A Love Story for Valentines Day

It’s still Valentine's day out here in the middle of the ocean. I want to share a beautiful story of a couple that I met last week. She's in Colorado, he’s on the other side, I’m in Kauai - but the three of us met on a phone call on a Monday morning.

I knew that this call was to connect two people in love.

I knew that they’d been married for 30 years, in love for longer.

I was nervous because I was so hopeful that it would work out, and nerves sometimes prevent me from saying yes to doing the reading. But, thankfully, love won, nerves lost and I said yes.

Her name is Francis, she was looking for her husband Mark*. He's only been gone a little while now, and grief threatens to engulf her sometimes. She saw a poem I wrote about my dad who has been gone 30 years and I think the number helped, she felt the need to reach to me.

30 years is a long time to be married and in love.

So when we jumped on the call at 11am last Monday, we started with the soul to soul of the two of us here on earth.

Frances and I had never met, but our voices found all of those lovely notes.

Those ‘ah, I like you’ notes, those ‘we’ll get along great’ notes.

Not always the case.

But last week there was a lot of warmth on the line.

The next aspect of the equation is how open Frances is to the communication with her people on the other side. The image I have is a highway of sorts; the love is like little cars of light and sweetness, memories and other floating bits. All of these amazing little moments driving up and down between the two sides. Francis was easing up the on-ramp, blinker on.

After that, we figure out how well I’ll do with her people. Sometimes I see them. Sometimes I hear them. Sometimes I feel things in my body. I have to sort on the fly what kind of communication is going to be the best way. Which means the readings usually start off a little slow, maybe I hear little bits of information on the radio, static too. Images appear like billboards that don't make any sense. But, then….it starts to come - and on Monday morning I saw him.

Her husband.

I said: “He’s….Tall.

He’s beaming love.

He’s quietly sending this light ray to you, Frances.

He’s a man of integrity, I can see that running up and down in him.

He has a clarity that’s unique, a quiet beam of love.”

So when I got the next packet of information that downloads into my mind that says

'Boisterous and gregarious, funny, a big voice' I think, ‘Huh, that doesn’t compute. That doesn’t match the previous quiet love beams.’

So I mistakenly say,

“I wouldn’t say he’s like a big personality….” and as those words fall out of my mouth I know that I have it wrong.

She lovingly corrects me.

“Oh no, he has a big personality, a booming voice.”

Dang.

I hate the opposite game - this can be hard to recover from. And points to the problem with my brain getting involved. It was a faulty concept that was running me, that a person cannot be both quiet and loud. Which is, of course, not true. Funnily enough a big personality is my favorite kind of spirit communicator, because they push through words and images with the enthusiasm of a kid having just eaten a bunch of candy.

It’s fun and fast.

So we keep going. She’s generous, saying that the previous words were very accurate, ie: the beams. That was the guy she was married to, she knew him that way as steady and loving. Everyone else knew him as the guy who entered the room laughing and ready to make everyone else laugh. Always wearing a ball cap. All of this information she is offering is nice because I feel like I’ve got a beat on him now. I can see him more clearly.

Next I hear.

'Pennies from heaven'. Frances said he would be a guy who would sing that song. I don’t have the context for the song but her saying that gives me chills. And I hear this phrase a lot, pennies from heaven.

He followed up with a clear line, imprinted into my mind. 'You will see coins and those are me. I am with you then.'

I love this type of message. Such sweet shorthand offering symbolic gestures. Real life signs that spirit can send to us here in this thick gnarly dimension of serious-faced business calls and buying laundry detergent under fluorescent lights. I have no idea why coins are easily pushed around by spirit, but I'm all for it.

Other mediums will tell you this too. Bugs, butterflies, birds are all ways that spirit wanders in as well. Which kind of makes more sense to me since they are lighter and I would assume more easily conjured. It’s a fine collaboration really, spirit showing up as winged, flitting creatures. Coins seem kinda heavy to me, but hey that's the good word, and we like it when there is a good word.

Francis and I talked about having her say just 'yes', 'no' and 'maybe' answers - so that I could keep pulling in information and sort it myself, not relying on her to fill in the gaps.

So I say, I see a daughter - and - he’s a bit worried about her. She’s struggling with his death.

Yes.

I say “This one has a halo of flowers around her.”

She waits.

Next I struggle to see what kind of flowers they are because I don’t know the name of many flowers, not a botanist, not a florist, now I am wishing I was more of a smarty pants medium with a different kind of mind.

Mark begins coaching me from the other side saying ‘reach for it’, kinda teasing and pushing me to figure it out. I mention this and Frances laughs saying, “Yep, that sounds like him!”

“Oh - hay! I see Lily’s!’

“Yes”, Francis says. “That’s her name. Lily.” Sigh of relief. Also I deeply love the name Lily, but that’s another story for another time.

Now he brings in a bunch of key facts about the older daughter, about how Francis brings food to her and her family and he’s very grateful to her for doing that. He's pushing a stream of words and images.

I see the number 4, I say they are a party of 4, 2 kids. Not tall kids, not big kids, these are little kids. I see them doing laps around their parents, scooting around on small bikes and things.

Yes, yes yes.

Oh thank god with the yes’s, you know?

But I’ve been told by wise Medium teacher people, don’t take the No’s personally. There’s tons of good information in the whole stream, and if the brain blows it, just get back on the horse and ask another question. Amble back into the stream of the communication. Or the freeway. Or whatever metaphor you're running with.

The best 'yes' of all came when I saw an umbrella. I realized this umbrella was a mode of transportation. So I said, “Oh! He’s talking about Mary Poppins.”

And she burst into a joyous “Yes!” She filled in some details at this point, letting me know that she is known as Mary Poppins to her family and this is Mark’s nickname for her. In fact when he wrote about his beautiful wife in a book he penned, he titled that chapter ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’. I’d just watched Mary Poppins 2 a few weeks ago, so that umbrella flight pattern was fresh in my mind.

Also, randomly a dog came to the sliding glass door of the room I was sitting in. A super cute little dog, kind of a schnauzer looking thing earnestly looking for something. Likely, looking for my dog to play with, but immediately I knew it was significant.

I said, “There’s a little dog with him on the other side” I suddenly got an image that he holds this dog like a baby, like you would an infant. It’s freakin’ adorable.

So I have a real dog that showed up, but he was pointing to a spirit dog. Frances gasps at this one, this is indeed true, there is a little dog on the other side who is a little schnauzer and that is in fact exactly how he held the dog. She was happy to hear they are now together. It took both of us a little while to recover from this visitation. cause that was some serious magic.

Later we get to the crux of the reading, she has some questions about his death and his experience at the hospital. With COVID happening, it meant she and her family were not able to be with him, she was worried he may have suffered. He showed me a type of meter image that represents that he was only in his body for a small percentage of the time that he was in that hospital.

A couple weeks I say? No, 10 days.

Looking at the meter he shows me, it feels like 20% is all that he endured. “It seems he was only really there-there for like 2 of those days, at the most. Yes, he was looking for you, yes, it was scary. But he also totally understood and he felt you loving him from the kitchen table.”

As I say it, I realize that the kitchen table is significant, and mention it. “Oh, I bought a new one!” she says. “He’s laughing about that. But, he says he likes it”. “Oh good!” she says. “What is most important", I offer, "is that you can feel him around you, he's always around. You know when he comes by, and right now you’re denying that. That’s why we are doing this reading together today, because you keep denying it.”

“That’s true.” She said. “I told my friend that the whole reason for this reading is for me to begin to believe that what I’m getting as little drive by’s from him are really him.”

Emphatically I say “YES to that Ms Francis! That is what he is saying!’

So when the trifecta we have been running can evolve into a beam between two souls, that’s so much better. They can have the conversation and the knowing; their freeway full of love bumper stickers. But, of course it can be hard for us living folks to believe that all of those signs are real. But they are real my friends, they really, really are. One of my favorite things to say, (as informed by folks on the other side), is...If you think that that thing, bird visitor, letter in the mailbox, coin, song on the radio is your loved one - it is.

Trust it.

And they have so much fun with us. Sometimes the signs come with so much flow and whoa, in fact, there is a fun ending to this story. At the end of our time together, Francis walked into another room while we were still on the phone and found a coin on her table. That table we talked about. She said, “Oh the cleaners must have left it here.” Then we both laughed, and said at the same time we said “Or it was Mark!” It was pretty awesome, I pointed to the sky like a football player after a touchdown. Nicely done, dude!

A few days later I heard from Frances about another coincidence. She said one of the kids I saw running circles around their parents had found a coin and brought it to her Mom saying ‘Look Momma, look at this penny’. Which was cool enough, but to make it even more dramatic, this event happened during the very time that Frances and I were on the phone doing the reading.

And for the trifecta? A second after seeing this message about coin #2, still grinning at my phone, I was jumping on a call with Joy. No kidding, my friend's name is Joy. She and I began talking about the current astrology and how maybe it had been a bit more challenging. At that moment I opened my email app on my phone (kind of unconsciously, you know how sometimes hands operate without permission?) and the next email that popped in was from this astrology zone site pictured below. I thought, ‘How nice, I was just looking for some astrology and here it is and…..’ Then, my eyes got very, very big. In fact, my face must have been hilarious. Luckily it was over the zoom so Joy saw it and said, “Holy cow, what was that?”

Take a look at the photo below, the headline read "Pennies from Heaven". Once I recovered, I tipped my hat to Mark on the other side like, ‘Hay! I see you. Nice job. I’ll tell Francis.' And I heard him laugh his boisterous laugh.

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Edited to add: *I have changed their names.

Also! A week or so after this Mary Poppins reading (as above) I did a reading for a dear friend who I had asked to read this essay as I was looking for some feedback (Ok, actually, encouragement). Immediately his cousin from the other side came through. My friend said, 'But I haven't talked to him in so long!' I laughed. 'Yep! they still care about us - a lot!' THEN that cousin mentioned his Mom, who is named Francis. And I was like 'Huh! That's the name I made up for the essay I asked you to read. Funny.' So then! He reads the essay and says to me, 'Huh. Crazy fact? The cousin's brother's name is Mark'. Ha. That cousin had a hold of me for many days before coming through to see my friend. I can always hear them laughing over there, and the cousin is now the one laughing. But, to be fair, our small minds must be funny to watch. xoxo