by DL Benning
She wrote to us at first. I remember one time they even came to visit us in Seneca. She brought my sister and me straw purses from Jamaica. I loved that purse, and it’s probably where my purse obsession started. I had so many good childhood memories of Aunt Mary. But the visits stopped, and then so did the letters.
My whole family missed her. None of us knew much about Fred or his family. Aunt Mary seemed happy, though, so we tried to be happy for her. Fred kept his distance from us, and eventually she did too.
The last ten years of her life were challenging. She had become a negative person, very angry and obsessed with the past. I would call every week and listen to her incessant complaints. I learned to find ways to divert her. I would talk about an early memory we shared or—my favorite diversion—ask what she was making for dinner.
Cooking was one of her favorite things to do. She cooked most nights, though I’m not sure how she did it. Neither her oven nor her stove worked, and the microwave was broken. All she had was a hot plate. She also loved going to the grocery store, but her Parkinson’s really limited her mobility. She could have kept moving, and I’m told it would have helped, but she was too tired and depressed. Fred would pick on her about not taking care of herself. Other times he would verbally attack her for no reason. For many years I kept quiet. But as the years progressed, I became more entwined in their daily lives. I started speaking up to him about how he was mistreating my aunt.
As I drove, I reflected on the last year. Aunt Mary and Uncle Fred were getting their days and nights mixed up. Their need for medical care became more pronounced. One day, she called to say she wanted to get better and requested that I find her a specialist. My sister used her influence to secure an appointment with the best Parkinson’s specialist in Chicago. But Fred didn’t want her to go.
The week before the appointment, Aunt Mary succumbed to Fred’s wrath and had me cancel the appointment. I was furious. How can someone say they want help and then decline when you get it for them? But in my heart, I knew it wasn’t she who had made that decision. It was Fred. He was controlling and emotionally abusive to her for many years. She simply lacked the will to stand up to him.
A few months later, she asked me to go with her to her regular neurologist. My sister wanted to join us. We decided to meet at Aunt Mary’s house so we could all ride together. No one was allowed in their house except me. My sister, who drove three hours to be there, had to wait outside. I was annoyed. What a terrible way to treat family!
When I went inside, Aunt Mary was distressed that she couldn’t get her socks on. She was a hot mess. I helped her finish dressing and combed her hair. I could feel her start to calm herself down. I had flashbacks of her combing my hair that way when I was a little girl.
I drove to the neurologist’s office with my aunt in the front seat. I knew she was nervous, so I held her hand all the way to the doctor’s office. My sister was in the back seat with Fred, trying to manage his ranting. He was griping about how Aunt Mary didn’t help herself by staying active and didn’t do what the doctor told her to do. As this was going on, I squeezed my aunt’s hand, smiled at her and whispered, “I love you.” Inside, I was wondering how she endured his constant criticism. After just twenty minutes, I was ready to abandon him on the side of the road.
We pulled up and unloaded the wheelchair for both her appointments that day, one with the neurologist and one with her general practitioner. The neurologist asked to speak with the nieces privately. This made my uncle angry. He tried to force himself into the exam room. The nurse, who was about six feet tall, physically blocked Uncle Fred from crossing the threshold.
The neurologist was kind and direct. He told us they had just been there the week before, so he was surprised to see us. My aunt sat in her wheelchair with her head down most of the time. The neurologist was candid with his concerns. He believed my uncle was abusive to Aunt Mary, mentally if not also physically. He added that my aunt was a “noncompliant patient,” failing to follow her doctors’ orders. With no cure for Parkinson’s, he told us, her condition would get progressively worse. Not any ray of hope. I was depressed for her. My sister and I exchanged sad glances. There was little more to be done.
After the appointment, we treated Aunt Mary and Uncle Fred to lunch at Burger King. For at least the last twenty years, Aunt Mary ordered the same meal at every restaurant. A fish sandwich, no tartar, ketchup. Fries. And coffee with lots of cream and sugar. Today was no different. She seemed to enjoy every bite.
When we left their house that day, I felt conflicted. I wanted to take my aunt with me so she would be out of this impossible situation. But I knew she would never leave Uncle Fred. Her generation of women stood by their men no matter what. She would say to me, “I know he is difficult, but there is a side of him nobody knows. He is sweet and kind and funny.” She was right about one thing: no one had ever seen that side of Uncle Fred.
Now, as I drove away from the nursing home, knowing I would never see my aunt again gave me mixed feelings. My aunt and I would talk on the phone several times a week. I knew I would miss those calls. While I would miss Aunt Mary, I was happy for her to finally be reunited with her mother, my father, and all her other relatives and friends in heaven. It was bittersweet. Knowing I could speak to her through my medium gift gave me peace.
I also remembered I had made her a promise the night before she died. I would take care of everything. Now I found myself wondering, Oh God! What have I done? I soon realized I’d had no idea the weight of my promise to Aunt Mary.
Between the daily calls from Fred and multiple visits to the nursing home each week, I was wearing down quickly. Fred would call to complain to me about everything. The staff was rude, the food was awful, and people were stealing from him. I would visit him often and take him back to his house for things he thought he needed. The doctors recommended he move to assisted living. He refused. He only wanted to go back to his own home. For two long years, we battled during nearly every visit. He wanted to go home and accused me of holding him hostage.
At the nursing home, though, he was considered a real catch. He dressed himself, didn’t need an oxygen tank, walked on his own, and could be very charming. He was always looking to help a damsel in distress.
In a short time, he began courting a lady friend. Her family accepted him quickly. I found out that this family had taken him out of the nursing home without my knowledge. There had been a mix-up at the nursing home, and they let this family take him out.
But it turned out that the family’s intentions were not good. They had also attempted to take over Fred’s bank accounts and gain his power of attorney. Fred even fired me as his power of attorney agent and then rehired me the same week. He didn’t remember having fired me. Dementia is a terrible disease.
During this time, Fred needed two surgeries: one for his prostate and one for his hip, which was injured in a fall. There were many follow-up medical visits. Each time, we would go back to his mother’s house, out to lunch, and then shopping for new clothes. There were even a few times I found him to be sweet, nice, and funny, just like my aunt had said. But those were few and far between.
After two years of looking after him, things had settled down. He realized the nursing home was now his home, and he was about as happy as he had ever been. I had gone from resenting him to really caring for him. I was entrusted with his care, and I took it very seriously. I wanted to make sure he received the best possible care. I would honor my promise to Aunt Mary, however difficult and draining it may be.
My husband was amazingly supportive. He endured a lot of extra stress and work. Neither of us could have imagined where this journey would be taking us. There were a few times I reached out to my family and Fred’s family for help, but no one wanted to get involved. Uncle Fred and Aunt Mary had burned bridges with both sides of the family. I was reaping what they had sown. We were on our own.
—Chapter 2—
There’s a Clairvoyant in Elmwood?
Since we were first dating, Sam and I had attended this event without fail. It was the first festival of the season for us. As we walked through the grounds, I always found great pieces of jewelry. We ate our way through the snack section—kettle corn, lemon shake ups, corndogs, and more. Every year, there were new exhibitors mixed in with perennial favorites. When I saw the familiar faces, it felt like a reunion with old friends.
As we made our way through the fair, I noticed a new exhibitor who displayed art pieces with inspirational quotes. There were decoupaged square canvases in a variety of sizes. I looked them over carefully until I found the one that spoke to me. It was a 5” x 5” canvas with multiple colors on a black background. It had individual letters of different sizes that spelled out “Be True to You.” Those words just sang to me.
While I was deciding which piece to purchase, the artist and I started talking. She was quite friendly, explaining her process and how she had started working with this type of art. When I reached for my debit card, a voice in the form of a thought popped into my head.
It said, “Ask her if she takes commission work.”
For the last thirteen years, I’d had thoughts like this one popping into my head. I always heard them in my voice, but they were rarely my own thoughts. They were intuitive messages from the Other Side. I have learned to trust them as divine messages of wisdom.
Following my intuition, I casually inquired if she ever took on commissioned work. She said she did from time to time and wondered what I was looking for. I smiled at myself. I did not actually know what I was looking for. But without another thought, I started describing my business to her.
I explained that three years earlier, I had created a business called The Purple Bridge. She seemed interested, so I kept talking. I told her my mission was to support communities of women creating “new normal” lives for themselves through wisdom circles. She wanted to know more.
“Where do these circles meet?” she asked. “How can I find out more about The Purple Bridge? And when is the next wisdom circle?”
I told her the schedule would be published soon and gave her my business card.
Then I told her about the poems I had written. I said I would like to recreate them into inspirational art pieces to give them out at the wisdom circles. I was surprised all this was coming out of my mouth. It was news to me, but it did sound like a cool idea.
“Are you a writer?” she asked.
I took a deep breath. “Yes, I write a blog on Facebook.”
“And you write these poems, too?”
“Yes,” I said. And before I could stop myself, I whispered quietly, “Actually, I channel them.”
She showed immediate interest. How did the channeling process work? How did I get started? What had I learned?
From behind me, I heard a very familiar response from Sam. “Oh boy,” he sighed. “I’m going to find a place to sit down.” He knew these conversations could take a long time. They happened to us a lot.
So, right there in the middle of the Elmwood Art Fair on a Sunday afternoon in early May, I was both brave and vulnerable. I candidly shared my channeling process of journaling to God to capture a daily message. Some people say universe or higher power, but for me, it is always God. Every day for a year, I was called to ask God the question, “What do I need to know today?” And every day, I would write down in my journal whatever came to me. They were not earth-shattering, life-changing messages, like the burning bush and Moses. The common themes were love, hope, joy, and peace.
There was a long pause. She looked at me curiously. I was feeling exposed, having just told a total stranger my secret. To my surprise, she did not back away nor rush me out of her booth.
Instead, she smiled at me and said, “That is so cool.”
In my head, I said to myself, It is? But I cleared my throat and said confidently, “It is.”
As she was wrapping up my art piece, she said, “Lynn, you absolutely need to meet the clairvoyant in town.”
I told her I had no clue there was a clairvoyant in Elmwood. The artist said, “You have to see her. She’s both a clairvoyant and a psychic.”
She promised to send me the contact information later that night. We hugged. I walked out of her booth toward Sam with a huge smile on my face. He smiled back and shook his head muttering, “Here we go again with the New Age stuff.”
I was so excited about and surprised by my encounter with the artist. I was proud of myself for speaking my truth—that I had openly acknowledged my gift of channeling. I was excited to learn there was another light worker in the area. Elmwood is a very conservative community, so it was surprising there was someone in town openly doing business as a clairvoyant and psychic.
A few days went by. I kept watching my email, hoping to get the contact information. As soon as the email came through, I called for an appointment. The clairvoyant’s name was Nina. She had a professional office space right next door to the yoga studio that Sam and I had been going to for years. I had been walking by it without knowing it! Unfortunately, Nina was booked for two months. Two months seemed like forever.
As the appointment time got closer, my excitement grew. I was curious as to what she might tell me and excited to find someone like myself to connect with. My appointment was the week of the Fourth of July holiday. I took the whole week off, a vacation from my sales job. I decided to try spending a week in the life of a fulltime light worker. I was curious to see what it would be like and whether I might enjoy being a professional medium. The week away from work proved to be a blessing.
My appointment with Nina was on a Tuesday morning. I arrived early, of course, and waited in the parking lot for my scheduled time. When I finally walked into her office, I found it very inviting. There was a note on the door saying she was in session, and to please make myself comfortable in the waiting area. Interesting artifacts decorated the waiting room: little angel statues, Native American artifacts, a variety of crystals, and several multicolored, metal tuning forks. I wondered what she did with those. The rest of the room looked like a typical doctor’s office—several chairs, a few end tables with magazines and Nina’s brochures. I was both excited and nervous. I didn’t have much of an agenda. I simply wanted to meet Nina and learn more about her process.
Soon the office door opened, and out came Nina. She was very attractive with dark blond, curly, shoulder-length hair, olive skin, and mesmerizing green eyes. She was dressed in jeans and a casual shirt—no muumuu, no costume turban. She looked modern and professional.
Nine invited me into her healing room. We exchanged a few minutes’ worth of small talk. I was talking very quickly and could hear the nervousness and excitement in my voice. So much for playing it cool! Then she asked what had brought me in to see her.
I confidently and clearly stated that I was a self-taught medium and an intuitive healer. Over the last few years, I had done many medium readings and energy healings for friends, family members, and strangers that I met through my inner circle. I surprised myself by being so open. She offered her professional support in helping me on my journey.
Nina moved our conversation in a new direction, reading to me the notes that she had channeled before I arrived. As she was reading from her paper, she said, “This is weird, I am tasting metal. That never happens.” She looked at me curiously and said, “Does that mean anything to you?” Then she said she was seeing bullets, three of them.
Without hesitation, I blurted out my father was murdered over thirty years ago. He was shot by his wife three times in the head.
She said matter-of-factly, “Oh, that explains it.” Nina assured me that my father was at peace no
w and confirmed that he is always with me.
I knew and admitted, “I see him more now than when I was growing up.”
Nina nodded. She slowly read the rest of her channeled notes. There was an elderly man in my care, she said, who was driving me crazy. She was right about that, although I wasn’t sure I should admit it to a total stranger.
She raised her eyebrows and said, “You know what you have to do, right? Right?”
I wasn’t expecting her question and didn’t quite know how to respond. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“The elderly man in your care committed a crime. You need to confront him, solve the crime with your medium skills, and then write a book about it,” she replied.
“What?” I started laughing. “No way am I doing that.”
“Yes, you are going to do it,” she said. “You have already agreed to it through a spiritual agreement with your uncle.”
Then she asked if I wanted him to die. Before I could answer, she told me that as soon as I confronted him on what he’d done, he would admit to his crimes and then pass away.
Okay, I thought shamelessly, that could work. Caring for him the last few years had been a real challenge.
Nina continued, telling me my uncle was afraid of going to hell. He was a Catholic, after all, and murder is a sin. She said I needed to buy a DNA kit and swab his cheek. After I swabbed him, she added, I should send it to the Ford Heights police department. His crime was a cold case file there, dating back to the 1950s.
I shook my head in disbelief. Wait, I thought. I didn’t tell her where he was from.
Suddenly, a woman from the Other Side appeared in the room as a spirit. She was wet and covered in mud. She told me my Uncle Fred was the man who killed her. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The room was starting to get distorted. My stomach lurched. I had heard voices for years but had never seen a spirit. I was starting to freak out. My human mind was ill equipped to process this new information.
