I’m talking to you, fellow grievers and seekers.

I’m going to speak to the early grief of child loss, because that’s what I have personal experience with, and that’s what changed my life’s direction. This can pertain to the death of any loved one—your soul partners, a parent, spouse, sibling, or friend. Anyone you loved.

When my son died, there was a physical and existential pain that took over. If you are a bereaved parent or anyone in grief, I’m sure you will understand. I could not accept my reality without my seven-year-old son, Calder. Part of that pain is the deep groove created in the brain when you become a parent, the road that stretches ahead with possibilities and plans and joy. The dead-end is not something I considered, especially because my son was so young.

I did not consider a Sandy Hook or Parkland, but I was aware enough to choose an elementary school that was built like a bunker. I did not consider cancer in a young body, a brain tumor, suicide, fentanyl, a distracted driver, a barge running over children at sailing camp or even a hazing incident at a prestigious college. Those were fleeting thoughts or stories depicted on the news, but not something that I deeply considered as a possibility for our family.

I did worry about whether I was a good enough mother, up for the task of shaping both of the young boys who came out of my body into the big, scary world. I did not consider death. Maybe that is for the best. I focused on what parents should focus on: an amazing kindergarten teacher (shout out Ms. Betsy!), getting some vegetables into their little mouths, and how many balloons could fit in my SUV for every birthday. We are big on balloons.

When death came, it was sudden. It was literally in our backyard. An electrical accident. It tore me apart like a savage animal gutting their prey. I could not find a way out of the relentless pain of grieving my child. I did not go looking for Calder, because I thought he was gone forever—that this wretched life would continue in darkness until I joined him. How does a reading with a good medium change something that intense?

A good reading will open up new possibilities. Have you ever been with an inconsolable baby when he’s red in the face, can’t stop crying, and can’t express himself? Blow into that baby’s face—one short burst of breath like you’re blowing out a candle. That single blast of air surprises him out of the cycle. The unexpected jolt changes the direction completely, and the crying stops.

When I experienced my first in-person reading from a medium, it was in a group setting, what mediums refer to as a “gallery,” and it was at a medium convention that I had infiltrated to see if this world was real or if they were just a bunch of shysters trying to scam people. Oh boy, was I the ultimate skeptic—but also desperate for a new prospect, for something to focus on other than the life I was trudging through like a zombie, torn between grief and raising the beautiful and dynamic little brother Calder left behind.

What I found was a group of spiritually minded people from all different backgrounds who considered mediumship a sacred practice. I wish I had the presence of mind to have recorded that first experience, but my memory is as clear as if it happened yesterday: The medium, who had never laid eyes on me, started describing a young boy, the first and only child that had come through during the three-day event. Then he said my son’s Hebrew name. I fell apart. I had been crying for months, but this was something more—they were also tears of relief.

When I returned home, I was still in deep grief, but there was an internal light shining new prospects into my consciousness. The mediums I met were regular people who were meditators and healers, humble and reverent. They treated me lovingly, even though I had been sneaky and caused a scene. They treated their skill with honor and integrity. The most important words I heard were, “Do no harm.” I discovered in my research and extensive reading that many well-known mediums have also had their brains scanned by scientists at the Monroe Institute during readings, to see which part of their brains were at work while they connected to a different frequency—scientific validation of expanded consciousness.

A medium connection does not completely heal your grief, but I metaphorically had a big breath blown into my face, and it changed my trajectory from constant crying to a thirst for answers and more experiences with Calder. Did my change in belief systems happen overnight? No, but the seed was planted. I still cried, but the consistency started to lessen. Whether I could admit it to myself or not, I wanted the experience with mediums to be real, and now I knew it was, and I wanted to talk about it with anyone who would listen.

You may be skeptical like I was, but it’s best to go into a reading with an open mind and heart. You can have a friend make the appointment for you if your cynical side wants to make sure a medium doesn’t research you in advance, but guess what? True mediums don’t have time for shenanigans like that, and the less information they have about your loved one in spirit, the better the reading goes. If you go into a reading saying to yourself something like, “If they don’t say my loved one’s name, I’ll know this is fake,” that sets everyone up for a negative experience.

It’s similar to the old adage, “If you set yourself up for failure, you will fail.” If you expect to be disappointed, you just may be, though those who love us in the spirit world want you to have a good experience. I wasn’t sure what I believed when I was sitting in a gallery of strangers secretly hoping my son would come with a message, but he knew what I needed. If you’re open-minded, the medium can deliver evidence that resonates with such clarity, it will leave you with the certainty that your loved one delivered the information for you. You heard it and can feel the love run through you with goosebumps.

I wasn’t satisfied with just receiving readings for myself; I decided I wanted to learn to be a medium for others. I thought, “If I can do that, then I will truly believe.” So I did. It wasn’t quick, and it was not easy to release my own self-doubt about how I could possibly deliver messages. I studied for years, and now I do give readings for strangers on VerySoul and for people in my community.

I was also encouraged by my mentor Rosie Cepero, a true healer in her heart and a high vibration that you can feel when you meet her. She has all the gifts of a born medium with a particularly attuned clairaudience, and you better believe that if she says she “heard it,” whatever she heard is true. We were recently talking about a trip she took to Florida years after she first met Calder in spirit. We made a plan to meet for breakfast at a spot overlooking the ocean. When we were finished, our plates had not been cleared, so we pushed them towards the middle of the table. She was saying something about Calder, and the silverware on the plate in front of her moved. There was no truck rumbling down the street or any explanation for the metal utensils to move on her plate. It was as if he were saying, “I’m right here!” Our loved ones can manipulate the electromagnetic field, and metal objects seem to be something they can move easily, like a coin in your path. When that silverware shifted on her plate, we both stopped talking and burst into laughter. She encouraged me to open up to doing readings myself, and it was reassuring to have her faith and support.

One of my favorite moments from a reading was when I received the image of the childhood game “got your nose” in my mind’s eye—you know, when someone grabs your nose and pretends to hold it? I said, “I keep seeing the game ‘got your nose.’”

The woman laughed; it was more specific than the game. She had to have surgery on her nose, and now it looked exactly like her loved one’s nose had looked. They led me to say, “Got your nose,” and it resonated, because there was a long-running joke between them that she had literally gotten their nose. Our loved ones in spirit retain their sense of humor and use it whenever they can.

Another time, a loved one made me aware that they were leaving feathers for the person sitting across from me on Zoom. The loved one in spirit drew my eye to a specific turkey feather in my office and gave me the feeling she was sending them as messages to my sitter. When I showed it to the recipient, they bent down and held up a handful of identical turkey feathers. These are the magic moments we all hope for, and as mediums, we are doing our best to translate the information so that this happens.

That doesn’t mean it always works. On occasion, you can go to a medium who is unable to connect that day for a multitude of reasons. Maybe they are having a bad day or not feeling well, or for reasons beyond our knowledge, perhaps your loved one’s energy and the medium’s just don’t mesh at that time. It’s a bummer for everyone when this happens, and an honest medium will refund your money. However, you can take steps to have an amazing reading. Talk to your loved one in your head or out loud before the reading. Listen to music that lifts your energy and cultivate a positive attitude.

Sometimes, the first person to come through in a one-on-one reading is not the person you expected, so you don’t understand all the information that you receive until afterward. Most likely, you will be driving or in the shower or maybe even waking from sleep when the realization comes to you. You’ll be able to go back and listen to the recording to confirm it.

That person you didn’t recognize could be the warm-up act, the loved one who shows up because they also love you and want you to know they are present, but it’s more intelligent than that. That person is coming through so you have an opportunity to understand the experience. It could be someone you hadn’t thought of in ages, but before the reading, you found a photo of them or an old letter. The warm-up act could also be lending their energy to the headliner—the person you really, really want to hear from. That happened to me once, and I believe the person who showed up before Calder was showing me how it all worked, so when Calder came through, I was more equipped to understand the process and believe.

One thing I have learned in my years of studying mediumship and receiving readings is that no experience is ever the same. No medium is the same, and none of our loved ones are the same. Some folks sound similar, so there may be occasions when more than one person in a gallery believes the medium is speaking to them, but there will be a piece of information that differentiates your loved one from the person sitting next to you. The thing they have in common is that they all come to deliver messages of love because they want you to know they are not gone. They are right here loving you and will be waiting for you when it’s time for you to join the ultimate after-party.

To pursue your own meaningful, believable reading experience, check with organizations like Helping Parents Heal and the Forever Family Foundation, who have vetted mediums from all over the world. You might also consider VerySoul.com, an amazing platform where you can connect with a certified medium and the first reading is free, because creator Sally Hawk believes that everyone deserves a connection, even if they cannot afford it.

Grief is a lifetime of ups and downs. You will learn how to integrate it into your life in your own time and in your own way. I’m an enthusiast for allowing yourself to be open to the possibilities. Signs, dreams, and readings are all ways to feel more connected to your loved ones. Once you have an experience and believe, the more synchronicities and messages you will receive. Here’s to opening the door.

Subscribe now

I immediately noted it was interesting that this conversation was happening just a couple of weeks after my aunt called about the activity in her home, including a cantankerous cardinal outside her window. (If you missed that story, you can read it here.) That was a first for me, and this was the second. Jenn and Michael had never reported anything unusual about their apartment before.

They’re a cool couple with a distinct shared style that leans heavily into the gothic and macabre. Jenn has a flare for dramatic make-up, a modern asymmetrical haircut with a stripe of gray running through her dark base, huge doe eyes, and a penchant for rats as pets. Michael is artfully covered in piercings and tattoos—to such a degree that his appearance might be nerve-racking to a less than open-minded parent or Gen X-er like myself—but as we all know, we should not judge a book by its cover. From my distant view on social media, he is a kind, nurturing soul who makes Jenn happy and puts together a wicked charcuterie board. They live in an apartment on the west coast, meticulously decorated with crosses, coffins, and Ouija boards, as well as Michael’s huge collection of horror-themed action figures. Jenn is open to talking about signs and messages from our loved ones on the other side, because she has a spiritual practice of her own. So when what could only be described as paranormal activities started to happen in their home, they were more curious than afraid.

She started to describe the small things that were happening: Jenn woke up one day to discover that the back of her earring went missing in the night. She assumed it had simply fallen off and didn’t give it another thought until a week later, when she was rearranging some décor at the top of a very tall bookshelf—a spot she could only reach by climbing a ladder. There, she found the back of her earring. It didn’t make sense. There was no way it could have fallen upward, and Michael confirmed he hadn’t placed it there. (Why would he?)

They also noticed framed art pieces on the walls repeatedly being skewed—hung high enough that they were difficult to reach and impossible to have been accidentally bumped by either of them. Again, they didn’t think much about any of this. Then one morning, they woke to find Michael’s Crypt Keeper figurine hanging off the edge of the shelf by its toes.

Now, things were getting a little weird, because Michael is extremely particular about keeping his collectibles pristine and staged in specific positions. The Crypt Keeper always stands at the back of the shelf, facing forward, and somehow, while the couple slept, he’d flipped forward, perfectly balanced on his toes without knocking the other figurines over or falling off. These strange occurrences were adding up to be more than coincidences, and that’s when Jenn decided to ask me what I thought.

We live in different cities, and I have never been to visit. My first instinct was that they had purchased some used Ouija boards from a flea market or antique store and had been messing around with them. “Interesting,” she said. They did have some Ouija boards, and we thought that could be the culprit. In my experience, Ouija boards aren’t toys. They can tap into situations you don’t want or need to mess with—and I’m not talking about slumber parties in elementary school. Robert Painley, a friend and seasoned medium, shared a story with me about a frightened young woman who hired him to get rid of a less-than-friendly visitor in her home. When he questioned her to see where this invisible visitor may have come from, she admitted to being in contact with someone on her Ouija board, and now he would not leave. For those of you who worry about harmful ghosts or troublemakers from the other side, it’s like walking down a dark alley alone at night: do not do it. Do not invite trouble, and do not engage with a Ouija board.

Michael was in the room listening in on our conversation, and he noted that their Ouija boards were all new in the original boxes—never used and more for décor than for summoning spirits. Okay, so that was not the culprit this time, which was good. I asked them if they had recently purchased anything from an antique store or flea market. It felt like they had brought someone into their home and were unaware this had happened until their visitor started moving things around to get their attention.

Suddenly, Jenn lit up. She said she had recently purchased an antique framed photograph of a woman named Fidelia Congdon. Jenn had been drawn to the photograph because it was framed and had the woman’s name on the back, saying she was a grandmother who had died in 1883 in Worcester, Massachusetts, at the age of 79.

Jenn explained, “When I picked up the frame at the antique market, I just really liked that her name and info were on the back. I thought, ‘This was a real person, and we can remember her. She can stay with us.’ Since the activity started, the vibe has been good. It’s not scary or foreboding—more friendly, playful.”

This was the source of all the activity for sure, because I received chills as confirmation, and Jenn felt we were on the right track, as well. What Jenn may not have realized was that she had not only purchased this framed photo of Fidelia, but also sent her an enthusiastic telepathic message that she was welcome here. How is it possible that Fidelia received this message?

We are all energetic beings living in physical bodies. Even our heart’s energy can be detected three feet away from the body, according to the HeartMath Institute. (I love this fact because it explains how we can literally feel the love from someone if we are within three feet of them.) Once we die, that energy doesn’t disappear:

According to the first law of thermodynamics, energy cannot be created or destroyed in any ordinary physical process. This principle, known as the conservation of energy, is one of the most rigorously tested ideas in all of science. energy can only transformed from one form to another.

In the greater scheme of life, Fidelia had not died that long ago, and her energy and personality were clearly still around, especially now that she had been “summoned.”

I asked if they were talking to Fidelia while she was visiting: “Yes! We both warmly talk to her/refer to her every once in a while, now. We also looked up her info, and she was just a normal mom who lived an extraordinarily long life for the time.”

Jenn found out that Fidelia’s husband, Joshua Congdon, was a boot maker, which was a common trade in Worcester at that time. The handwritten note on the back of her photograph was most likely written by her granddaughter, Stella Chapman. The thing that stood out to me was that whoever later typed the label for the back, which I’m assuming was an estate sale company or antique store, wrote Steller’s grandmother which I misread as, ‘a stellar grandmother.’ I have a strong feeling she was a wonderful grandmother, and that’s why her granddaughter wanted to preserve her name along with her own. In the 1800s, this was also the way family records were maintained, along with religious records and newspaper obituaries, which for the most part are not uploaded to the internet but can be researched through local newspaper offices or in this case, Worcester city records.

We were satisfied we had solved the mystery of the moving objects and were in agreement that Fidelia was making herself known and seemed to be harmless—maybe even helpful.

Jenn emailed me a week or so later and said they had taken to asking Fidelia to help them locate missing items.

“The other night, Michael thought he’d lost a Vivienne Westwood ring he’d just bought. As he was leaving for work, we playfully asked Fidelia if she could help us find it. Just a couple minutes later, it fell out of the pocket of his jacket hanging in the closet across the room.”

That is a very friendly and useful ghost, and the story did not end there:

“I recently bought a silly pair of punk-rock rat slippers, and the rat heads have funny little nose rings. One of the nose rings went missing, and I later found it in my jewelry tray on the bathroom shelf. I assumed Michael must have found and put it there for me. This was well before we started noticing the other Fidelia-related occurrences, so I didn’t think much of it and just stuck it back on the slipper. (Michael has since confirmed it wasn’t him who put it in the tray. Thanks, Fidelia!)”

“Then, I asked if Fidelia could do something else as a sign this was all really her—something impossible. About a week after asking, I opened the sliding mirror door of our bedroom closet and heard a crunching sound. I bent down to find the nose ring from the rat slipper caught in the bottom track of the closet.

I just assumed it fell off again and went to put it back on the slipper, but both nose rings were still on the slippers. This was a third one—a perfect match to the other two, too big and distinctly different from any of the piercings Michael and I wear, obviously the same one made specifically for those slippers. It makes no sense. We can’t think of any other explanation for where it came from.”

This is one of my favorite and rare occurrences from friends and loved ones on the other side. What Jenn is describing is called an apport.

Apport: to produce (a material object) at a spiritualist séance without any apparent spiritual means.

You may be familiar with the idea from the 1999 movie The Sixth Sense. In that movie, the little boy gets into trouble for moving a pair of earrings, but we find out he was not doing it. His dead grandmother kept moving the earrings. Where did the term apport come from? In early Spiritualism, mediums would sit in circles for hours, meditating and singing to bring forth an object from thin air—an apport. I have heard that coins and metal objects are more easily transported. Interestingly, Fidelia, lived about five hours away from the birthplace of Spiritualism, which is Hydesville, New York. Her lifetime paralleled the movement in America. The Fox sisters were mediums who played an important role in the creation of Spiritualism, and while we couldn’t find any direct links between Fidelia and the Fox sisters, it is interesting that they came from the same time period.

Even though Fidelia did not participate in Spiritualism beliefs or practices (that we know of), once she left her body, she was able to access the information that led to this ability to create an apport. It is my understanding that once we have left our bodies, we can access all information, much like the Internet, only infinitely larger, because the vast universe contains not only facts, but also every thought anyone has had pass through their minds.

That is to say, once we leave the earthly plane, we can tap into abilities we may have never considered, like making a silver ring appear seemingly out of nowhere, and then crunch—you find it on your closet floor.

Here is the most recent Fidelia update:

“We have a boxed set of Alfred Hitchcock DVDs on a shelf. It doesn’t open easily (you have to really tug it), and the other day, we found it open with just a single DVD in the boxed set pulled almost all the way out, but not enough to fall.”

“One of the movies is called Family Plot, and I wonder if I should try to find where she’s buried. I’ve started researching, but haven’t found a definitive answer—yet!”

Usually, when you have an intuition, that’s the path you should follow. Just for fun, I looked up the movie, because I had never heard of it, and the synopsis is:

A charismatic but unreliable psychic team, Blanche and George, are hired to find a missing nephew, embarking on a potentially very profitable case. Their search for Arthur leads them to San Francisco, where they uncover a complex and dangerous situation involving deception, theft, and murder. As they investigate, they find themselves entangled in a web of secrets and facing considerable risk.

My experience with messages like this one is that people communicating from the other side are intelligent and efficient. They use something like a movie to give you as much information as possible in a single clue. For example, I was doing a reading for someone, and her grandmother came through showing me an image of the television show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It turned out that not only did her grandmother match the main character’s physical description, but she had also grown up in New York during the time period in which the show was set. Pretty cool, right?

It’s up to my friends on the West Coast if they want to continue down this path and become investigators of an extremely cold case. Apparently, Fidelia wants to tell them something that is important to her. I’m sure Jenn will share more with us as the story unfolds.

Subscribe now

I haven’t had a hangover in years, because I cannot drink any longer. Sigh. I was a young party animal who turned into an emotional drinker after my son died. Then, one day, I woke up and could not drink a drop, partly because I knew it was clouding my connection with my son in spirit and mostly because when you learn to listen to your body, it tells you things. The thing my liver was screaming was, “No more brown liquor for you,” a little like the soup Nazi on Seinfeld, so I thought I would switch to white wine. No go. Crap. Now, I must face life with nothing but M&Ms in my pockets and chocolate kisses in my desk drawer.

It’s my 13^th Mother’s Day without my firstborn son. I got to share 7 years and 7 months with him, and still these milestones stay in my body, grains of sand irritating me like tiny harbingers of misery. I have worked hard to integrate grief into my life, but somehow, I’m still surprised by the sneaky, subtle ways sadness shows up. I know the catch phrase: you had to feel to heal, which I believe, but adding anticipatory grief to the mix made my sadness return to anger. Damnit. This Mother’s Day hit me hard not only because of my eldest son, with whom I have developed a new exhilarating relationship, but also because my mother’s Alzheimer’s is worsening.

****Calder and my Mom:

My father was in the hospital for weeks, which threw her routine—and everyone else’s—completely off. My 81-year-old father developed hospital delirium, and my mother can no longer read a calendar, or if she does, she scratches off the day before it’s over, which then launches her into tomorrow. Until this interruption in everyone’s regular schedule, we had not known how far my mother’s Alzheimer’s had progressed. On this Mother’s Day, I showed up with coffee, flowers, and pastries only to find my mother on her back on the sofa. Her back hurt, because she had stopped sleeping in the bed and now slept on the sofa waiting for my father to return home, even though we have calendared his return and talked it through multiple times a day. She only sleeps a few hours a night, which I monitor with a camera inside the condo, and of course, lack of sleep makes everything worse. If I am not here to make sure she takes her bedtime meds and she misses a dose, she can end up on the floor of the bathroom vomiting.

My husband and I had made plans to take her out to dinner with his family, who were in town to see our younger son in a musical production, but she didn’t want to participate in Mother’s Day this year. The act of getting dressed and getting her “face on” felt like too much; she said she just wanted to rest. It has been a lot of running back and forth to the hospital, and now that my father is in rehab, she still wakes up thinking he is in the hospital getting a “procedure” and tips into worry. I encouraged her to get dressed so we could all go out for a meal, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. The hardest part of this stage of Alzheimer’s is that she knows she’s forgetting things, so she’s frustrated and embarrassed that she can’t remember and confused about what she can remember, thinking she is still the same person she has always been. So when I ask if she took her medicine I left on the counter, she gets quite insulted that I would ask such a ridiculous question. “I have been taking my medicine for years,” she tells me.

She is the one who has taken care of my father since they met in their early 20s, after one of his pacemaker repairs. My father has had a pacemaker since he was 17, which makes him one of the earliest pediatric recipients. My mom worked in the hospital and became the parent whisperer to emotional parents who brought their infants in for pediatric surgery. Little babies having their chests broken open for repair would send any parent into a breakdown. My mom can comfort anyone. The doctors were my parents’ matchmakers and put my mother in charge of keeping my father alive. It sounded like a lot of pressure to me, but she happily took on the role. That’s a good thing, because otherwise I wouldn’t be here.

Mom has had the strongest relationship with my sons since they were born, standing guard at the hospital nursery after Calder’s arrival while they sewed me up from my disastrous C-section. She wanted to make sure no one switched my little incubated newborn with a little stranger—well, not so little. He was a giant 8 pounds 8 ounces for my five-foot frame, but of course, those aren’t the days I remember most. The ones that shine through are the hilarious childhood days, the toddler days, the learning days when he looked at what the adults were doing and reminded us to choose joy and laughter. My Mom was with us in the early days, swaddling, changing diapers, and becoming my hero all over again. She still remembers those days fondly, too.

Our emotions are visitors that come and go. Monday morning, I woke up to a new day, and like most hangovers, this one passed too. When I went to visit my mother, she had written in her curly, swirly cursive on the box of pastries I brought her the day before, “delicious treats from my special daughter.” She is still herself, and while I cannot completely forget the disease, we still laugh about our family peculiarities, and she never has a negative thing to say about anyone. She is the most positive person I know and reminds me that’s the way it should be—another prompt to be in the now and relish it.

As the day wound down I checked my messages and there from Sherry Gallant, an incredible medium, was this note: “I’m sitting here waiting for my son and saw a vibrant rainbow and thought of you. I’m sure it’s a beautiful message for you.” Calder would not let the day pass by without getting me a message that he’s everywhere, watching with love.

My aunt recently called me with a ghost problem.

Before this particular phone call, she had confessed to me that she also has a special psychic sense. She sees the spirits of loved ones before they cross. They show up, and she knows it’s time to say goodbye. I’ve heard of people who have this gift in seminars about mediumship. One of the women I have been studying with for years confessed to this in our class. Someone piped up that she should ask for that ability to be taken away, but it seems precious to me—a chance to give family members the opportunity to stop what they are doing and visit a loved one who is nearing the end of life, to say goodbye in the physical world while they still can. I told her she has full permission to call me if she sees any souls related to me walking around.

Now that I’m “out of the woo closet,” it’s nice to have these conversations with a family member, especially since you never know how people are going to react to your new life in Wonderland. I was surprised and delighted when my aunt called to ask if I could help figure out what was going on in her house and why she was having trouble communicating with this particular discarnate. I was also nervous. I had never tapped into a situation like this, but I wasn’t scared of the “ghost.” I was worried I wouldn’t be able to help her, a little self-doubt of the unknown.

She was having a new experience: My aunt couldn’t see anyone, but she knew someone was in her house and trying to get her attention in a couple of annoying ways. First, while she was having the windows cleaned, fingerprints showed up on them inside the house before the window cleaner was even done. They chastised my uncle for letting someone touch the window that was crystal clear moments before, but my aunt knew what it was, and my uncle was pretty annoyed.

Second, the spirit kept sending a cardinal to sit outside the window and make a ruckus all day long, often directing it to fly into the window over and over. As many of you may know, cardinals—particularly red ones—are one of the most common, usually comforting signs that our loved ones send to let us know they are near. Spirits can manipulate the electromagnetic current birds use to navigate their travels and guide them into our path. Other creatures that use the earth’s electromagnetic field are dragonflies, ladybugs, and deer, to name a few. Usually, the sight and sound of a cardinal perched in your yard is a lovely experience. Unfortunately, my aunt’s would best be described as “the Cujo of cardinals.”

She asked the spirit how she could help, so she could bring peace back into her home. She and my uncle weren’t scared as much as exasperated, but the cardinal would not stop flying into the window in a frenzy, disrupting their lives to the point that she had to find a way to black out the window, which only moderately helped. After exhausting all of her ideas, she called me.

She asked if I had ever experienced something like this, and I said, “Truthfully, no, but I am willing to try. It might be fun.” I wasn’t afraid that this was something evil or an “entity” like Hollywood’s rendition of a poltergeist. My understanding is that when something like this is happening, someone from the other side is trying to get our attention, and whoever this was really wanted to be heard. My instinct was that it was a family member, but since she was my aunt by marriage, I didn’t know her whole family. We discussed the relatives we had in common—my grandmother, her mother-in-law—but we both agreed this would not be her approach to any situation. Nor would it be my great-aunt who lived beyond her 100^th birthday.

While we were on the phone, I went into a quiet place and asked if the person could give me a clue to help us understand what she needed. I opened my senses, and immediately, I was clairvoyantly shown a sepia photograph of a woman with her hair pulled back in a bun, wearing a top with a high-collared neck that reminded me of the Victorian era. I shared this and asked my aunt if she had been looking at old fashioned photos recently. It turned out she had been organizing family photos while putting together her family history, so that “when the kids realize they want to know about their family’s heritage,” it will be easier. They will be able to trace the family back to 1400s England.

I asked my aunt to text me the photo. She wasn’t sure which photo it was, so she sent three. When I looked at this particular one, my whole body reacted with chills.

Gooseflesh and chills have been usurped by scary stories as something dangerously lurking in the shadows, or my least favorite saying, “Did someone step on your grave?” Over the course of my education in connecting with loved ones on the other side, I have come to know that they are actually a sign of confirmation that you have delivered a correct piece of information or evidence. That’s how I knew that we were on the right track. Along with that, of the three she sent, this photo was the only one that matched the image that had appeared in my mind’s eye. I sat with the photo for a bit and asked Mrs. Lucinda Brown Bell what message she was trying to get across.

She gave me the knowing that she wanted my aunt to continue organizing the photos and putting them in a book so they didn’t continue to deteriorate. I asked my aunt where all the photos and information were being kept, and she said in a box in the guest room closet—“maybe a little disrespectful for Mrs. Bell,” I mentioned. We all know we should respect our elders, and clearly this ancestor was safe guarding the familial line. My Aunt later sent me a photo of The World Book of Bells: Volumes 1 and 2, so it seems keeping the history alive has long been important to the family.

In life, we do have free will, so it’s up to my aunt whether or not she will be cataloguing and organizing all of these photos. After all, she is a busy lady with more grandchildren than she can babysit on a regular basis. She does a lot of that and more.

Whether we are aware of it or not, ancestral connections shape our lives, and there are belief systems going back to Plato suggesting that souls choose their next life before birth to expand their personal knowledge and, in turn, mankind’s. This can be found in The Republic, book 10, Myth of Er. There is also the belief system detailed in Dr. Brian Weiss’ Many Lives, Many Masters about reincarnation, which says that we travel through lives with soul groups/soulmates. Having read a lot about this, I can see why Mrs. Bell would feel strongly about keeping up with the documentation. Maybe there is something in those volumes that is of importance to the family today. One fact I learned about Mrs. Bell was that she had at least seven sons. I gave her props for that. We did get the feeling she was pleased that we had received the message and that she was being remembered, because the cardinal’s behavior seemed to calm down. My aunt texted me a few weeks later when she and my uncle had returned from a European cruise:

“Well, our ghost might be gone. I think we left her in Europe. She may have wanted to go back home to her family. I know she got on the ship with us, and I have not seen or heard her in any way since we got back. That would be a very pleasant end to that. Thank you very much for your help in this matter, and I will let you know if anything happens. Take care. Keep me updated on your crew, and I will try to do the same.”

It’s my understanding that our loved ones don’t need a vessel to change location once they are in the spirit world; she simply wanted my aunt to know she was pleased about the trip. Exciting! My first ghost story. I do have a feeling that my aunt will follow through with the assembly of the family history. I, for one, want to know what is inside The World Book of Bells—both volumes. And I will keep you, dear subscriber, informed if the Bells’ story has a next chapter. On that note, two weeks after this happened, a friend and co-worker called me with her own questions about paranormal activity in her apartment across the country…

Stay tuned for the next unexpected ghost story coming soon!

What if you’re a medium, and you don’t even know it?!

I didn’t find out I was a medium until later in life, after I hit my lowest point. I’ve since learned that can often be the recipe for spiritual awakening, but not always.

Some people are born knowing they can talk to the dead. They have visitors at their bedside as young children, or they see loved ones in their homes just before they pass, and sometimes, they see strangers with messages for people standing in front of them at the grocery store. Not me. I was an everyday working mom with two high-energy, beautiful boys and an even more energetic husband. My life was pretty sweet. I had not considered a medium to be anything but a character on a television show—until mediumship changed my life. But how could I have gone from a soccer mom to medium, and how could I explain it?

The answers often come from our everyday lives. Recently, I was speaking with a friend from high school, and she reminded me of this hilarious experience we had as teenagers. I was driving her home in my Chrysler Le Baron convertible in our hometown of New Orleans. I was the kind of teenage driver every parent worries about. I was distracted and driving too fast, and I didn’t see one of the biggest potholes in the history of The City That Care Forgot. Potholes are a common challenge for New Orleanians, and when you grow up learning to drive those crumbling streets, you should become adept at avoiding them. We were too busy teen-aging around, laughing and singing along to some Phil Collins or Cyndi Lauper song, when I drove directly into the belly of this beast. Thank goodness the top was up, or we may have been ejected from the car. In that moment, the scraping of metal and slamming of the front end of the car onto asphalt were so loud, I had the a gut wrenching thought, “I have trashed my car, and my father is going to kill me.” The impact was so intense, it felt like the car completely snapped apart mid-air, came crashing down and then stalled out, but not before it started talking to us. The car had never spoken before, so this added to our panic. It went through a litany of warnings in a robotic voice like a more mature Speak & Spell toy was hiding out under the hood.

“Your door is ajar.”

“Your key is in the ignition.”

“Fasten your seat belts.”

“Fuel level is low.”

“Your engine oil pressure is low.”

When the voice stopped, we both screamed.

Had we been transported to an alternate reality? We had no idea what was going on. I later discovered that the car had a small chip under the dashboard that articulated these warnings, but in order to activate it, you had to pay for that special feature to be turned on. The spontaneous awakening had happened due to the depth and impact of the pothole. I had not thought about the incident since that day, most likely because the two of us and the car survived. I counted my blessings that I did not have to tell my parents what had happened.

Apparently, it made a huge impact on my girlfriend. She told the story often, because in those days, a talking car was rare unless they were on a television show like Knight Rider. It was also the spontaneous nature of the car appearing to suddenly come to life that shocked us both. When we hung up, I thought, “That’s the metaphor for how I became a medium.” I had a chip there all along, but because I hadn’t paid the price or felt a deep need, my chip had never been activated.

Years later, when I truly needed something to help me survive, in the desperate way a mother who has experienced the death of a child needs anything to help them hold on, mediumship became the one thing that showed me I could slowly climb the slippery walls of my grief out of the pit of despair.

Even after I had engaged with several mediums, I did not know this skill was possible for me.

I was not open to the metaphysical. Other than occasionally reading my horoscope, I was a typical over-protective (some may have even said “helicopter”) mom. Even with the extraordinary evidence the mediums gave me, it took me a while to settle into the mindset of belief. Once I crossed that bridge and discovered what a reading could do for someone, I wanted to know anything and everything about mediumship. I was beyond grateful that it was possible to connect to our loved ones on the other side. A very small voice in the back of my mind even said, “It would be amazing if I could learn to communicate with my son.” Further in the back of my head, another thought bubbled up: “I would love to be able to do this for another parent who has lost a child,” but I told myself I was just being crazy.

It turns out that little voice in the back of my head was part of my path to becoming a medium. The more I read about the world of continued consciousness, the more I discovered that mediumship is indeed a skill that can be learned. Like anything in life, you just need to have the passion, desire and discipline. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my education started with getting a reading when I was in the deepest grief of my life, and slowly over the years, stepping stones appeared to take me closer to my own abilities. Teachers that had walked the path before me arrived in books and classes, and most importantly, the spirit world showed up to help guide me. Then, I had to conquer my own self-doubt that I was communicating with other people’s loved ones. I learned that the spirit world never lets you down; they are always here, waiting for a medium to help them communicate their message of love to their family. It is an honor and a privilege to share that love, and one of the best parts for me is that I feel and know my son, Calder, is cheering me on from the other side.

There was a false belief floating around for a while that humans only use ten percent of their brains, and while that was proven wrong, I do believe we have more potential than we realize or tap into. Whether it’s the hidden ability to become a medium, a healer, or a direct channel for the other side, we all have a vast universe inside ourselves. If you have had inclinations to learn more about an unusual modality, like plant medicine, healing through music, or becoming a medium, don’t stifle that voice. It’s leading you somewhere special, somewhere you never knew you could go, because you have not activated your hidden chip. It’s there, waiting.

Similarly, when I was brave enough to share with friends and family that Calder was sending me signs in the form of heart-shaped leaves, they also started seeing heart-shaped leaves and sending me photos of them. I soon found out that Calder is a big, energetic force. In life, he was so full of energy, he never stopped moving and laughing. Whether he knew it consciously or not, I believe he was trying to cram as much joyful living into his seven years and seven days as he could. In my early grief days, I would find heart-shaped leaves all over my neighborhood. Once in 2016, I walked to the corner, and my entire street was covered in heart-shaped leaves. To this day, I still find hearts, especially if I’m having a hard human moment or, on the flip side, if I am fulfilling my purpose of being in service to others. People still send me hearts in photos, too. In fact, one of the earlier adopters of heart-spotting is a friend who recently texted me, “It’s so interesting. Now, I see the hearts when I’ve asked a question in my head that I want an answer to.” It’s not unusual; it is divine timing.

These days, I am a co-affiliate leader of our local Helping Parents Heal group with my friend Catherine “Cat” Prescott. Every month, we meet in person with other parents who have lost a child and share our children’s stories and the signs that our children send us. Even more exciting, now we all receive each other’s signs, just like the yellow rubber duck story in Rasmussen’s book. It’s a fun way to share our experiences, and when we see another parent’s sign, it reinforces how connected we all are. Those signs often come during moments when that parent needs a lift or on significant dates. Sometimes, you can ask for a sign, and your grief is so heavy or you’re so busy, you miss it. That’s why it’s good to have a team on this side to help recognize them.

In the early days of her grief, Cat asked for a specific sign from her son Austen: an octopus with a rainbow. She got it almost immediately, because Austen is also an incredible force. Then she got it again. Then everyone she knew started seeing the octopus, sometimes with the rainbow, sometimes without. One week, Austen was bombarding me with octopuses, and a story came up on my feed about how the octopus can tweak its RNA in real time to rewire its cellular structure. The science is way beyond me, but I suddenly had this thought drop in my head: Maybe the researchers working on a cure for the rare cancer that killed Austen could mimic the way RNA was “rewritten” somehow.

I was sheepish sharing this with Cat, since I didn’t even know what RNA was before I read that tiny article, but I did share it, because it felt like Austen wanted me to and because Catherine is an open soul who was teaching about the continuation of consciousness long before she truly experienced the truth of it all. The next week, Catherine called and told me she had spoken to the research team, and the most promising breakthrough sounded like it was working with RNA. Maybe this is basic, obvious science, but the synchronicity was that Austen was sending me octopuses on car dashboards, painted on the side of trucks, and in the dog supply store all during the week before Cat had the meeting with the research team. He was telling us he is ever-present and knows what is going on in his family’s life. For all we know, he is influencing the researchers so that other children don’t have to die from cancer.

For me, this was an exercise in trusting the messages I was receiving and not allowing societal norms or my own self-doubt explain away these special moments as mere coincidence. The lesson I continue to learn is that when we get a sign or a message dropped into our minds, we should just deliver the information, not try to interpret it. Too many things have happened in my life since Calder left this physical plain for me to doubt. Some days, doubt still creeps in, but if it does, the boys are always around sending reminders that they are right here. Just last week, the kids were at it again, and I almost missed a sign. I was in the post office, where time usually stands still, but on this particular day, there was no one in line, and things were moving quickly. I glanced briefly at the card rack, and there was a rainbow-hued octopus hugging a heart. I didn’t hesitate; I grabbed the card and sent it to Austen’s family.

It was a Valentine’s message, but more importantly, Austen was letting his Mom know he’s aware that her latest book of poetry, Superbloom, is being published in February of 2026. As Caridad Moro-Gronlier writes of the book, “Even the deepest pain is made to shimmer with faith, with radiance, with grace.”

If we have faith, the field of continued consciousness is within our reach. I have no doubt our boys brought us together, like all of our children on the other side continue to do. Our belief systems are made stronger when we have shared experiences. If you receive a sign, make sure you share it with someone who supports you. In fact, you can share stories of signs and other metaphysical experiences in the comments here.

Miracles. Life is filled with them, but we seem to be on the lookout for the BIG ONES, like an immaculate conception or that teeny, tiny bit of oil lasting eight nights. Since I have fallen in with a new crowd, a more spiritual crowd, I’ve discovered miracles are more prevalent than I previously observed. This year, a young boy in spirit named Nicholas delivered a miracle for me and his mother, Kristen, by showing up with evidential loving messages for me to deliver to his family.

Kristen and I connected earlier this year when we found each other on the Helping Parents Heal Facebook page, and now we message all the time. She read Calder’s story in SIGNS, Laura Lynne Jackson’s book, and shared that she too was going to have a story in Laura’s upcoming book (now released) GUIDED, so we had that in common as well.

Both of our sons crossed young, both in that age of innocence and pure joy. We saw similarities in their round faces and chubby hands and felt a kindred spirit. I mentioned Kristen in an earlier story here on Substack, about how she found a penny with Calder’s birth year on it while she was listening to me tell a story about him on a podcast. Of course, she immediately sent me a message. It turned out we were even at the same Taylor Swift concert in Miami, but we couldn’t find each other in the massive crowd, so we know our boys were definitely working to get us together. As we spoke more about our boys and being part of this club no one imagines for themselves, I was surprised to find out that Kristen had never had a reading with a medium. Since I found it to be the most healing modality for grief, I offered to give her a reading on Zoom.

When we got settled on screen, her son could hardly wait to come through and start sharing information in the high vibration of a young boy. Nicholas has a vibrant energy like my Calder, so he came through running around the house. The first thing he brought to my attention was the song “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas,” which made us both laugh, because he was already talking about Christmas, and it was only October. He was making me aware of Kristen’s family singing that song. She said they didn’t sing it when he was alive, but the Christmas after Nicholas passed, Kristen recorded a video of her daughter Caroline singing that song with Kristen’s sister playing the piano. I could feel Nicholas wanting them to know he was there while they were singing the song with his name in it, and he was overjoyed.

When I say I could feel him, I’m referring to an energetic wave of energy and information that I couldn’t otherwise know about the stranger sitting across from me on Zoom. Not a complete stranger in this case, but how could I know they were singing this Christmas song at a piano? In readings like this one, our loved ones often let us know they are around by bringing up life events that are current or happened even after they passed. They are letting us know that they are still present, even though they aren’t in their physical bodies when the event occurs—like when Nicholas’s sister sang her song.

Next, he started showing me an ornament made out of popsicle sticks with a photo inside. When a medium is communicating with a loved one, their souls are blended, so the information is impressed upon the medium. The specific ornament he showed me in my mind’s eye was actually an ornament my son Calder had made. Now, I don’t know why Calder made this ornament at his Jewish Day School, but I know it had nothing to do with Christmas, and yet the feeling Nicholas gave me left me with no doubt he wanted to talk about Christmas. He was using Calder’s ornament to lead me down the right path. I find this to be one of the numerous amazing things about being a messenger for those on the other side. Our loved ones in spirit, yours and mine, can use anything in our human experience or a medium’s life to trigger a thought about something—or in this case, to have me say what he wanted to talk about. Basically, Nicholas was saying, “Talk about that popsicle ornament, even though you don’t celebrate Christmas.” He took me to that Christmas memory of Kristen’s daughter singing “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas” first, then to the ornament, so I knew they were connected. He gave me the feeling that he wanted his sisters to know he’s around them and he visits them and that he’s still part of the family.

Then he made me aware that he loved his sisters, and when he was with them in life, he had loved doing whatever they did—including playing dress-up. He showed me an Olaf doll from the movie Frozen, and Kristen confirmed they had done Frozen-themed family costumes, and Nicholas had dressed up as Olaf. “There’s nothing cuter than a toddler dressed up like Olaf!” we laughed.

Next, he drew my attention back to the Christmas ornament. Kristen said he never made one, but the girls had made some in school, and now he wanted his mother to know she or the girls could make an ornament for him this Christmas with the popsicle sticks. “And you can use a photo of me!” he added. It would be just like his sisters’. Kristen explained that they always make a special mini Christmas tree for Nicholas with all the signs they get from him now that he’s crossed over. Nicholas was coming through to offer a helpful suggestion for his tree, and Kristen was excited to make the addition that year.

Nicholas also wanted to talk about other family members and brought up how his grandmother used to read him bedtime stories—specifically the children’s book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, because she made the best chocolate chip cookies (following the instructions on the back of the chocolate chip package, which the family still agrees is the best recipe). He was able to easily get the title of that book to me because I had read it to my boys numerous times when they were little, but he didn’t share the words. He just showed me the cover of the book with the mouse holding a chocolate chip cookie.

Then he moved around the room Kristen was sitting in, and he showed me a cherub on the shelf. Nicholas made me aware that he looked just like a cherub. I always thought Calder looked like a Cherub at Nicholas’s age as well, so the parallels just kept coming. Kristen confirmed the cherub was sitting on a shelf next to a photo of Nicholas watching over them. He was confirming that he was indeed always close to them—that his Mom wasn’t making it up. It was true!

Kristen said she recognized the way Nicholas was coming through with his fun-loving, busy personality. She joked that he was her exercise when he was here. In fact, she had to go on all the playground equipment with him, or he would jump off. Finally, Nicholas drew my attention to a photo of Calder in my office when he was younger. The medium Suzanne Giesemann—my first teacher—refers to this as a snag from spirit. In this photo, Calder still had all of his baby teeth, and Nicholas smiled at me like Calder was smiling in that photo. Nicholas was showing me all of his baby teeth. There is something absolutely adorable about children in that baby-toothed stage, with little spaces between each tiny tooth. The reading came to its natural end, with Nicholas reminding his Mom he was always around, and she didn’t need a medium to tell her how much he loves her. We agreed that was true. Kristen could feel when Nicholas was near, and she knew she received many signs from him.

After the reading, Kristen sent me a message:

My heart is so full, Carla, thank you. You brought out his fun-loving personality, and it shined through the details of your reading. I’m super excited to make an ornament FOR Nicholas!! I love that this came up bc I am always on the lookout for ideas for my little signs tree. And it was so funny, because he was like, “I want a popsicle ornament too! Put MY picture in it!! “ That is so heartwarming for me!! Yes, baby boy, I sure will!!! I’ll send you a pic when I get the tree out in December.

I do believe our loved ones are always with us, sharing ideas and memories that may simply drop into our minds when we are driving, taking a walk, or even doing the dishes. As for Nicholas, he inspired a crafting session for our December Helping Parents Heal meeting in Miami, and I shared the clever way he delivered his message. We made ornaments and painted rocks for our own children in spirit. I also listened to the Christmas song, and it turns out it’s the youngest member of the family with the smallest stocking hung on the chimney, singing to St. Nicholas about what everyone wants for Christmas. He says he trusts Santa to pick just the right thing. Thank you, jolly young sweet Nicholas! We took your guidance and had a lovely day with full hearts.

Below is the ornament Nicholas’ family made for him, so he can be exactly where he is meant to be: on the Christmas tree with his sisters.

People say dumb things every day.

When you are grieving, the dumb things penetrate your sensitive psyche more easily. You are already lost in space, contending with the black hole of the unwanted absence of your loved one. It takes all of your strength to navigate the simplest parts of life like getting out of bed. So when someone unintentionally says something really dumb or “with the best of intentions,” it is a slap in the face that you did not see coming, adding insult to your already overwhelming injury.

This is something that happened to me more than a few times after my seven-year-old son, Calder, died in 2014. He was killed in our home swimming pool due to faulty wiring on an underwater high-voltage pool light. At the time, I was still in shock. When there is a death you can’t predict—like a sudden heart attack or a car accident—there is an added layer of disorientation. I remember feeling like I was coming apart and doing everything in my power to hold myself together.

A shocking call from a friend

Two months after my son’s death, a friend called me. This was my friend who also has a little boy, someone who had been to our home many times for playdates, who had gone to the Miami Children’s Museum with us so the boys could get some fun time in the firetruck. This was my friend who came to birthday parties every year. I figured I was picking up the phone because she was checking in; I was so wrong. She was actually calling to inform me that she had decided not to tell her son that Calder had died. Furthermore, she wasn’t planning to, and she and her son were not going to be able to see us anymore. She wanted me to know she felt this was for “the best.”

What?!

Talk about feeling stunned. It was as if I had been slimed by her inability to process my loss. I could not identify my feelings in that moment on the phone, but I knew I felt shocked, hurt, and bad. Really, really bad. I felt like a marshmallow that had been jabbed with a hot poker, and my insides were oozing out of my already overwhelmed body. I have no idea what I said, but we hung up, and I did not see her again in person. I did, however, think about that phone call for a long time. It would pop into my mind without warning, and I’d remember that hot poker feeling all over again.

Almost all grieving people hear insensitive comments

This is one story of many that happened to me during the early period of grief. Anyone grieving has at least one story like this one. People don’t know what to say to you. They say things like, “Your father is in a better place,” or “At least your sister isn’t in pain anymore.” Being clueless about grief does not mean it’s okay or that you, the griever, have to help others figure it out. Most importantly, you don’t want their “ICK” to stay with you. You need to let it go for your own well-being. I have created a routine to discharge those bad feelings. This is how I release all of that from my mind and body.

I send the person to Pluto.

Yes, you read that correctly. PLUTO, one of the furthest points from earth in our solar system.

This is how to release someone to Pluto, and it’s an exercise you can also share with children who are pre-teen and older who are grieving.

How to release someone to Pluto

Find a quiet place, maybe in bed after you wake up in the morning, before you get out of bed or as you’re falling asleep at night. One of my favorite places to do this is alone in my car in my driveway. Take three deep breaths. Breathe down deep into your belly button, letting your abdomen expand for a count of four. Then breathe out for a count of four. Do this two more times.

Then imagine the person who slimed you and all the uncomfortable feelings that were foisted upon you during that exchange and wrap both the person and the feelings in a big bubble. As the bubble expands, make sure the bubble pulls away from your body like blowing a soap bubble from a wand, only the wand is the size of a hula-hoop. While you continue to breathe in and out, send the bubble on its mission to Pluto. Watch it drift away, out above the earth and past all the other planets, through space until it gets to Pluto. Leave the bubble there. Not in an angry way, so the person is banished or hurt, let the anger go too. Just let it all drift off making sure all that insulting and negative energy is as far away as possible.

When you are sure the bubble has made its way to Pluto, breathe in the clean air around you here on earth. Visualize the air in your own bubble all around you and push the bubble out 360 degrees around your body. It’s like your own personal protection pod. When you are calm, open your eyes and wiggle your toes. Smile.

You can repeat this with the same person, or as many people as you need to. I once felt the need to send the same person to Pluto every day for a week.

Don’t worry about the person you sent to Pluto; they know how to get back. But if they attempt to slime you again, remember space is a vast place and you can send them right back to Pluto with a gentle, loving push—even a bit beyond.

You have heard that everyone who comes into your life comes for a reason, whether it’s for a moment or much longer. The reason may not be obvious in that moment and could be as small as a smile and a quick compliment in passing. You didn’t realize the stranger was feeling deeply despondent, and that quick encounter changed the trajectory of their day. They went from feeling unseen to having a little pep in their step. Often, we don’t even get to follow the whole story or see the impact of this momentary encounter. Other times, the impact can unfold over years.

I met a mother at Calder and Caleb’s elementary school when we both volunteered to run the Book Fair the year after Calder died. Following in my own mother’s footsteps, I felt it was important to get involved and support my sons’ school any way I could. Plus, the book fair was a favorite of mine since my own childhood, filled with stories of magic like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis and humor like Judy Blume’s The Pain and the Great One.

While the other mother and I were sitting at the volunteer table, guiding parents to shop the book fair after drop-off, she turned to me and said in a low voice, “Did you hear about the boy who was electrocuted in his swimming pool?”

People often didn’t know what to make of my presence during the days, weeks, even a year after Calder died. I looked like any other mother at school—unless, of course, I was crying, which still happened, but I was having a good day when she leaned toward me. In early grief, the roller coaster has different extreme drops that come out of nowhere, but in this moment, I was on the ascent.

In the seconds before I responded to her, a myriad of choices played in my head. I knew the moment that was about to pass between us would never be forgotten. She had her own struggles and challenges—some of which she had already shared with me, the very least of which was that she didn’t have a printer at home, which was causing some tension between us. As I weighed this ridiculous gnat-sized annoyance in my head, I knew I had a choice to deliver the news with a soft hand or smash her in the face with her dismal faux pas.

“Calder is my son, the boy you’re talking about,” I said gently without tears.

The horror on her face filled her body and bled into the space between us. She couldn’t stop apologizing, and I couldn’t fix her feelings, which was something new I had learned. That was ten years ago, and we both still belong to the same circles, but with less crossover since elementary school. We have had coffee and spoken on occasion to share well wishes for the holidays, but we’ve never mentioned that awkward moment again. We had no idea that exchange would be a tie that bound us for years to come. She read my story about finding the first heart leaf from Calder, and over the years, she and her adorable daughter have found numerous hearts, not just leaves, and shared them with me regularly. She still does to this day.

This summer, tragedy struck again when children from our community died in an accident on the water. My phone rang with concerned mothers seeking advice, wanting to make sure they were being supportive in the “right” way. I am here for these calls and have worked years to be someone people feel comfortable contacting for grief and spiritual support. “How can we help this mother?” they wanted to know, and I shared my experience and resources. I am now proud to be a certified grief educator, as well as a medium.

When a child dies, the family is in deep grief, and so is the community, including all of the families that were a part of their lives. It ripples through homes like a tsunami shock wave. Luckily, these friends were able to create a support group for her and for themselves. I found myself repeating, “You cannot take away a parent’s pain. What you can do is show up and witness their grief.” Avoid platitudes and don’t take on the role of “fixer,” because there is no such thing in this situation. The early grief of child loss is intense; parents who have had to bury their child don’t feel they can bear the pain. This is why I wrote my book about Calder and continue to share hope and love for parents, letting them know that they will survive. Whether they want to or not, their children want them to live. I found the most healing modality to be through mediumship. The choice as to whether you believe in your child’s continued presence and how you cultivate an ongoing relationship with them is your own.

Book Fair Mom was one of the people who called me to check in about her friend’s pain. Even during the call, she was concerned that she was causing me pain. She is a loving and caring friend and mother, reeling from the shock. While grief is something I will forever carry with me, I am no longer stuck in the muck of those dark early days. I am open about how I have gone on to find something bigger and want to share that optimism with everyone.

Book Fair Mom had been sending me hearts over the years, mostly because she knew I liked them and that they reminded me of Calder. They reminded her of Calder too, but she had not realized the impact of that on her life, because she wasn’t open to the idea of continued consciousness. Today, she wanted to share some inexplicable experiences she and her daughter were having, including a dream in which her friend’s child paid her a visit.

Dream visitations are one way loved ones let us know they are okay and still around. They can visit everyone everywhere. In those early days, our loved ones in spirit are on a mission to let us know that we will hear from them again, they are closer than we imagine in a different way. Whether we accept that subconsciously (because a dream can take some of the air out of the pain) or consciously open ourselves up to the this new connection. While we were both driving from school drop-off, she described her experiences in detail and said she wanted to believe all these things were happening—the signs and the dreams—but she struggled with feeling crazy, with feeling judged the way people who have not had life-changing experiences judge those who say seemingly ridiculous things like, “My son sent me a sign,” or “I felt my daughter close to me.”

Most people feel off-kilter when they have an experience beyond their five senses because they are experiencing something they never considered possible, something they never needed in their lives before. She was emotional and anxious. I suggested that she get a journal and start writing down her experiences, because having them in writing to look back on would not only continue to open her up, but also in a month or even a year from now, they would provide documentation that she could go back and revisit reliving these amazing moments. She said she didn’t like to write, but she would consider the idea.

A few days later, she called to tell me she had taken my suggestion to write, and when she sat down and started, the words poured out of her. Moments after she put pen to paper, she looked up and realized she’d written ten pages. She could hardly believe she had that much inside of her. That was when she opened her car door and screamed.

“What’s going on? Are you okay?” I asked.

“This is crazy. Is this happening? I just opened the door to my car, and there is a heart right here, right now.”

She took a photo and texted it to me, her tears turning to laughter. That was a clear message that she was on the right path, that she was being guided and loved. Now, it is her choice whether she continues to nurture these newfound joyful experiences. It doesn’t mean she has to change her life completely, but she can be open to something more, whether she shares it or just keeps her journal for herself. Not everyone is a messenger, but every single one of us can be open to receiving these messages.

I have gone from dipping my own toe into the field of more to cannon-balling into the ongoing exhilaration of wonder and connection with something bigger, and it does not disappoint.

Feel free to share any signs or messages you have received in the comments.

Please share with anyone who needs guidance or healing in this world. It’s comforting to know that when we die, the screen doesn’t go black; it turns Technicolor. We can’t even imagine how our loved ones on the other side are still here to guide us, always loving us. Love is the universal language—today and always.

Many thanks to the ladies of Her Unshakeable Confidence for hosting me on the podcast! To listen to the full episode, CLICK HERE or the image below.

My secret belief was an illusion that having buried a child meant no one else in my immediate world would die before me. I was riding this self-imagined free pass of safety when one of my closest friends was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer. I had already punched the ticket of loss, and I didn’t want to face the next hurdle, but this is not about me. It’s about Shannah Rose.

Shannah and I met in our twenties at my first job out of college on a show called A Current Affair. (KA-Chung! If you know the show, you will hear this sound effect clearly in your head.) While it was my first job in television, she was a seasoned tabloid girl who had worked as a journalist at the New York Post. She went on to work on Hard Copy, Good Morning America, FOX News, CNN, and MSNBC, where she earned an Emmy for her work on The Rachel Maddow Show.

Santina, our lifelong friend, called in July 2020 to tell me the shocking news about Shannah’s cancer diagnosis. Being diagnosed during Covid and hitting every unlucky branch on the way down the cancer tree destroyed Shannah’s mental and emotional state. Santina and I cried to each other but remained steadfast for our friend. During the last two years of her life, Shannah walked beside me on my journey to becoming a medium and encouraged me to keep writing my memoir. I’m happy to report that today, she still checks in with me regularly from the other side.

After Shannah’s diagnosis, we fell into a routine of phone calls while I was driving in the carpool line to my younger son’s school. This usually gave us over an hour to talk if she had the energy. I would check in and ask if she was eating, which was becoming a chore, and she would quickly grow sick of listing everything she had eaten recently. Eventually, I would take the hint to switch topics and tell her about my online mediumship course and the unbelievable joy I had every time I was able to communicate with a classmate’s or stranger’s loved one. Later, she celebrated with me after I was accepted as a medium on VerySoul.com. I would also share all the signs Calder sent me, including rainbows and heart-shaped leaves on my walks with our dog.

One night, I convinced her to come to one of my regular mediumship practice circles on-line. My friend, the truly amazing Cheryl Page, was the host, and she was the first medium to read for Shannah. Cheryl immediately picked up on Shannah’s bookshelves (Shannah was a voracious reader) and the strong feeling of seclusion emanating from her—a frustration that she was not receiving any signs. Cheryl gave Shannah a suggestion I’ve never forgotten: “Next time you want a sign, set an intention, ask a question, and pull a book off your shelf. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, exhale, let the book fall open on your lap, and let your eyes focus on a sentence or word. That will be the answer to your question.” That’s a tall order for someone who isn’t deeply ensconced in this world of wonder, not to mention a journalist, but Shannah made a note to try it, and so did I. I had dubbed myself Shannah’s secretary for the evening, since I couldn’t read for her; I knew her far too well.

The next person who read brought a male presence through with an apology and details of how Shannah had always taken care of him and regularly fed him soup. I immediately recognized her ex-boyfriend from our early days, but Shannah had psychic amnesia and didn’t recognize the information until I pointed it out. This can happen in a reading, where you don’t recognize the information, especially if you’re not expecting that person to visit, or if you don’t want to hear from them. Once I pointed out who it was, she realized all the information fit. Then the next medium brought through one of the people she really wanted to hear from: her grandmother, carrying a message of eternal love that left her teary-eyed. After that experience, Shannah leaned into this connected way of thinking more deeply.

It was hard to get Shannah out of the comfort of her dark Manhattan apartment after her diagnosis, and I didn’t blame her. It’s a full time job to manage doctors (even with Santina’s help), endure chemo, rest, and battle depression. It was a balancing act to follow her wishes and still long for her to have some fun in the time she had left, though we didn’t like to think of it that way. In July 2022, after two years of treatment, a failed surgery, and relentless hair- and weight-loss, Santina and I convinced Shannah to take a direct flight from New York to meet me in Key West. It was her 56^th birthday, and if there was one thing Shannah loved, it was sitting in the sun.

I drove down to the Keys from Miami to give myself time to think, process, and prepare. I was clinging to the possibility of a miracle for Shannah. Desperation doesn’t help anyone, and neither does false hope, but I still deeply, desperately hoped. I also drove, because as much as I didn’t want it to be true that my beautiful, brilliant friend was dying, I thought it would be good to have a car in case we were faced with an emergency. The drive through the Keys is beautiful, filled with the lush mangroves of the everglades, cerulean waterways, and flamingo pink skies. It also gave me time to prepare for what no one wanted to think of as Shannah’s last birthday on earth and allowed me to bring Shannah a huge, soft pink sunhat with a rim so big it could shade her entire body. I released my grim thoughts and prepared to be the ultimate hostess.

The Tennessee Williams museum is 700 feet from the front door of the townhouse. Shannah had always been a fan. We watched the little forgettable film about his work in the welcome room, then walked to the main area of memorabilia, including posters for every play—The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire, and The Rose Tattoo, which I had never heard of, but Shannah knew well. It did not occur to me until Shannah was in hospice about ten weeks later that she knew the movie so well because it bore many tragic similarities to her own life, not to mention that Shannah’s middle name is Rose.

We had as much fun as we could possibly have that week, including a ridiculous birthday celebration at a dessert spot called Better Than Sex. When we were on our way to the airport, Shannah asked if she could leave the big hat with me for safekeeping. I looked at her and laughed, “You mean you don’t want to travel with this huge, ridiculous hat?”

“Well, and that.” Shannah smiled, not wanting to hurt my feelings. Looking back on that moment now, I realize she didn’t want to bring anything home that she wouldn’t use again.

Two months later, on October 8^th, 2022, Shannah left her body in her hospice bed. She waited until the stream of ever-present friends and family had gone home, because she didn’t want any of us to carry that image with us. She always took care of everyone.

I was surprised hospice went so fast, even though Shannah had not eaten in over a week and was painfully skeletal. Denial is real. The next evening, I was back in Miami, and Santina and I were on the phone talking about the video my husband Chris was putting together for the memorial. As we were talking, Chris said, “Look.” A double rainbow started to materialize in front of our eyes. Once it was fully formed, he pulled over so I could take a photo and send it to Santina. Shannah was letting us know she had arrived, and I took the double rainbow to mean she was with Calder who I knew was there to greet her. In the early days of grieving a loved one, the veil is thin, and our loved ones are extra active, making sure we see their signs letting us know they are okay.

The following week, I was back in Manhattan for a pre-scheduled trip with my family. On my way to meet them, I ducked into a diner for a smoothie, and when the young waitress handed it to me, I noticed a rose tattoo on her inner forearm. I asked if I could take a photo of it for my friend. Hi, Shannah Rose.

When I returned home, I had a reading-swap scheduled with another Very Soul medium on October 15^th. She went first. It had been exactly 7 days since Shannah crossed, and she came through loud and clear. One of the first things the medium said was that the woman on the other side was well dressed, and that she was showing herself in a big hat with a huge rim. I wrote that down. Then she said this woman passed before her time from feminine issues, a cancer related to females. “She left you some jewelry,” she said, describing the necklace Shannah had left me, “and now she’s giving me a thumbs up that I got it right.” She went on with so much specific evidence that I knew beyond a doubt it was Shannah.

Then the medium said, “She has a message for you. She’s saying you’ve gone through something hard and come over the top, and she’s proud of you for being able to get through it. There’s a big sense of achievement.” Shannah had been there for me when Calder died and encouraged me not to follow him. I cried. It was an absolutely beautiful confirmation that my friend was still with me—that even though I could not pick up the phone to call her, I could still talk to her. I thanked the medium—a total stranger who’d given me such a precious gift—and have not seen her since that day.

The next day, I was walking our dog, and he pulled me in the opposite direction of our usual route. I was thinking about Shannah and how spectacular she was to come through so strongly, so quickly, and feeling the bittersweetness of losing her in the physical world, but still having her in my life. At that moment, I looked down on the ground, and there nestled in some leaves was a red beaded bracelet with one word spelled out: love. I knew Shannah showed me that bracelet; it was just like her to send me something so girlish.

This weekend will be Shannah’s third birthday in heaven. She is two years older than I am. For the first time in my life, I asked myself what I was going to do with the time I had left, and then I started to do the math on how much time that might actually be. I had never succumbed to that way of thinking before, and Shannah would not approve of my morbid calculation. That evening, I attended a mediumship circle, and my reading partner brought Shannah through to say something that made me laugh out loud:

“I’m here to tell you don’t worry about how much longer you have. Just make sure the time you do have is filled with the things you want to do here, and when it’s over, that’s okay too. It’s over, but you go on living anyway—just like me. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

I get excited like a seven-year-old child whenever I receive a sign. Every. Single. Time.

Then, like so many parents whose child has gone to the other side, I tell everyone who will listen about the latest sign from my son Calder. If you read the first two stories in this three-part series about coins, you’re already well acquainted with my enthusiasm and wonder at their constant presence in my life.

I recently had coffee with a friend who surprised and delighted me when she expressed a growing interest in her own psychic abilities. She knew it was safe to share this with me, because I had been sharing stories about signs on social media. She already believed she was intuitive and had decided she wanted more—more of that daily magic that we all have access to but don’t always believe or trust. Our lattes came with love, heart shapes drawn in the foam, and we took it as a positive omen for our chat. I started by telling her my story about requesting a one-hundred-dollar bill to be placed on the sidewalk in front of me and having it appear exactly the way I’d asked. The thing about recognizing that there’s more is that once you start to see it, you cannot unsee it. You have added a new, exciting layer to your life.

The first time I found a 2007 dime, it was in a time of early grief and despair. I found it in the middle of our driveway. We had just moved into a new house, because I could not live in our old home where my window looked out on the scene of Calder’s accident, but the move brought its own set of challenges. I was stuck in a loop of talking to Calder in my head, telling him how much we loved him and that we wouldn’t forget him just because we moved. The morning that my guilt hit a fevered pitch, I found the dime—a tangible way for Calder to ease my guilt and make sure I knew he was with us. Now, I know in my heart when I find a coin with Calder’s birth year on it, he is saying, “Hello.”

“Okay, my next story is a little more out there. You might call it a crazy-coin bedtime story,” I told my friend. “Once upon a time…” I began to make us both laugh. I went to bed thinking about my boys and praying to be the best mother possible to our younger surviving son. As I fell asleep, I asked Calder to keep checking on his brother. That morning, when I got out of bed, a quarter fell out of the sheets onto the floor. The house was quiet, and the clink of the quarter broke the silence as it hit the tile. I was wearing my oh-so-fancy PJs—a t-shirt and underwear—so I knew it didn’t fall out of any pocket. I could not figure out how the quarter appeared. From time to time, I would hear the term apport in my spiritual mediumship studies, which is defined as “an object that appears or disappears out of nowhere.” I had never experienced such a thing before. I picked up the quarter and discovered that it was a 2020 National Park Quarter for American Samoa, which features a fruit bat holding its baby. I knew immediately it was Calder’s way of reassuring me that I was a good mother.

“I haven’t thought of that quarter in years,” I said. “It just popped into my head. I’m glad we had coffee so I could revisit that story.” Elizabeth was intrigued and enthusiastic about this new way of looking at the world, and I recommended a book about expanding one’s psychic abilities entitled You Are Psychic.

As we were leaving the café, she gave me a little homemade braided challah that was ready to pop in the oven when I got home. She had no way of knowing that one of Calder’s favorite activities in pre-school was making challah on Fridays. I didn’t think about it as another sign until I got into my car. Sometimes, signs are like that: They unfold later, and a warm, tingling feeling runs up and down my arms as a confirmation.

The coin connections didn’t end there. The next day, I decided to change all the bedding in the house to move the energy around and welcome spring. I got a new comforter for our bedroom and took our gently used comforter to the guest room, which was originally called “the Momo room”—after the boys’ nickname for my mother. We decorated it with her in mind, because she spent years coming to help me with Caleb so that I wouldn’t have to face my fear of leaving him with a babysitter after the accident. There is a big piece of art she made for Calder displayed over the bed in that room. She made one for each grandchild, incorporating their childhood art into each piece along with photos. It never occurred to me to move it when other guests came to visit us.

As I stripped the bed and jerked the sheet from the mattress that day, a coin flew through the air and landed on the floor at my feet. I knew before I picked it up that I was being gifted a special moment. It was a 2007 quarter—a Montana state quarter that said, “Big Sky Country.” This is exactly what can happen when you are open to signs and you share them with other people. I texted Elizabeth immediately with a photo of the quarter and told her how it fell out of the bedsheets exactly like the story I’d told her just twenty-four hours earlier. She replied immediately with her excitement. I went back through two journals searching for the original fruit bat quarter, and the date I scribbled next to the entry was April 29^th, 2023. The day I was changing the sheets and the 2007 Big Sky Country quarter appeared was April 27^th, 2025—nearly two years to the day. Calder’s energy remains vibrant and fun, and I know he is sharing that he is in my life now. He knows exactly what story I shared with Elizabeth over coffee, and as he loved to say, “sharing is caring.”

P.S. I always encourage friends and clients to keep a journal of signs, because they are easy to dismiss with the “don’t be so silly” voice in our heads, but if you write down these synchronicities every time they happen, you will start to realize your life is filled with more—a lot more.

If you’ve ever wondered how connected we all are, then this story is for you. I’m forever tied to my friend Eliza (Caleb’s mother), because our boys in spirit made sure we found each other, and I’m starting to believe that all kids on the other side can make connections between parents. Here is a direct message I received from another mother whose son, Nick, left his physical body too early. She lives 250 miles away, and we’ve never met IRL—only in a social media group for parents whose children have crossed over:

Carla, I have to tell you what just happened. 💖 I saw your post with your podcast and saved it for this morning’s walk with my dog! I am actually still listening to the podcast and pausing now to write you.

She was talking about the podcast called Heroes of Grief created by Tom Bender, an amazing father whose son died. I heard about him and his podcast through Helping Parents Heal, an essential organization for any parent who has lost a child and is curious about the greater universe—about signs and connecting with our kids once they have left their bodies. After the podcast hit the airwaves, Nick’s mom wrote:

First of all, I just love listening to you and your family talk about your beautiful boys and your incredible journey and story. I feel so inspired listening to you. As I walk home, listening to the part about your journey to becoming a medium and the “Very Soul” website, I am having so many thoughts, bc lately I’ve been trying to figure out this stirring within me that is calling me to do something more, and I can’t seem to get to the point to know what that something is! And then a penny on the sidewalk catches my eye.

I am going to interrupt her message to say that pennies are a sign Calder, my son in spirit, and I have established. She did not know that. How could she? He sends other coins as well, but I have been a penny lover since I was a toddler visiting my grandparents’ general store in Arkansas. My grandfather would drag a stool over to the register, set me in front of the cash drawer, and open it. He would say, “Take whatever you can fit in your hand.” My chubby little hand would go for the penny slot and grab as many pennies as I could hold. This gave everyone a good laugh. I just loved pennies! I have collected wheat pennies for years and still look for them whenever I see a penny bowl at a cash register. Today, there is a bowl full of coins on my desk that I have found since Calder crossed. The most special coins are the ones with the years 2007 and 2014, but until now, I haven’t shared that with anyone other than my husband. Those dates aren’t significant to other people, but they are extremely significant to us: Calder was born in 2007 and crossed in 2014.

Nick’s mom’s message continued:

A penny on the sidewalk catches my eye. I pick it up and check the year, bc you know! Carla, it is a 2007 penny. I think, “Could this be the year Calder was born?” I try to do the math from what I heard on your podcast. I don’t want to just assume I’m right, even though I feel it. I feel that rush—that energy, the love!—when you just know… So I look up your sweet boy’s name online (I always feel weird doing that, but I didn’t want to text you just in case I was wrong), and then I’m happy I did bc I see pictures of your beautiful Calder and also see his birth year, 2007! I feel like our boys are together today. Could it be Calder sent me this sign to connect us? I don’t know exactly what it means, but I definitely feel this is a clue to a continued journey. And I’m grateful. And I am just blown away at this very moment. 💖💖💖💖💖

Thank you, Calder! Bravo! How awesome is that? This mother received confirmation that she is on the right path and that our boys are together, and Tom also received confirmation that his podcast is helping parents. These are sacred, joyful connections.

The thing about our loved ones in spirit is that they will continue to send us signs until we see them. Luckily, this 2007 penny caught Nick’s mother’s eye—and both of our hearts.

In early 2025, I was having one of those days as I headed to the periodontist, which put me in an even fouler mood. My patience with myself was hitting a wall. I had been writing my book about grief and spirituality for what felt like a lifetime. Every time I thought I was getting close to the finish line, I would have a new experience that had to be added, and it was starting to feel like I was clumsily kicking the ball further away. I wanted to be finished. I needed to be done.

I’ve never been the most patient person. My mother and her sister repeated the virtues of patience to my antsy young self often. These women kept chirping at me about slowing down and having patience until one day, at six years old, I emphatically yelled, “I’m tired of all this patience business!”

They responded with explosive laughter. There was nothing in my life that made me happier than the sound of my mother’s and aunt’s laughter. Joy filled the air, patience was forgotten, and for the rest of my aunt’s life, she retold the story in her southern drawl about how tired I was of “all this patience business.”

Today, in my impatience and frustration, I had forgotten to pause and consider the weight of what I was trying to accomplish: not only writing a book about the most traumatic experience of my life in the hopes that it would help others, but also studying to become an evidence-based medium. I had embarked on these two life-changing journeys at the same time because mediumship was the most healing modality I had discovered since our seven-year-old son, Calder, died in an accident in our backyard. The writing wasn’t nearly as big of a challenge as opening myself up to the belief that we can all communicate with our loved ones who have left their physical bodies. I had gone from a TV career where, among many jobs like game show writer/producer, I worked for Judge Judy—one of the most no-nonsense women in television. What would she and my fellow producers think of all this? I had numerous friends who worked on daytime shows where mediums were consistent guests, so of course they had met a few, but none of them had joined the ranks and actually become one.

I questioned whether I was doing the right thing by outing myself as a medium and making our family’s incredibly personal story of grief available to the public. Would it upset them? Could I handle the criticism? Who did I even think I was?

The difference these days is that instead of phoning a friend, I ask for guidance from my loved ones and my team on the other side. I had spent countless hours writing my book and voraciously reading anything I could get my hands on about the greater universe and connecting with our loved ones on the other side. I had watched every documentary or scripted television show about life after death. I had taken classes not only with mediums and channelers in America, but also spiritualists in England. I was in training to be the best possible medium I could be, but today, ten years into the physical absence of my eldest child, I was deeply discouraged. In general, people don’t know what to do with grief, and they pity or mock those who show faith in something bigger than the material world. What if, after all of this, I wasn’t on the right path after all?!

Getting out of my car in the periodontist’s parking lot, I silently spiked a Hail Mary at my guides, “Okay, everyone, if I am on the right path and am truly supposed to put this book out there in the world, I want a big, specific sign. I want you to put a one-hundred-dollar-bill on the sidewalk in front of me so I know that I am one hundred percent on the right path.” Then I laughed out loud at myself. How ridiculous am I? A one-hundred-dollar bill? On a sidewalk? But I did want the confirmation.

An hour later, when I emerged with my prescriptions and a plan for my gum surgery, I looked down on the sidewalk. There in front of me was a single penny. I laughed out loud again and thought, “Hey, that’s not a one-hundred-dollar bill.” Our loved ones on the other side have a sense of humor, but they also don’t waste time with insignificant signs. I picked up the penny and looked at the year: 2004.

I was slightly bummed I didn’t immediately get what I had asked for, but I do love a penny. I knew the penny was not a refusal to send me the one-hundred-dollar bill; it was an answer. When I got home, I took my antibiotics and looked on SacredScribes.org, my favorite site to check Angel numbers and I wanted to know what 2004 meant. I have journals filled with coins and Angel messages but was stunned by what the Angel index had to say that day. Here are the highlights:

Angel number 2004 brings a request from your Angels to stay patient a little longer, as details are being worked out behind the scenes and are not quite ready just yet. Once all falls into place in Divine right time, you will find your prayers answered and solutions found. // Angel number 2004 is a message from your angels to continue on your present path with passion and enthusiasm. Believe in yourself and your inner talents and abilities. // Your angels remind you that you have learned a great deal from your life’s experiences and relationships, and now it is time to pass that wisdom on to others. Know that all is going to Divine plan in your life.

That was one of the clearest messages I had ever received and was overjoyed to put my big-girl pants back on, finish writing my book, and continue giving medium sessions to others.

Writing this, I am reminded to always be grateful for the journey. Once you make a request, be open to what comes your way and let go. I was so satisfied with the message from my penny, I completely forgot about the one-hundred-dollar bill. I returned to the day-to-day business of my life. Then two weeks later, after dropping my son off at school, I went to pick up my prescription glasses at the repair shop. Before I entered the store, something on the sidewalk caught my eye. It was a piece of paper with the number 100 on it. I bent down in complete surprise to find that it was a one-hundred-dollar bill, neatly folded so only the 100 was showing. I unfolded it in amazement and looked around. No one was there, so I snapped a photo, refolded the one-hundred-dollar bill, and put it in my wallet. Now it sits on my desk as a reminder that there is more happening behind the scenes than you or I know. It may take a little more patience than we realize, but the answers are always there. Imagine the impossible, keep the faith, and ask for guidance.

Welcome to my world. Here, you will find hope and guidance for overcoming the biggest hurdles life puts in our way: death and grief. Since our son Calder died in an accident a week after his seventh birthday, countless people have asked me the following questions:

How do you get out of bed in the morning? How do you go on living after your child has died? Where do you find the strength?

First, let me offer this: don’t ask any of those questions. Early, horrific grief is a time for kind gestures, hugs, and hand squeezes. Show up to go on a walk or simply sit with the griever as they cry. Yes, it’s hard to sit with someone’s pain; do what you can to be present without resorting to thoughtless words and worn-out phrases.

I have had more than a decade to ponder not only these questions, but also the meaning of life after loss. In the early years, I was a grief zombie, mindlessly walking the planet, searching for a way to quell the pain—actually, to end the pain. I could not see a way out. Then, I started to experience small wrinkles in the matrix of my reality. Dreams of Calder visiting and giving me a kiss on the lips like he did when he was physically alive. Readings with vetted mediums like Rosie Cepero and A.J. Barrera, who delivered messages that could only be from him. Calder sending me a wild deer that put its nose right into my hand, as Laura Lynne Jackson predicted and shared in her New York Times bestselling book Signs.

I was forever changed after those encounters, especially with the deer in the Florida Keys. Unexpectedly, the most remarkable world began opening up to me. That same year, we planned a family trip to Italy with my brother’s family so that our younger son Caleb would have his cousins with him. Caleb was upset when they had to leave a few days before us because he wasn’t used to being the only child, but at the next hotel, he quickly befriended a tow-headed, blue-eyed boy named Ossian. We immediately thought of Calder. We ended up spending the day with that family, the two young, wild boys running and laughing until we said our goodbyes at dusk. Just before they left, I was moved to ask,

“What does Ossian mean?” What the father said took my breath away.

“It’s Gaelic for little deer.” Calder had sent the little deer to play with his brother.

I have come to understand that this is what writers and teachers refer to as an unfoldment—the slow process of becoming aware that we are all connected in the wider universe. Over the years, my path has been guided by my choice to embrace this often neglected, unseen, mind-bending world while keeping my feet planted firmly on the earth. Now, my life’s mission is in service to others, not only through our family foundation, but also in writing a book to share all of these thrilling experiences, completing David Kessler’s grief educator certification program, and connecting people with their loved ones on the other side through mediumship. There is a never-ending supply of love to guide us all out of the darkness. Life is about the choices we make, the beliefs we cultivate, and the ability to recognize the magical moments when they appear.