Sam and Mary: The Lovebirds
I first learned of Sam and Mary from my friend Russ, whom you might’ve met already. Russ had just gotten off the boat one day in Yelapa when Sam and Mary snagged him from the sidewalk and asked to join them for breakfast. “We sat and spoke for almost four hours,” said Russ. “They have the greatest presence. When you’re around them, you can just feel the love.”
Russ showed me their picture and I could see it. Both are in their early 80s. Each had ear-to-ear smiles, clear complexion, and a youthful radiance. They were obviously in love. I had to meet them, I told Russ. Could he arrange it?
He messaged them but we never got connected.
Then, on my last morning in Yelapa, I was eating breakfast at Cafe Bahia with a few friends. All the sudden, my friend pinches my arm. In walk Sam and Mary—smiling, beaming, radiating, looking just like the picture Russ showed me.
Sam and Mary sat down at the table next to us. We were eating, but I was just paying attention to them. They looked so content with each other. Even when they weren’t talking, they’d gaze at the horizon together. I kept watching, and once they were done eating, I made my move and ambled over.
“Excuse me, I’m sorry if this is weird—”
“You must be Harris,” she said.
“Yeah…”
“Russ told us about you.”
Mary glowed. Her eyes were bright green. She had a wide smile and full silver hair. She lived most of her life in Sedona, Arizona, as a jewelry maker. Sam was next to her, happy as a clam. He had a full head of hair combed neatly to the side, as well as a thick southern accent. He was from Virginia, and a true southern gentlemen.
I sat down and settled in. Mary turned to me, and the first thing she asked was: “So, tell me about your passion.”
I told her about my writing, and meeting all the wonderful people in Yelapa, and my joy in traveling to new places and hearing people’s stories. I just didn’t know what I wanted to do next; or how to put it all together.
“We can get anything we want,” says Mary. “We just need to connect with the source behind it.”
Sam told us of his passion. As a kid, he’d lie face-down in the bathtub with a snorkel on. He dreamed of exploring the deep. But it wasn’t a realistic job at the time. He wanted to raise and support a family, so he turned to engineering.
Sam and Mary first met when Sam was a lifeguard. He was 15, she was 13. He fell for her immediately, he said, but Mary said she was too young for him. So she set him up with her girlfriend. Sam dated the friend, but always had his eye on Mary.
A few years later, they wound up together. They stayed together through graduation and talked of getting married. However, Sam was going to engineering school, while Mary was interested in fashion and design. They’d be going to separate schools and living apart. So regrettably, they went to separate schools and chose to just be friends, no longer lovers.
They kept in touch closely in the years after. Sam then found a partner and got married. Mary married too. Sam’s wife, however, felt threatened by his friendship with Mary. She didn’t like him speaking with this other woman. They lost touch, and went years without speaking.
Years went by. And more years. Sam raised a family, even with grandkids. Mary kept designing jewelry and building businesses. Yet both marriages were ultimately unfulfilling.
Then, 61 years after they first met, Mary’s husband died. Years later, Mary started developing a strong sense: she felt that a presence was coming into her life. “I didn’t know if it’d be in this life, between lives, or in the next,” she said. Then COVID hit, and Mary told her friends: “I’m either slipping quietly into the night, or I’m about to blow the roof off of this life.”
Not long after saying this, a very, very long text message arrived, full of condolences. “I couldn’t sit and read that whole thing!” Mary said. “So I scrolled and scrolled to the bottom to see who it’s from. It was from Sam.”
“As soon as I saw that, and this has only happened a few times in my life, it was as if God had raised a curtain,” she said. “It showed me our soul’s journey — that we would finish this lifetime together, just as we had begun it together.”
Since then, they’ve been off like a rocket. Now, they are in Yelapa, finishing each other’s sentences and delighting any seeking soul they come across. Once spring hits, they’re off to Europe. They’ll take a boat up the Nile, stay in southern France, tour Italy, then sail through the Greek Isles.
Wherever they go, they always have an open seat at their table — and if you see it, I highly advise you to take it.
Bonus Content: Mary’s Four Steps for Manifestation
Earlier, I quickly dropped a quote from Mary that said, “We can get anything we want, we just have to connect the source behind it.” You didn’t think I’d just leave it like that, did you? Of course not.
Mary has a formula for manifestation. And as I’ve read other metaphysical books, it seems to fall in line with other writers’ guidance as well, just articulated a bit differently.
For Mary’s manifestation, she uses the metaphor of a rocket.
What’s your idea? Form your vision clearly for what you want to have happen. See the details perfectly. This is your rocket ship.
Build excitement. This is your fuel. Once you have the idea, form a positive emotion around it. Feel deeply what it would be like to live in this potential vision.
Let it go. Don’t worry about the how. Just let the vision go. This is the launch.
Live as if it’s accomplished. This draws you to the vision sooner. (I’m not entirely sure how Step 4 relates to the rocket metaphor, but I trust that Mary mentioned it and I just couldn’t recall).