Today she called me up and said, “I’m sending you a link.” Princess Eugenie had just gotten married. She wore a wedding gown that exposed her upper back, clearly showing the scar from her scoliosis surgery.
In the interview, Eugenie said, “I want to give other people courage to know that there is good in doctors and hospitals—I’ve been cured. I want anyone out there to know that they can get the help they need.” Jessica was so relieved to see the article. It gave her a great deal of peace and strength for what lies ahead for her daughter. I thoroughly believe that this is the Holy Spirit working through this young princess. Whenever someone takes on a challenge simply in order to inspire courage in others, or reveals some truth about themselves simply to offer comfort to another, to me that is the work of the Holy Spirit, a.k.a. God. This is God’s work.
Chapter 9
AIR: Always in Reach
How much happier would we all be if we could understand that our loved ones who are no longer here with us in the flesh are still very much with us, all the time? Well, they are.
I’m not here to do a commercial for myself or other mediums, but I do think that’s why a lot of people want to have a reading, why I’m booked up far in advance, and why my shows are always full. People are really hungry to have this knowledge that those they’ve loved, who are no longer in the flesh, are still alive, that “dead” is not dead. As my chapter title gives away, I always tell people that their deceased loved ones are Always. In. Reach. AIR—they are literally in the air we breathe. (I have to confess that I stole this acronym from my very good friend, Ginger, whom I mentioned earlier. She is an incredible fount of spiritual wisdom and has taught me so much.)
So many of my clients are concerned about trying to figure it all out, trying to reach their loved one in the “right” way. While I’m doing the reading or chatting with them, they are busy writing down every word I say. They want to get it perfect—how to connect with God, how to connect with their deceased loved one. They ask, “Where are they?” Or they ask me if they are “doing it right” when they pray. I understand this. I’m supposedly the expert. But the truth is we’re all experts when it comes to those we love and who love us unconditionally. I love to tell them the truth: The right way to connect with the spirit of a loved one is to do whatever turns you on. Do what you feel comfortable doing. You can’t do it wrong. Nobody is judging. While our understanding of it may have been suppressed for a very long time, there is a natural connection between us here in material form and those in spirit form on the other side. And they are as eager to connect with you as you are to connect with them.
It’s really as easy as going for coffee with a friend or having dinner with a group. When you’re with friends you talk easily, right? Well, connecting with the spirit of someone who has crossed to the other side can be just as easy. Pray as if you are talking to a close friend, or just talk to the spirit you want to reach. I talk to my God Squad all the time. If I’m going to do something important that I have some concerns about, I might ask them to be with me, and just by asking, I know they will be there. It takes the pressure and worry off my mind. Your conversation or request can be out loud or simply a thought in your head. They can hear it either way.
I will repeat what I said in the last chapter: You need to be clear about your intentions and not send the other side a mixed message. If you really want some sign from your loved one, but at the same time are really afraid of anything like that happening, then it probably won’t happen. They do not want to scare you.
A client came to me very upset because her mother had passed away after being very sick. They had been very close and she’d hoped to have some sign from her mother that all was well with her on the other side. At the same time, she confessed to me that she was a little nervous about the possibility that someone who had passed on could contact her on this side. She was obviously conflicted, and that was having a negative effect on any ability her mother’s spirit might have to be able to get through to her. I said to her, “This is what you need to do. You need to tell your mother, ‘I am not afraid.’ And you have to mean it! If you show her that you are afraid to hear from her, she won’t reach out. The spirits are quite sensitive to our emotional state, and she won’t want to frighten you.” I added, “You can also say, ‘In the name of God, please show me a sign.’ Then keep your eyes, ears, and heart open. I feel confident that you will hear from your mother, or she will show you something to let you know she’s around.”
And as I’ve said many, many times, you need to be really paying attention for the signs! These can be something symbolic. Maybe there is an object that you connect with your loved one—you might see it in an unexpected place, or at a time that seems synchronistic. A sign could be numbers that you see repeatedly on a clock, for instance, or on a license plate or a street address. A sign could be something in nature—a bird, butterfly, a particular tree, flower, or rock—or something kooky that only you and your loved one would recognize as a sign—a particular cartoon character or a toothbrush of a particular color. It could be a song that was meaningful to both of you, or it can even be a scent, if your loved one wore a particular cologne or perfume or smoked a distinctive type of tobacco.
In the case of two women I read for last year, it was a symbol that was meaningful because of their country of origin. They were sisters, both so sweet. One of the sisters was blind. She was a wonderful, lovely mission entity—an advanced soul who is sent to be born on this side to accomplish a particular mission from God. She had such a beautiful and vibrant personality. During the session, the women told me that one of them had a son who married and bought a house, but he was very upset because his grandfather, whom he was close to, died before he could see the house. Apparently the grandfather was Irish, so the grandson had a big arrangement made in the shape of a four-leafed clover and sent to the funeral parlor. When he got to the funeral parlor, he told his family, “I’m disappointed—this didn’t come out the way I wanted it to come out, it’s not how I was picturing it. I’m just very disappointed.”
After the service and the repast they went back to the house, and he again expressed his disappointment that his grandfather had not gotten to see the house. They don’t know where it came from, or whose it was, but one of them happened to look down and saw on the floor a broken piece of ceramic that probably came from a dish. On the little piece were four-leafed clovers. So they understood this was a message from the grandfather: “Grandson, I do see your house. I am here. And I’m proud of you.”
On another occasion, a woman told me that her grandmother died and the family went to put her ashes at Barnegat Bay. There were eight family members, and they each got a flower from a flower shop. Unfortunately, the shop only had seven white carnations and one pink. So they gave the pink one to the little granddaughter. They went to Barnegat Bay, put the ashes in the water, and then put the flowers in one by one before driving back to their house, which was on the water but a good distance from Barnegat Bay. When they were all sitting outside their home, they saw one pink carnation floating on the water. There was no way the flower could have traveled the distance from where the grandmother’s ashes and the flowers had been put into the water. It could not have been the same pink carnation the little granddaughter had put in the water. But all were still amazed and considered this synchronicity a sign of acknowledgment from their grandmother.
I did a reading recently for a woman who started by saying that she had found my name in an unusual way and that she would tell me the details after our appointment. Here’s what she shared:
Her daughter was graduating from college, and she sent her husband out to get a bouquet of flowers they would give to their daughter at the ceremony. Her husband was never that crazy about roses and wanted to get his daughter something a little different, a mixed bouquet, but when he got to the florists there were only two bouquets on offer—all roses. Without giving it much thought, he said,
“Okay, I’ll take them both.” When he got home, my client asked him why he’d taken two and he simply said he didn’t know; it had been impulsive. When the couple got to the stadium, it was really full. They spotted two available seats and grabbed them, sitting down next to a woman whose daughter was also graduating. They chatted a little while they waited for the ceremony to begin, and the woman shared that her husband had passed away. She was feeling emotional about the event, wishing he was there to witness it. She also felt bad because she had been so rushed that she had not had time to get flowers for her daughter. The couple right away offered her their extra bouquet, since they had two. At first she demurred, but they insisted, and, as the husband handed over one of the bouquets of roses, one of the flowers began to drop its petals as if the bouquet was trickling raindrops of color.
At this point the woman gasped and said, “Oh my God!” She then proceeded to tell my client that she had been to see a psychic—one Concetta Bertoldi—about a year earlier, who had told her that her husband had said he would give her a sign that he was there. The sign would be rose petals dropping and scattering like trickling rain.
Another client told me that her mother had passed away when my client was very young. Then her father became ill, and it was clear that he would not be around much longer. My client spoke by phone with her father on her birthday, and he asked her if she had received the card he sent. She hadn’t; for whatever reason, the card had not arrived. For a time, whenever they spoke, he continued to ask, “Did you get the card yet?” but eventually they both gave up, just assuming it was forever lost in the mail. Then, four months before her next birthday, her dad passed away. On her birthday, the card he’d sent the previous year finally arrived in her mailbox.
I called on a woman who attended one of my shows recently in Fairfield, New Jersey. Her husband came through and said that there were some happy changes coming in her future. She started to cry and revealed that she’d just bought a new home and would be leaving the residence her husband had built for them. It was obviously an emotional move, and one that would be bittersweet for her. But her husband told her, “No matter where you go, I will go with you.” Then he told me to ask his wife about the gold. When he said this, I could see him holding out a cupped hand, like he was holding something in it, so when I did as he asked, I made that same gesture to his wife. With that, the woman got out her phone and opened her photos. Right there was a picture she’d taken just that week. She had found some gold coins in the basement and she’d taken a picture of the coins, held in her hand, in that exact same gesture! For him to mention the gold that she had found, and to be able to show me how she held it in her hand, gave her a ton of reassurance that this was indeed her husband. She felt comforted about the move—that it was really the right thing to do and that her husband would be with her, no matter where she was living.
Oftentimes, the youngest among us is the most aware of the other side. When I did a reading for Teresa Giudice of The Real Housewives of New Jersey after her mother passed, I told her that one of her children was very sensitive and was seeing her mother, and this was confirmed. Her daughter had told her that she was seeing her grandmother’s spirit. Another client had a four-year-old son whom she had put down for a nap, but he was crying and crying. She went to look in on him, but as she approached the door the crying had stopped, and, as she stepped into his room, she noticed he had his blanket pulled up over his head. She went to him and gently pulled down the blanket to see his face, which had a strange look on it. “What’s the matter?” she asked him.
He replied, “The lady told me I was all right, but I was afraid of her.”
“What lady?” she asked her son. “What did she look like?”
“She had blonde hair and was wearing a blue dress,” he said. “I was afraid of her because I could tell she was a ghost.” The woman was flabbergasted. Her son had described her mother, who was blonde, and in the only photo she still had of her, she wore a blue dress.
In yet another case, a husband and wife were at one of my shows, looking for their parents. As sometimes happens, both parents were talking at the same time from the other side. It’s really hard when two souls talk at once, but I was doing my best to follow and try to fit together who was saying what to whom as I heard from both. I knew the parents of this couple were trying to talk about their grandchildren. I said, “They’re talking about a grandson in particular who must be little.” The two nodded their heads. “They are telling me that this grandson has told you that he sees them.”
The father confirmed that, yes, the kid does say this. “He tells us he’s talking to his grandpa.” The little boy was telling them this, but they weren’t sure whether the boy was actually talking with his grandparents, or if he was hearing from the “wrong side.”
I said, “Let me see if I can help you, because the grandparents are doing a lot of talking and they are telling me that they are protectors for the grandchildren. I have no idea what this means, and I’m even hesitant to say it, but they are telling me something about zero. I don’t mean a big old circle, I mean the word zero. What are they talking about? Do you have any idea?”
They almost fell off their chairs. Apparently, when his grandparents were still alive, the little boy was going trick-or-treating on Halloween. The grandfather had said to him, “Why don’t you go out as Zorro?” The little boy didn’t know who Zorro was, so the grandfather had told him a number of stories about Zorro saving the day. And they made a costume for this little boy. He went out as Zorro, and that had become the grandfather’s pet name for the boy.
“Zorro” and “zero” were close enough that this couple gathered immediately what I was actually hearing. And it was clear that, not only were they hearing from their parents in this moment, but their son was having conversations with them, too!
I can’t overemphasize the importance of paying attention and watching for the spirits. They want us to believe in them, to know that they are real and that they are there. If you are skeptical they will still try to reach you, but of course it’s going to be harder for them. You just won’t be open to the signs they are sending—you’ll be setting a high bar and asking them to jump over it.
I did a benefit show for the Boys and Girls Club. There was an older man there with his granddaughter. I was talking with the granddaughter and learned there was a grandson who had died very young. I said to the grandfather, “I know you didn’t want to come here today because you don’t believe in what I do.” He was very nice, and very kind, even as he openly stated that he was a skeptic. But then I started to tell him things about the grandson, and I could see that he was resonating with the things I brought up. Then I told him that the grandson was showing me an animal, a giraffe. The grandfather got all emotional and started crying.
The granddaughter said, “It’s in his pocket.” And he pulled out of his pocket a little stuffed animal, a giraffe. The granddaughter said that, as they were getting ready to go, he told her that he really didn’t believe in anything psychic, but if I mentioned the giraffe then he would know that it was real.
I’m a little nervous telling this story here, to be honest, because it doesn’t always work out that I mention the thing that a person intends to be their “sure sign of proof.” I don’t want to discourage anyone, and I also don’t want to encourage people to come to my show with all kinds of things in the pockets and purses—like on the old TV show, Let’s Make A Deal, when Monty Hall used to say, “I’ll give one hundred dollars to the first person who shows me they have a hard-boiled egg in their purse!”
Sometimes it happens—I may mention a piece of jewelry, for example, that the spirit is showing to me and the person I’m reading for will say, “Yes, that’s right. I’m wearing my mother’s ring,” or “Yes, I have my dad’s wallet in my pocket.” But sometimes I’ll be doing a reading and the person they are looking for isn’t the one who comes through. It’ll be someone else who
m the person knows and can confirm, or the one they are looking for comes through with lots of other souls all clamoring to get a word in. While the individual I’m reading can confirm that they know these souls and that their messages are accurate, they might not get the exact confirmation that they tried to set up before coming.
I’m always asked, and I’m grateful to report that yes, the pets we’ve lost are also safe and sound on the other side. They are not gone forever—every creature created by God goes back to God when it dies. They are all waiting for us, along with the rest of our family members, when we get to the other side, and meanwhile, they are looking out for us.
My friend Debbie had two long-haired dachshunds that she loved with her whole heart, Max and Mimi. Her bond with Mimi surpassed any connection she’d had with any other pets in her life. Debbie would say that she could communicate with Mimi just by looking into her eyes. Mimi just got her. Max was the older of her two dogs, but Mimi had gotten sick and had had a large mass removed. Even after the surgery, the prognosis was not good. Before long, Debbie was forced to take Mimi to the emergency hospital in the middle of the night and have her put down. It was the first time she’d ever had to do that with a pet, and it really tore her up. Debbie was devastated; she’d loved that dog completely. She said it was brutal putting her down but knew it was the right thing to do to keep Mimi from suffering. She went home a mess, knowing how sad it would be for Max and for herself to go on after all the years they’d been together.
At the same time, Debbie’s dad needed looking after, since he’d just had a triple bypass. So Debbie was really being hit from both sides, worried about her dad and sad about her pet. She prayed that she would get some sort of sign that Mimi was in the light on the other side and okay.
I Kissed a Ghost (and I Liked It) Page 11
