The Long Island Medium

When I was sick early last May I found myself lying on the couch on a Sunday afternoon with little concentration to read. So I turned on the television and flipped through the channels.

I found a marathon of The Long Island Medium on TLC. And I began to watch.

I have always been fascinated with the idea that the dead can speak and certain people have the capacity to hear what they have to say. Most of the time I believe psychic readings are a hoax---the person attempting the “read” draws information out of the interested party making it seem as if the dead are speaking when in fact they are not. I have observed this on occasion when I have seen John Edwards on various shows---believers unwittingly give key information away.

But even so it does not cause me to doubt every psychic. There have been times in my own experience where I have felt guided to do and say things that felt outside of myself---particularly when I write. And I have been told intriguing things in vivid dreams by family members who have passed on. These encounters have served to maintain my faith: sometimes dead people speak.

And I believe in that Long Island Medium. It is mostly because she can be sitting in the dentist’s chair being a regular person getting a tooth filled when a dead person disturbs her. And then she must search the waiting room to tell a total stranger that their dead mother enjoyed the chicken soup they prepared for them hours before they died. The Long Island Medium gives readings to people who do not engage her employ apparently just to stop the dead person from nagging her. Which is why I find her credible—even more so when people come to her for a paid reading and she flat out says—I’ve got nothing.  Apparently not all dead people have something to say.

And very recently I was at a luncheon where a friend was telling me that on the anniversary of their Uncle's death they had spent the entire day thinking about and missing him. And when she randomly pulled her Droid from her handbag the phone had somehow put itself in its own electronic phone book. And the randomly displayed contact was that of her deceased Uncle.

It was a bit spooky.

And I thought Oh my God that is awesome---her Uncle "called" to say hello---he knew his niece was missing him and so he picked up the phone.

Because even if the dead do not speak to the living, choosing to believe that they do is comforting. Belief heals. And who knows, the next time I find myself in Hicksville in the Broadway diner maybe I will be sitting on the other side of the booth from the Long Island Medium. And she will be compelled to stand up and ask Who’s father played the saxophone and ate his spare ribs with a knife and fork? And I will say that’s me!! And she will announce your father wants you to know he is grateful and proud of you for taking care of things in his absence. And I will smile at her and say thank you—tell my father it was my pleasure----and that  he can you can leave you alone now---everyone is hungry and  we all need to eat our hamburgers.