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I sat with my arms folded, averting her eyes. Yes, because I was cold but also because I was not trying to get her attention. If she couldn’t see me, she couldn’t talk to me. If she talked to me, it might make it real. And if it was real, she was really gone.
The date was December 14, 2018. I sat in a boutique shop with my daughter on a sofa that was reminiscent of something you might find in a bridal store waiting room; think very velvet, wooden and curvy. I hadn’t been too many places in the last ten days, mostly because I was rundown and sick, and also because since my mother’s passing on the 5th, I felt like an exposed nerve, a turtle without its shell everywhere I went. I was deeply lost in grief and still recovering from the whirlwind that had been the now 7 weeks previous.
Yet on this Friday night, we ventured out for this event at the boutique on the very velvet sofa. I had spied this event on Facebook and decided we should attend. It was a platform reading with a local Medium. Although I had been studying in this arena for a while, I wanted to see someone who didn’t know me, who wouldn’t know that my mother, who was also my best friend, had just died.
I still had a cough, probably not much of a voice and probably wasn’t ready for human interaction. Until that night, I had never attended an event like this where I didn’t try to stand out. Generally, I would love to receive a message from Spirit at such an event so even I was surprised when I tried to forcibly wedge myself into the couch cushion to escape this. Why didn’t I see this coming? Hadn’t all I wanted in the last ten days was my mom? Now this woman in front of me might be able to connect me to her and yet I wanted nothing more than to escape and run out of the building.
What was going on?
It was too soon.
Yes, I knew she was really dead. I watched her body deteriorate before my eyes starting on October 26, the first day I arrived at her hospital room in Orlando. That was also a Friday and by Sunday, she was almost unable to carry on a clear conversation and she definitely couldn’t walk without great assistance. This thing that took my mother moved very fast, very deliberately and without any regard for what she or the rest of us may have needed.
Yes, I saw her after she died in her bed at Hospice that early morning of December 5 just ten days earlier. It was a Wednesday if you are keeping track. My mother loved to recite that days of the week poem to me as a child.
“Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace, Wednesday’s child is full of woe, Thursday’s child has far to go…”
I was born on a Thursday and no doubt have I travelled many distances. Mom was born on a Wednesday but on that particular Wednesday, it was I who was most definitely full of woe.
I knew she was gone. No one was fooled by the wake and the throngs of people who attended, or by her funeral on that cold Saturday morning, icy and blustery with the wind right off the lake. Somehow my brother and I managed the courage to stand in front of that church full of people, standing room only even (she would be so proud) and recite our eulogies and final thoughts. When I sat back down in the pew after my speech, my heart was beating out of my chest, my breath shallow and rapid, and I was most likely sweating on that cold December morning. My brother grabbed my knee firmly and just said, “BREATHE” and so I did.
I read a poem, I shared my love for her, and I ended by saying, “This isn’t goodbye Momma, it is just see you later.” That’s what the Medium in me wanted to believe, but the rawness of that activity, nearly three years later is still so fresh I try not to think of it if I can help it.
Why am I sharing this with you?
People very often want to connect with their recently passed loved ones, some even the moments or days immediately following their death. I will not be the one to make that connection for you, not yet anyway. Through discussion with some other Mediums and in books by well-known Mediums there is the suggestion the soul of the loved one is transitioning, and they may not be able to connect, or they may not know how to do it yet, they are healing, whatever the case may be. There is a lot of emphasis put upon the spirit person that they might not be able to connect yet. And as I see it, that may well be the case sometimes.
For me, I don’t think the remaining loved ones are able to handle it, despite what they may think, and I don’t want to be the one that throws them deeper in to their pain and grief cycle. In my experience, it doesn’t lead to healing or even deeper understanding because the whole process is just too fresh to process. Our physical body and emotional states often have not caught up with each other. Again, these are my opinions and how I manage this situation. You might find another Medium who is more than happy to try and reach out to your loved one. And you may also find yourself wishing you could disappear into a very velvet couch during the process. In my humble opinion, it is best to wait until you are in a better state of mind than you might be in the first days and weeks of your loved ones passing to try and connect.
As always, I only offer my recommendation and you are free to do what feels right for you.
That Medium did come to me with messages that night. Not from my mom thankfully, but from my dad who told me to go home and put up my Christmas tree. It was still Christmas and I still needed to make a holiday for my family. He had everything under control on his end and I didn’t need to worry. I was icy with fear when she approached me, as it appears my body and my brain were not yet on the same page regarding my mom’s passing. This was traumatizing to an already taxed human body and definitely made me feel worse instead of better.
There is no “time” as we know it on the other side, so really, they are never gone from our side. To make the most of your time with a Medium, wait until you are ready. If you wait for a bit, you will likely get a more robust reading with more information that you can process and handle and ultimately integrate into your healing process. And always remember, love never dies and you are never alone. xoxo