“There is a woman here and she can’t stop smiling about you.” So began my session with a medium called Jane, and a spirit that I hoped was my Mother.
The first thing my Mom told Jane, oddly, was that I was an old soul.
I searched my memory, had she used that term with me? It was the first of countless times in the one hour reading (my first ever) that I would comb my memories to find validity in something I so dearly wanted to believe. I briefly glanced up at my cork board to the poem my mother had written about me, not wanting to appear that I wasn’t fully present, this was a zoom meeting after all. The poem, found months after she died, was tucked away in a book she hoped I would read. When pulled from my bookcase, it fell open, presenting me with a priceless gift. Also a message from beyond, but an undeniable artifact; my mother’s beautiful penmanship, her tender words: “Sharon, Gentle soul, Love filled heart, Beautiful child…”
An old soul made older In the three years since losing her. Grief dogged me, finding me again at this moment longing to connect to her.
You don’t blend in, but you aren’t supposed to. The conversation moved from what I understood to be my Mom’s words, sometimes prefaced with “she says…” and sometimes a summarization of what my Mom was trying to communicate. I had spent most of my life feeling as if I was just outside of the circle, not blending in. So yes. Don’t you worry about that, the same words she had repeated throughout life as I expressed my concern. The right people will see you. I tear up.
Before sitting down to this meeting, I conferred on the wisdom of it with my sister. She too was living with the heartbreak of a mother gone too soon. Am I crazy? Should I try this? “Go for it. Mom always wanted to talk to a medium. I bet you will reach her.”
So here I was, nervous, sweaty and feeling like I must do this in secret. Even from myself.
Jane continues now with a description of my mother. She was a teacher? Yes. She created a program that helped many people be better teachers? Yes. She impacted many lives. Also yes. She was a mentor for many. Yes, all of this is true but also no secret. If you googled my Mom you would find this information. If you saw the memorial posts on her facebook page you would be moved to tears by how she inspired others. Has Jane the medium done this research? I didn’t ask. I hoped not. Your Mom thanks you and your siblings for teaching her how to be a good mom. A memory of a memory bubbles up in me. “When you were little Sharon you were trying to tell me something, you were so earnest and I was busy with this or that, and finally you shouted Mommy! and stomped your little foot. It stopped me in my tracks. I looked at you and realized I must listen, I must take the time to hear you. You taught me that when you were only three years old.”
Your mom knew how to reach people. Yes. Especially me.
Most of our initial conversation feels like a proof of concept. She was this, she did this, and the like. I patiently nod through this information, waiting for exchanges that feel more like conversation.
Why have you stopped writing? I pause. This was unexpected, direct. Jane asks me, have you stopped writing? I answer, feeling somehow exposed. Yes, I have. The clipped words coming from my mouth fall short of what I want to say, but with this question I begin to feel seen. She says the last thing you wrote was about her. Was it? Yes, it was a way to process her choices as she navigated the end of her life. But I can’t say that. I say only yes. Losing her was so hard, I was devastated, and angry, and at times what she did or said was impossible for me to understand. When I wrote about it, it drained the words from me. And I stopped writing. She says start again. She says it’s not like you to give up. Get back to work.
At this I start to cry. I cry because no one else has noticed that I stopped writing. And she noticed. I cry because I haven’t written anything in almost three years. Then she says, you should laugh more so I can see your beautiful smile. I pause, I laugh, don’t I? Grief is a companion of mine, and though its voice gets quieter with time, it remains. Do I laugh less? She says show them who you are. Who? Show who? She doesn’t say.
There is someone with your Mom, she has salt and pepper hair and she calls your mom a name that sounds like buh. I didn’t tell Jane that my mom’s name was Barbara. Barbara Jean. Barb. I say her name out loud for the first time in a long time. Barbara. I say it and it feels like it has weight, and meaning and I remember it is one of my favorite names. I flip through my mental rolodex of women who have died who fit the description of her companion. I respond tentatively, afraid that my input is what is driving this narrative. Could it be her Grandmother? Yes. She was there to help her cross over.
Cross over. I slide into another memory. Hospital room lights, my mom now rarely stirring. Time winding down. The world feeling so strange and out of control. Longing for her to wake up even once more, we play a recording of her favorite song. It only takes a few bars of the music for her to open her eyes. She looks around confusedly and I get the distinct feeling that we have interrupted her on her way to somewhere else, that we have selfishly tapped her on the shoulder when we should have let her keep walking. I feel like it was the wrong thing to do.
She tells me that they spend a lot of time together. They pal around.
And then it is the medium talking, but with information I have rarely shared. You weren’t supposed to be there. Be where, I ask. At the hospital. You weren’t there at the end. My cheeks burn hot. This is true, I couldn’t bring myself to watch my mother die. In the not-even-three-days that my mother spent in the hospital her face altered so much that I couldn’t bear it. Drawn and empty, almost unrecognizable. So difficult to look at, even now in my memories. More tears, and now the medium lets me in on a little known secret, “most people don’t want their families watching so closely as they die. It just makes it more difficult for them to let go.” I feel relieved-ish.
Now I ask a question. My words come out sounding unsure, but I don’t know who I am asking, the medium or my mother. Has she seen Ella? Seen how far she has come? Your mom is showing me equations. Math, science. Is Ella a scientist? She couldn’t know this, how could she know this? Yes. Ella desires to be a doctor, or a scientist. No need to worry about her, she has a goal in mind and she will achieve it. You also have a son? I do. Your mom describes him as reserved. He is. And handsome. And stylish! I laugh at that because he is. She wishes she could still squish his face. I pause. I see her, years ago saying “let me squish your face” to him, and kissing his soft cheeks. He is five or six and she has not yet been diagnosed with cancer. I had forgotten that. I have forgotten so much of the time before Ovarian Cancer.
My hour is closing. Are you happy? I mean is she happy?
Happy is a hard word. She feels she had more to do, that she left too soon. That she wishes she had more time. I believed this to hold the most truth of anything we said. But this is where we say goodbye. Not me and my mom, but me and the medium. That was a relief, I couldn’t wrap my head around the alternative. Not another goodbye.
The next morning I wake up with a palpable feeling of loss.
In the days after, my thoughts about the reading become hazy. I felt less confident about all of it, what I heard, what she said, what I believed. I feel shy to talk about it, and pressed to demonstrate its validity.
I casually bring it up with my kids: “I think if it helps you grieve, then yes, I support that. But for me, no.” These words from my very analytical yet compassionate seventeen year old daughter as I stumbled through asking would you ever, or do you happen to think that you could talk to someone who had died?
I admitted to having already spoken to the medium when I talked to my son. I felt compelled to preface my confession with a statement: going on the assumption that I believe this…I mean I want to believe this so badly…but let’s just go with I believe this…
Mom, he interrupted, I would do the same thing. I would try to talk to you, too.
It is in those words that I hear an echo of a conversation I had before with my own beloved mother, my heart swells and I am grateful. And I go on.
