the gift and the curse

i've got a secret. okay, i don't really do secrets, but i'll say that i've got a confession. i talk to the dead. well, they talk to me. it started like this: on june 13, 1998 (the morning of my high school graduation) my cousin passed away. my dad and i flew up to her funeral while my sister and my mother drove up to jersey for it. dad dropped me off at my house while i waited for moms and sis to get back. as i unpacked my bag i looked up at the picture over my bed and i saw her staring back at me- my dead cousin, tracy. i pinched myself, i rubbed my eyes. i told myself that it wasn't her, but the fact is in the place where my face should have been in that mirror was instead the face of my dead cousin. time went on and i missed her. at times i'd be watching tv in my room and it would randomly turn off on its own. i knew it was her, i just didn't want to think about it.

one day while i was watching montel williams he had silvia brown there, telling the audience how to communicate with the dead. she said to turn off everything and just listen. so that's what i did. i turned off the television and i heard my cousin tell me that she's there with our grandmother that passed before i was born, that she wasn't there with her cousin, that she loves everyone, and that she's not concerned about how she looked in her casket (i should backtrack and say that my cousin looked absolutely hideous in a powder blue lacey dress and her hair was in some kind of curly mess). hearing those things from her brought me a lot of peace. but strangely enough i heard something else afterward. i heard "sebastian, uncle, father, brother james, sebastian, james, uncle, father, brother, sebastian, james." the only person i knew named sebastian was my friend, dj scorpio, but only scorp's close friends and family call him his birth name. who was this spirit? and how the hell did it know scorpio? i thought it was his father that died when scorp was 3. i meant to ask him about it but i kept forgetting. one day in my car i thought back on that and reminded myself to ask scorp about the "james" person. i asked aloud if it was his father. and i heard the word "uncle" repeating in my head. later on i said to scorp, "this may sound weird, but do you have a dead relative named james?" and scorp replied "yeah." and then i said "who was he?" and scorp said that james was his uncle. then i asked how james was his uncle. scorp told me that james was his father's brother. i wanted to pass out. how the hell did i know that?! scorp stared at me blankly and was unphased. but i'd just randomly had a friend's dead relative contact me, tell me his name, tell me how he was related to my friend.
next up, a friend of mine had the misfortune of having her mother pass away on christmas eve. some years later, i got a "message" from the mother that she wanted me to pass on to her daughter- she died on christmas eve and not christmas because she didn't want her daughter to associate christmas day with her death. she was also proud at how hard her daughter worked to support herself (the family is from haiti and my friend sends money back to her poor family regularly). my friend is a nurse that works several jobs leads a pretty financially stable life. anyway, her mother is quite proud of who her daughter became and she's still with her. i called my friend and started with "this may sound weird but i got a message from your mother..." i expected her to be like "what the hell are you talking about?! that shit is crazy!" but my friend told me that she believed that her mother said those things because that sounded exactly like something she would say and if i got any other messages from her mother, feel free to call her and let her know. the funny thing is that when i get a "message" from someone i get more amazed than the receiver when the message is eerily familiar to them.

in another case, the cousin of my friend was killed by police up in boston. one day i got a message from the cousin. it kept saying "grandma." i had never met the cousin at all. i called my friend and asked if the cousin was close to his grandmother and my friend replied that yes, they were close. i said well, "i got a message from your cousin and he's with his grandmother, please let her know." my friend said he didn't know if he wanted to pass on the message to his grandmother since she was a religious freak. what could i do? i was only the messenger. a while later i got a feeling from the cousin that he liked the color blue and he was into basketball. i asked my friend about those things and sure enough, the cousin liked blue and basketball. i asked if he'd passed on the message to his grandmother. he hadn't and he had no plans to do so. *sigh* well, at least i'd held up my end of the bargain.

the most eerie occurence happened with my homegirl's boyfriend's father. the father died and she called to tell me. she didn't want me to mention that his father had passed away so i didn't. we went to meet up with him and so help me, i could see the energy of his father with him. it was a soft light standing right next to him. i later got a message from the father. well it wasn't even a message. it was more of a vibe. he struck me as a man of few words. he was a strong communicator, but he was silent. he loved his kids. he was in a better place. he raised his son to be a man and he didn't want him to be sad. i can't really remember what the rest was. i told my homegirl that i've got the "gift" i don't really tell people about it unless it comes up and/or i have a message because frankly i get tired of people thinking that i'm crazy. anyway i told her that i have a message from the father and after thinking for a minute, she decided to tell her boyfriend and he got on the phone with me. i told him that i saw/felt his father with him when i saw him and i told him what i knew. that he was a silent man, strong communicator, better place, etc. he seemed kinda blank and thanked me. she called me later and said something that shocked the hell out of me. his father was silent because he'd had a tracheotomy. she didn't know that and nor did i until the boyfriend told us. there was absolutely no way for me to know how or why he was silent. scary.

i also passed on to my teacher that his mother was with him. actually i asked him if there was someone in his past who liked to bake, a matronly person. he said yes, his mother. and he went on to desribe her love of baking and keeping a warm kitchen going. i'd already had the picture and the feeling in my head before he even desribed it. i've had a few other incidents like this. my friend was talking about her dad on the anniversary of his death and told her about my gift and i relayed to her how his spirit was. its kind of scary how accurate i was. i told her that he was concerned about her health and he wanted her to monitor it.

in my own life, aside from my cousin, my son's spirit guide "george" was with me while i was pregnant. i don't know much about george. he just came to me and let me know that he was gonna keep an eye on my little booger for me. i know that george comes from deen's mother's side of the family. he was tall and strong and well respected in his community. i feel that he looked a bit like deen, only darker. his life was cut short, but i'm not sure how. he was also a bit of a ladies' man, although his heart was with his wife. i told deen about george and of course deen thinks i'm crazy, but i know that george is with caleb now, which is why i don't feel him anymore. its up to caleb to get to know him now.

the downside is when i try to tell people about their relatives but they're too blinded by religion or fear of the unknown to hear me out. recently i got a "vibe" about my friend's husband. his mother contacted me. her spirit was BEAUTIFUL. so beautiful i was moved to tears. you actually hear people try to label someone as a saint when they aren't but she was wonderful. she was so at peace. i truly hope that everyone could be who and what his mother is and was. i can see why her son was devestated by her loss. i called my friend to let her know to tell hubby that i had a message from his mother. i told her that his mother loved my friend and thinks she's great for him. she's also watching over their small daughter. i wanted to pass on her messages to him so much because i knew it would bring him peace. she called me later and told me that he had no desire to hear a message from his dead mother. i don't understand it. if your life (not him in particular, but anyone) is so messed up from the loss of the person most important to you, why not open your mind and your ears to move on and hear them out?

people sometimes ask me how they can talk to the deceased and i think its simply a skill that you have to hone. you can't hold on to religious philosophy of what is and isn't and you have to be willing to hear what you find out, even if it isn't what you expect. you have to ask questions and in my case, not be afraid to look like a total nutjob when you walk up to people and ask them/tell them about their dead associates. more than anything, just listen. i mean LISTEN. they're always talking to us. they always surround us. just pay attention. many of the crazy and random things that happen in life are the results of the spirit world. sometimes they go out of their way to get attention. i've had spirits throw thing to get my attention. when they do that, i simply say out loud "look, i know that you're here and i don't mind, just respect me and i'll respect you. no throwing knives or anything dangerous and please, for the love of GOD don't appear, that'll scare the hell out of me." and they seriously back up. they may continue to throw things to announce their presence, but as long its not thrown AT me and as long as they don't appear, i don't mind them moving things around.

once my floodgate opened, it was crazy how many people were trying to contact me. i seriously felt like whoopi goldberg in the movie "ghost." they were all talking to me at the same time and everything. i didn't get a moment of rest. at one point i was trying to sleep and i had to literally sit up and tell the spirits that i'd get to them when i could. now they're a lot more respectful and they don't all crowd me, but they do pop up on their own. sometimes i can call them when i want to, othertimes they just start talking to me. my dead cousin once whispered to me that she loves me. i felt the spirit of emmitt till. seriously. he was loud and playful. he's still the same 14 year old boy. wherever his spirit is, he doesn't focus on his ending. he's just the same jovial laughing, playing boy. i can seriously hear him laugh and talk. its kind of cool to know that people that have passed on don't focus on their endings, they focus on their lives. i guess the living could learn a lot from the undead.