CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW

We don’t usually get a lot of time to spend together because of work schedules, and this summer was no exception. A sunny day with low humidity was the signal to do something we’ve always wanted to try.

We drove the 2.5 hours to Lilydale, a spiritualists colony inhabited with mediums and those who felt they had the gift of speaking to those who have gone over to the other side.
As in every profession, some were better than others. This was a totally new experience for me, and I was not sure what to expect.

Would there be chanting? Smoke and mirrors? Costumes?

Ending up on the doorstep of a world renowned medium, my beloved and I took turns sitting in the waiting room. Each of us spent 30 minutes with a slender and soft spoken gentleman, a man reminiscent of a kindly shopkeeper in a Harry Potter movie, with a wise face and kind eyes.

He taped recorded our session so that we could remember what he said to each of us, and I was thankful he did.

The first person to “greet” me was Bingo Mary, my grandmother and nemesis in many of the tales about my family.

Bingo Mary was the first to recognize my penchant for story telling and bought me my first typewriter, a portable blue plastic one with white keys.

I was taken aback but not surprised to learn she and my dad are still arguing in the hereafter, talking about the direction my life is about to take. I just smiled.

For as much as I complained about my grandmother when I was young, I have learned that I am just like her, much to my mother’s chagrin.

Between laughs and tearful moments, I was able to take away from the reading a better sense of where I came from and what I want to do.

His parting words to me were uttered by Bingo Mary, a cryptic “….remember where it all started” referring to the summer of 1964, when I sat on her patio, teaching myself to type and creating a new world where ten year olds didn’t have to fit it with anyone.

It doesn’t take a visit to the hereafter to know what you want to do here on earth. But it was fun just the same.