SPIRIT, YOU ARE NOT THE FATHER

A Scully Among Spirits - Part Two

If you haven’t read the blog post before this one, you might want to do so before jumping in. If you have or you’re throwing caution to the wind, let’s go!

It took everything not to mention that it was my birthday. I didn’t want to offer up any information that would help the psychic medium Casey out.

When our video call started, I made sure to mention that I was sick. Who doesn’t love being on-camera when they’re sick?

“Oh, honey. I was thinking about cancelling myself because I've got this horrid headache and I never get them. Never.”

I don’t know why, but this immediately kind of set off an alarm for me. Immediately, I’m thinking if you’re legit, wouldn’t a headache effect your reading? If you never get them, wouldn’t you just play it safe and cancel?

Maybe I was just being paranoid.

“I haven’t read for you before, right?”

Maybe not.

I kind of felt like Casey should have known whether or not she’s read me before. Is it naïve to think I shouldn’t need to confirm with someone that refers to themselves as a “psychic medium” that we’ve never met?

Once I confirmed that I had said a prayer to loved ones as she’d previously requested, “Spirit” made themselves known.

Because of my familiarity with psychic “techniques,” I initially started out giving Casey a lot of “Yes” or “No” responses. I didn’t want to sway her “intuitions” with too much offered information. I wanted to see what she arrived at without me helping her along.

Being sick as a dog likely also worked in my favor. The only thing that was easy to read in my expression was that I should never attempt to eat a hamburger at AMC Theatres again.

“As I'm sitting here, I feel a male. Are you here for a male?”

I’m pretty open when it comes to my father in interviews as well as on social media. He was a great guy that got me in a way no one else did. I miss him every day.

“And is he… Well, I’ll tell ya, I don’t think he’s too sure about me.”

I offered her a small chuckle and Casey responded in kind. As I said previously, I’d done the requested prayer before the session started. My dad is the person I prayed to hear from.

“Would this be a father?”

This is where things had to be delicate. My father and I had grown very close shortly before he passed away unexpectedly. My life changed dramatically after his death.

“He's just looking at me like he doesn't feel real. He's like, ‘I don't know if I'm into this. I'm not all too sure about you.’ It's more about how he doesn't know about me and I'm like ‘Okay, take your time and let's go slow.’ But I feel like he would have been like that in life. He wasn't so sure about things.”

I, more or less, confirmed this by nodding as Casey spoke. Again, this may or may not be a safe assumption to make based on the cues she’d begun to pick up from me.

“Has he been gone for two years?”

In October of this year, my father will have been gone for 20 years. After I told Casey this, she nodded as if that made complete sense.

“Okay. I just saw the 2 and I knew it was more than, you know, two months. So I'm thinking two years. But, oh, it’s 20 years. Okay, Okay... I just saw the 2.”

This is only about three minutes into what ended up being a one-and-a-half-hour session. That already not great feeling in my stomach only got worse.

“He says that there was confusion around his passing. Was it unexpected?”

I was perplexed by this. Without going into too much detail, the way my father died left little room for doubt. No one raised questions at any point.

“He says to me ‘My death was confusing for everyone. I was there, then I was gone. No one knew what happened.’”

We all knew what happened. It didn’t make it easier, but no one was confused.

I told Casey none of this at first as to not affect what “Dad” or “Spirit” was telling her.  After some prodding and waving away the things that didn’t align with Casey’s tracking, she went on to say that my father’s cause of death was related to sleep apnea.

It wasn’t.

After trying to get me to confirm her line of thought and failing, Casey quickly moved on. I was honestly happy for the topic switch.

“Anyway,… he's very proud of you.”

While this wasn’t a true psychic experience by the look of things, I was definitely entertained. Well, that and sick. But, again— Just say “No” to AMC burgers.

“He looked at me‚ no offense to you, but sometimes they make me mad. He says, ‘We done with that now?” I'm like hold up! Geez.”

I was more than grateful to move on, but definitely could have done without whatever the hell that was. And that’s when I used all my voice acting skills to hopefully give a convincing little chuckle.

“I just heard the name ‘James.’ Do you know that name?”

While I most definitely know people with that name, there is no one close to me with the name “James.” Hopefully, I’m not breaking the heart of someone with that name right now.

I told Casey no one sprang to mind.

“Well, let me profess. Let me start off saying I suck at names. But sometimes I will hear them and get them.”

This would be what I was referring to in Part One when mentioning leading questions. Not a lot of Casey’s leading questions stuck the landing. Her guesses kept missing the mark.

“You moved on. You propelled your life. Does that make sense? When he said propelled, he showed me a boat propelling through the water. Yeah, I heard ‘propelling your life,’ so that makes me feel like he had something to do with water boats and fishing.”

I’m a stickler for details and that’s not always a good thing. Casey notes that “Dad” showed her a boat propelling and then says she heard “propelling your life.” It wasn’t consistent and felt forced.

And bringing up water boats and fishing? I mean… I live in the Lone Star state. That’s a pretty easy shot in the dark.

“He said, ‘I guess, ma'am.” Jesus! Was he like that in life?”

Wow. Okay. Maybe I can blame it all on being a skeptic and/or new to this kind of experience, but this just felt too performative.

“I have to ask you, have you had issues with your eyes?”

I wear reading glasses, though I wasn’t wearing them during this session with Casey. I get my annual eye exam and there’s been nothing that’s come up as irregular or concerning. Though I will make sure to tell my eye doctor that a psychic medium mentioned something. I’m awkward at any doctor’s appointment, so this most definitely will come up.

As far as my dad’s sight, he had LASIK Eye Surgery at some point. I didn’t know this until my last Summer with him in 2003. I mentioned this to Casey.

“I thought it was you. To be honest, I thought it was you thinking about getting cataract surgery. I thought you were fixing to have it done. So, it was him. I felt like it was an issue. I felt like you were already aware and he's making me feel like ‘Oh, let's just get this done and over with’ but that was him. Okay, well. Anyway, he thinks you should just go get it done.”

There was no mention of cataracts regarding my father or myself. While I’ve played with getting LASIK, I was told I’m not a good candidate because of my age and that my sight isn’t that bad. There is no reason to have the surgery.

Casey might’ve seen my wheels really start to turn here because she changed the subject.

“You either loved him or you hated his guts. There was no in-between… I mean if I'm wrong tell me. I can be wrong.”

My dad thoroughly enjoyed not being everyone’s cup of tea. In that way, I am my father’s daughter. While I don’t want to completely dismiss the idea that my dad is visiting me, this feels like nothing more than an observation based on how I more than likely come off.

Also, while “mediumship” is by no means a science, saying “I can be wrong” in this context had me feeling some kind of way.

After this, Casey correctly guessed that my parents were divorced. I’ll skip over this because she basically just concluded that because I didn’t see him all the time that I really didn’t know him. I didn’t agree with that assumption.

“Now I'm not trying to be ugly and God knows I can be wrong… but would you consider him what people would say is a ‘Trumper’ today? Would he have been, I don't want to say Republican—Would he have been like, you know, ‘Red, White and Blue’ all the way?”

My father knew he had a lot of growing to do. We had a lot of talks during our last Summer together. I couldn’t say what he’d be like in today’s political hellscape. I can only say that I’d hope he wouldn’t be anything remotely close to a Trumper.

Casey kind of moved on after a couple of attempts to get me to expand more on my father being a “Good Ol’ Country Boy.” I think I looked a little confused at the way she continued to frame my dad.

She started bringing up “labor work.” Something about my father working with his hands a lot. While he did do the occasional odd job, his main source of income came from working as a correctional officer at a federal prison.

“I see an ‘L.’ Do you know a “Linda” or something like that? It's an ‘L’ name. I just see the ‘L,’ actually.”

And now we’re back to leading questions that could pertain to so many people. I told Casey that the “L” could be my dad or my brother but didn’t say what either of their names were.

I’d mentioned my brother a couple of times throughout. I was curious after the session if Casey would have just continued on with the assumption that I was an only child if I hadn’t brought him up.

I also have a stepsister and stepbrother that “Dad” had no message for.

The next part had to do with my mother. This could be a touchy subject as I’ve been “No Contact” with her for years. I can’t say if that will ever change, but I was ready to see what Casey had to say here.

At this point, this psychic medium had no credibility. This is where Casey could definitely turn the tide. If she was indeed speaking with my father, Dad knew a lot about the friction between his ex-wife and their daughter long before he left this world.

As for the two of them, they did love each other. But they were a volatile pairing. When things were good, it was good. When things were bad? It was the baddest of the bad.

When cleaning out my father’s house, I found his wedding ring. During our last Summer together, he casually told me that he’d sold the ring at a pawn shop. I can’t explain why he lied about keeping it, but I know that my mother kept letters he’d written her over the years.

Sometimes couples don’t work, but the love is still there.

“He's apologizing. I feel like this is to your mom. It's almost like he doesn’t really think he owes her one. But, after seeing his review of life, he had a different feel… Will you please let her know that? That he did apologize?”

As I mentioned before, my mother and I are estranged. I had mentioned this to Casey a couple of times by this point in the reading.

When I said nothing in response, Casey went on to say that it wasn’t an entirely remorseful apology. I still said nothing.

“He's making me aware that someone's birthday or passings coming up.”

I finally had to admit to Casey that it was indeed my birthday.

“He just looked at me and said, ‘Well, you screwed that up.’”

There’s a lot to digest there.

One thing was admitting that “Spirit” didn’t let you know that you were speaking with a brand new, limited edition 39-year-old Terri.

Another was this voice Casey put on when “quoting” my father. This was probably one of the weirder things she did. It was this forced, pitched-down Texan twang.

After a long pause, Casey skipped along here and there to various topics. A lot of things didn’t connect or were just wrong.

She did accurately guess the number of kids my brother has. It’s a larger number, so that’s… something?

The mention of kids inevitably turned to asking me about my own children. Casey said that my father wasn’t answering her when she asked if I had any.

I told Casey the surface-level version of when my husband and I tried and successfully got pregnant. Unfortunately, we suffered a pretty traumatic experience that we’re still reeling from years later. Because of this, we have no plans to try again. Attempts to adopt have also been halted for the foreseeable future.

Calling myself a mother often feels hollow. I’ve been referred to as an “angel mom” and a “rainbow mom” in the past and in therapy. I’m not entirely comfortable with either of those, but I will always appreciate the sentiment as well as the acknowledgement.

All of this is to say that I feel Casey could have handled this part with more care because her definitively saying she knows that I didn’t have any kids afterward honestly hurt a bit. She then said what so many others with the best intentions say.

“It’s not too late to have them if you really want them.”

I didn’t reply.

TO BE CONTINUED!