I hadn’t been ready to hear, so I’d come out of the reading feeling a bit annoyed!
Now though, I found myself feeling strangely teary and a bit ‘tingly’ as I told Alison about the voice I’d heard that morning saying Derek’s name.
‘Well now we’re going to have to book something else with him!’ Alison grinned.
I had to agree. With both of us being reminded about Derek on the same day, it did seem like Spirit was nudging us in his direction for some reason…
We took a look at Derek’s website and saw that alongside mediumship he also did past life regression.
‘I quite fancy that,’ I told Alison.
I’d been regressed once before, when someone had given me a past life reading for my 50th birthday. Back then, finding out about a former life had helped with some issues I’d been having in this one.
Lately I’d been feeling a bit lost and drained, so much so that I’d stopped doing my healing work. Now I wondered, could past life regression help again?
‘Let’s book it,’ I told Alison.
A week or so later, she and I made the hour and a half journey from my home in Elgin, Moray, to Derek’s therapy practice in Aberdeen.
I didn’t expect Derek to remember me, but…
‘You look lighter than when we first met,’ he smiled as soon as he saw me. ‘Like a weight’s been lifted.’
Alison recorded my session on her phone from the corner of the treatment room, while Derek played music and used his soothing voice to take me into a relaxed state.
He’d soon guided me back to various different lifetimes across the ages. In one life, I’d been Jewish. In another, I’d been a posh merchant’s wife.
I’d already been under for quite a while when we reached the 15th Century.
As I stepped back into the life I’d lived then, my body felt different — larger framed — as I found myself standing in a busy market, the smell of rotten food and pungent herbs all around.
When Derek asked, I gave my name as Mhairi McCloud and explained that I was originally from the Western Islands of Scotland, but had ended up in Dundee.
‘Are you married in this life?’ Derek asked.
‘No,’ I replied crossly. ‘But I’m being forced to be married by my dad.’
‘Is there anyone you’d prefer to marry instead?’ Derek asked next.
In my mind’s eye, I immediately saw a powerfully built man holding a woven sack in his hand.
My whole voice changed and I got all giggly and smiley as I answered, ‘Charlie Anderson.’
‘Who does Charlie resemble in your current lifetime?’ Derek asked.
In that moment I felt an amazing warm glow in my heart, immediately followed by feeling all teary and emotional again as I sat bolt upright — and pointed to Derek!
‘You!’ I said, with complete certainty.
It was strange. Charlie and Derek didn’t look the same at all — but their deep and caring blue eyes were identical.
Still in a deep state of relaxation, I barely took in Alison giggling in the corner, or Derek’s own chuckle, until I fully came round and remembered what had just happened.
I immediately felt a bit embarrassed!
Afterwards though, we all went for a coffee nearby, and despite what had taken place, I felt really comfortable around Derek.
Later I texted to thank him and he sent a nice reply.
After that, we started messaging back and forth as friends and Derek encouraged me to get back into being a therapist again.
‘You’re a healer and you need to start using your gift once more,’ he said. ‘In fact, there’s a therapy room going in my office, if you’re interested…’
Just like that Derek and I became colleagues, and it turned out we worked really well together. He’d often call me down the corridor to help out if he had a female client with a ‘women’s issue’.
Outside work we were never off the phone either. We had so much in common and it almost felt inevitable when our friendship turned into more…
Not long afterwards, we decided to set up a new practice together near my home in Elgin.
Then, in May 2020, I found a blue diamond ring and a note under my pillow.
Will you marry me? the note said.
Of course I said yes!
By then Derek had been regressed by his spiritual mentor, learning that back when he was Charlie Anderson he’d wanted to propose to me, as Mhairi — but had got stuck out in Australia after sailing there to make his fortune and had sadly missed his chance.
Now we’d been brought together once more.
But the pushes from Spirit didn’t stop once Derek and I got engaged.
A few days before our wedding, I woke him at 3am, after having a vision of a cherry-red car with heated seats.
‘We’re going to Buckie to buy a car tomorrow,’ I told him.
He was surprised, as we hadn’t discussed a new car, but the following day we drove the 20 minutes to the next town where the man in the Vauxhall Garage showed us the exact car I’d described from my vision!
Derek and I married in April 2022, at Elgin City Football Club, with the romantic time-travelling TV series Outlander as our very appropriate theme. My tartan and ivory dress was even made by the show’s costume designer!
A year on, we’re happily married, and running our separate spiritual businesses together.
He and I are twin souls who were forced to live apart all those centuries ago. Now though, we’re making up for lost time!