A Piece of the Puzzle

The older you get, the more focused you become on the end part of your life rather than the beginning. Obviously that's because at that point more and more of your life is behind you rather than in front.

You want to know what to expect.

Death is a bitter pill to swallow. It's the one immutable fact we have in this existence, other than life itself. We know it's coming, we see it happen to loved ones and friends and acquaintances and strangers and yet for all our experiences with it we have no idea what it really is or what it really means. No one knows for sure if there's an afterlife, if our consciousness survives or if we just "wink out" light a burnt out lightbulb, our life force fading into total nothingness.

We struggle with these things because we not only wonder about our own fate, but about the fate of our loved ones. We wonder if they are OK, where they are, if they can see and hear us and interact. More generally, we wonder about what our own lives are supposed to be without them, and if somehow they share our sense of "apartness" and long for a reunion with us as we do with them.

It was with all this in mind that I attended my first session with a professional medium last month. I had heard of this person through acquaintances, but had hesitated going. I wasn't sure if I was ready to experience all the emotion that I knew flow out of this meeting. I was not sure what I would hear, or how I would react. Like all new experiences, it was fraught with emotional danger and fear. I had filed it under the "maybe" column and went on with my life.

But several odd anniversary convergences made me rethink this posture. On March 19 my mother had been gone for two years. On March 22, she would have turned 80 years old. On April 8th, my father had been gone for fifteen years and on March 22nd my mother's house had had an accepted offer on it. It just seemed as if the universe was telling me this was a good time.

I went in with no real expectations. I had hoped to somehow converse with or contact my mother, whose loss, if you are familiar with this blog, was absolutely devastating to me. But that was more of a hope than a real expectation. I know a good many people who have "crossed over", as they say, and if this woman truly had a gift, any number of them could have come through.

The session itself was a little over a half hour. The medium took me into a small upstairs bedroom of the host's house and gave me a quick outline of what she did. After that she began the reading. I guess the biggest surprise for me was the extent to which my recently deceased brother came through. In a thirty minute plus session, he (and at least someone I strongly perceived to be him) came through and communicated for at least 20 minutes. He related a lot of small details that seemed to indicate that this truly was "him" that was speaking to the medium. He also had at least one message to a family member that rang very true emotionally, and he had some observations about himself that also had the strong ring of truth to them. Not everything was crystal clear of course. There were a couple of things he mentioned that I still cannot connect to the real world; luckily I captured the session on audiotape so at least I can try to refresh my memory through that.

Later in the session, a man appeared to the medium that seemed to be someone I had worked with until they recently committed suicide. I was not close with this person, but knew him in a casual way and generally liked him. Again, some of the details provided seemed very "spot on" and I came away feeling that this could easily "be" this person.

Still later, a woman who I hope (and honestly feel) had to be my mother came through with some very positive messages for me. I wish she would have held the stage for longer, but apparently there were 19 people waiting for me and in order to "speak" she had to push her way to the front of the crowd. I appreciated that effort, and that determination, that awareness on her part of my need to hear from her, really helped to confirm her identity to me.

A man that I took to be my father also came forward with a message that I understood and that made sense knowing the history of our relationship. Another woman that I cannot yet identify also came through. As the session was drawing to a close, the medium asked me if I had any questions and, as I was becoming emotional at this point, I blurted out "Do you see any animals?" I had heard she could also communicate with deceased animals and I had lost several beloved pets over the years.

She did indeed talk about animals related to me, but it seemed as if she was keying on one that was still alive! She provided physical and personality details of my cat that were very accurate and, to be honest, humorous. Actually it was well timed as I was quite emotional from the previous contacts; I needed a bit of lightness right about then.

As the session ended, I was elated to feel that there was some kind of validation for my hope of being able to contact my family. I had gone into the session believing in the possibility (having seen many such session on television and read about them) of contacting the deceased, but being skeptical enough to realize that just because it was possible that SOME of these claims have validity they don't ALL necessarily have it. Providing even more verisimilitude for the day, as I exited the room and descended the stairs, I was greeted at the bottom by a cousin I had not seen or talked to in years, who had also recently lost a sibling. Our families had had a foolish falling out years before and there was little or no contact between us for a long time. But on that day we met and chatted and hugged and things seemed OK, at least to the extent of being able to smile and talk civilly. It was a start, at least; a thaw of sorts in the cold family war.

It had been a remarkable, thought provoking day.

As time has passed (about five weeks) since the session, I've reflected on what it meant to me and how I should process the experience. I told several friends and relatives about the experience. Most of them seemed to be happy that I felt good about it, but it was obvious that they were skeptical of the entire endeavor. I sensed some hesitation in many of their voices, bu thankfully, no judgment. It wouldn't have changed how I felt about things, but it's always nice to feel like people don't think you're insane or evil!

Regardless of the feelings of others though, I feel the experience was a positive one. Does any of it prove anything? I suppose not. Even if I come away from it convinced that it's possible to contact those that have passed (which I do), there are still many questions. Nothing is absolute or immutable. I still have many, many questions not only about what was revealed in the session but about the entire process and what it means. I've considered going back to ask some of these questions, and I still may, but one thing I have decided is that ultimately, such sessions are tools and not any kind of "final answer." My own personal truth has been that there ISN'T any experience or discipline that can provide such an answer; not religion, not science, not philsophy. The closest thing I can come to an "ultimate answer" is that living on earth entails NEVER knowing all the answers. The best that we can hope for are glimpses of the Eternal; some wonderful insight from a novel that seems to echo with our own experiences, a quiet moment of absolute perfection with our family or friends, or maybe some brief sign or connection to the next world. None of these things are in and of themselves "final answers" but pieces of the larger puzzle, the solution of which will not be visible in this life, but hopefully, the next one.