Sherry and Steve: A Twin Flame Story of the Lion and the Rose

“Cracked Open”

Written by Sherry Martinelli

Foreward by Lisa Arrington: Sherry is one of those special people you don’t just meet. They are magnetically pulled to you by a hidden current of divine energy. Growing to know them reveals deep-seated wisdom and knowledge encoded into your very DNA. Sherry and I found each other through the Twin Flame Grief Support Group on Facebook. She had recently endured the loss of her counterpart, Steve. Like many others in the twin flame collective, Sherry and Steve did not spend much time together here on earth. But when he passed away, this had no bearing on the impact to her. She intuitively felt it. The energy shifted and everything in her world changed. In “Cracked Open,” Sherry taps into her bond with Steve to share with the world for the first time what this great loss and beautiful gift of connection is like.

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I have good days and I have really bad days. I mean days where the heartache reaches my soul to such an extent that it can be likened to a dark night of the soul, a place where I feel completely imprisoned, encased in a dark cocoon of grief, loss, and lamentations. And yet I know now that this enduring pain is a labor of love. A love borne out of having my heart cracked open the night I learned of my twin flame’s passing. But as I write this, I can count today as a ‘good day’ because writing affords me the gift of saying my twin flame’s name, not just speaking about him but shouting from the rooftops as it were. So full of love and giddy with excitement, I get to talk about this wonderful soul and tell the story of us or what is now us.

I met Steven Dean Bennett when I was 12 years old. I was in the 7th grade. He was in the 8th grade. Oh, he was so beautiful! My first love and I fell hard. I could never understand even at that young age, why no other girls sought him. He never had any chasers, never was really interested in girls either. I, however, was lucky enough to be in his orbit. Let me tell you about my Steve.

Steve possessed the kind of beauty that can only be attributed to a rare breed of males. Upon seeing Steve’s face, the word “beautiful” is the only word that can describe him. The word that is often used to describe females, is rarely used on men but Steve was the most beautiful boy in the world and I wanted him to know that. His beauty was the kind that stayed with you. He was biracial — half Black, half white — with a deep, olive-toned skin that seemed to glow a honey color when I saw him at recess every day on the playground. The sun loved Steve. He was born in the sign of Leo and the Sun was his ruler and it reflected its perfect light on Steve whenever the sun shone just right on him. There was depth to his complexion, a golden undertone that made him look kissed by the sun even when he stood in a shadow. Of course, why wouldn’t the Sun genuinely show love to one of its own ‘native sons’. He was favored.

His hair was a soft, loose afro, full of springy curls each in its perfect place. It framed his face like a halo that wasn’t trying to be holy—indeed there was a devil in that face. His lashes were impossibly long, the kind new mothers marvel over and brag to their friends at how their baby was born with the longest eyelashes. Even mothers know the power contained in the facial features of a newborn baby. And his smile… that smile broke me open every time. He could change my attitude in an instant just by smiling and he knew he held that kind of power. It was wide and uninhibited, revealing perfect white teeth that lit up his whole face. When Steve smiled it felt like something inside me relaxed, like my heart was being reassured that things will be alright and nothing is ever as bad as I think it is. His smile, although loaded with sensuality, and the mischievousness and danger that lurked within, could calm me.

His eyes, large and expressive, bore right through me that I often found myself averting my own eyes. Enormous, rich and deep, his eyes were soulful in a way that still had me catching his gaze despite my school girl shyness. They held questions he never asked out loud, and truths he rarely said and yet I knew his answers. Intimidation and fear gave way to comfort and familiarity when I allowed myself to look behind his eyes because there was a playful, yet somewhat dangerousness in his eyes which drew me in deeper. There was always something slightly untamed about him — not wild in a reckless way, but free in the way his spirit refused to be pinned down. He carried both strength and softness, as if his soul had lived through storms but still believed in light.

When I was brave enough to hold his gaze, I could see his soul doing a dance behind those eyes. I envisioned shadowy, fairy-like creatures living inside of him dancing to a symphony of what music I could not ascertain, but these were dances of a spirit I needed to know. My very soul needed to be in union with his. I didn’t know and my soul did not remember that I was attracted to his beauty not just for what he looked like but because it triggered in me a place of comfort as if from someplace far older than this world.

Being with Steve felt as if I was in the presence of an old soul that I hadn’t spent time with for several centuries and with whom I needed to rekindle a connection. I knew him like I knew myself. Being near him felt like remembering something beautiful you’d forgotten — a familiar ache, a soul memory, the soft pull of something eternal.

This all sounds so very promising like fate had brought two old souls back together in their childhood. I wish I could say that we grew up and grew old together but that is not how this journey went. Steve and I did indeed grow up and we did come together after high school. But by this time, while Steve perhaps knew there existed a soul connection and tried to forge the two of us ahead, I ran. I ran right into the arms of another man. Steve may not have known what to call our connection although he knows now, but he was hurt. I was told decades later that he never forgot me and that he loved me. He tried finding me in karmic partners but those left him in a state of disillusionment, anger and bitterness. He could never find the love of Sherry with other women. His brother tells me that Steve one day randomly said my name out loud whilst staring off into space from the living room couch. Without any prompting or reason, he said, “Sherry Martinelli” and then retreated into the bottle.

Alcoholism plagued all of Steve’s adult life. It veered him off the path he could never even identify. He lived aimlessly as a hermit in poverty and died alone, destitute without friends or family. They found my Steve’s body days after he died in a makeshift shack where he lived for years in squalor and isolation.
This is where the journey really begins. I finally knew unequivocally like I know myself that Steve is my twin flame. The questions, the grief, the regrets, the shame and guilt held me paralyzed and have the power to continue to do so even now. But my Steve is in a higher place and sees me, sees us the way neither of us could recognize it before.

Steve talks to me daily and mostly through telepathy and writing but also through music. Old 1970s songs that we listened to when we were kids pop up randomly in public marketplaces and gas stations. There is comfort in the reality that Steve knew at the moment his precious spirit left the body, that Sherry was his twin. I know now that our mission was never dependent on both of us being physically present.

Together, our mission is to anchor unconditional love in a world that’s still relearning how to feel. To hold frequency by embodying peace, compassion, and light amidst chaos. To awaken others to their truth through our presence, creativity, words, and healing. More importantly, to complete a cycle of separation by consciously choosing connection between worlds and within our soul as twin flames.

I am the vessel through which he brings healing and light. Together we form a bridge where I am the earth half still holding the flame here on Earth. I gladly with the deepest and purest love of my soul carry his pain, his wounds and I hold them to the light. Steve has entrusted me with his unresolved wounds, holding space for them, and inviting me to help carry and transmute them.

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The above excerpt is part of a work in progress of a book that Steve and I are co-authoring which will highlight the difficult and challenging aspects of being in union with a twin flame who has transitioned. 

Yours forever,
Sherry Martinelli and Steven Dean Bennett

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About the Authors

Sherry Martinelli is a professor of Sociology at Arizona Western College and a thirty-year veteran of the California Public School system. Throughout her career, she has dedicated herself to education and empowerment, teaching English to newly arrived immigrants, as well as courses in English and American literature, public speaking and rhetoric, criminal and juvenile law, and Advanced Placement English Composition.

Sherry and Steven are twin flames — co-authors across dimensions — united in purpose to share a story that transcends death. Their book is a divinely channeled work chronicling their initial meeting, their long separation, the individual soul paths they walked in solitude, and the sacred reunion that began when Steve transitioned into spirit.

Together, their mission is to write a memory manual for those who have loved deeply, lost profoundly, and still believe. This is not a story of endings, but of eternal bonds — a testimony that even when one twin flame crosses over, the connection lives on, the work continues, and the journey is far from over.

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