Marion then said, “You’re here about your mum.” It wasn’t a question but a statement of fact.
“Yes,” I respond. My body language was closed off, and I felt scepticism radiating off me as I answered.
“The others are here to support Louise. We’re just waiting for her to arrive.”
Louise is my mum. Had I told Marion her name? I couldn’t remember.
We waited a few minutes, and then, “Louise is here with us now. She’s happy to see you, but she wants to know if you’re still angry.”
I took a deep breath. Yes, I was furious that the kindest, funniest, most brilliant person I knew was struck down with terminal cancer at the age of 58. I was enraged that she missed watching her precious grandchildren, my brother’s kids, grow up. I was also angry that she left me. I wasn’t finished being her daughter.
“Yes, I am angry. But not as much as I was.”
“She wants you to know she is proud of you; that’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”
I decided to start asking my own questions, “What exactly is she proud of?”
“She says she’s proud you stopped drinking, pudding.”
The last word hit me like a bolt of lightning. Pudding was my mum’s nickname for me. How the hell did Marion know that? I felt myself start to well up. Was mum really here? Marion continued, “She says she couldn’t save her parents, but she’s glad you saved yourself.” I started to cry.
My mum’s parents both died from alcohol abuse when she was in her twenties. Much like being called “pudding” well into adulthood, my maternal grandparents drinking themselves to death wasn’t common knowledge.
As I sobbed, Marion continued to speak, but I became distracted by a new sensation — I could feel Mum’s presence. It felt like I was being enveloped in a warm towel after coming out of a cold pool. I felt comforted and loved. I never wanted that feeling to end.
The 50 minutes I spent with Marion passed in a blur, and she kept bringing other people into the conversation, like a friend I lost the year before. Of course, I missed my friend, but I was desperate to spend time with mum and got irritated when other people drifted in and out.
I left the session feeling utterly exhausted. I felt satisfied that Mum was OK (well, as OK as a dead person can be…), and I knew that it would take time to process what had happened. I didn’t tell any of my friends other than Katy what had happened, in case they made fun of me for believing I had spoken with my dead mother. Over the next few days, I felt mentally lighter, and a calm descended over me for the first time in years.
As someone with a history of addiction, I thought hard about whether to make a follow-up appointment, believing I could easily get hooked on spiritual readings. After speaking with Katy, we agreed we didn’t need to see Marion again. I miss my mum every single day, but I recognise that I may have become so fixated on talking to the dead that I might forget how to live, which would be a real tragedy.