Why They Return (through channels)
Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue
She was a week away from death when she asked if I remembered Art Park on the 4th of July in 1976. It was part of our last conversation together. The other part had to do with life after life.
We were very close. For years we'd had an ongoing dialogue about life after life, she was not convinced that we continued on after death.
She believed we became part of the earth again. I believed we became a spirit.
"When I'm on the other side with you, I'll wave and say 'told you so'!". I said.
When she was close to dying, she told me about a woman whose garage door had closed on her and she'd been crushed. "Imagine" she said, "How she must have floated over her body knowing of her unusual death".
The morning after Grandmas 24 hour vigil, her body was driven by hearse to a morgue for cremation. I didn’t stay as it was unimaginable for me to see her ride off in a hearse.
While they wheeled her past everyone in the living room, Grandpa played piano, as he'd done for every significant occasion. It was a happy song, "Five-foot two, eyes of blue . . . has anybody seen my girl!"
Grandma liked to sing when he played old songs. She was five foot two, eyes of blue, and she especially liked this one because he sang it with her sometimes. It was their song.
Instead I went to a Psychic Fair in Lexington for some spiritual comfort. There were tables with interesting jewelry, music and artwork. People there offered tarot and channeled readings, so I sent out a little prayer to Grandma, “ Please point my way to a psychic who will read my heart see that you died last night.”
I decided on a man named Orion because he had unusual blue eyes and sort of reminded me of Van Prague.
When he began our reading he placed a thirty minute cassette tape in his recorder. He told me that I'd one day have a job working from my computer, which sounded ‘far fetched’. I typed weekly columns for our city newspaper but made little money. Years later I worked for Keen dot com as a freelance tarot reader from my computer.
He paused suddenly then tilted his head.
“Who is 'Tal-ea, T-a- l?” He spelled.
I opened my mouth to say that Tallmadge was my grandparents' sir name, but Orion continued before I spoke.
“A woman is here.” He pointed to the air beside him. “Announcing herself with a name that begins with T-a-l, she is no taller than five foot two with blue eyes . . . recently deceased . . . she’s your grandmother!” He nearly shouted.
Bam, bam, bam, bam, Orion made a quadruple psychic hit, “Yes” I sat up straight in my chair now. “She died last night” I said.
“She is holding a metal container of something, a canister, and shaking it. Shaking it like this.” He stood up and pretended to shake something in the air.
“It has coins inside it.”
I thought of the bicentennial coins she'd saved in a white canister.
(((Back in 1976 Grandma took me to Art Park near Buffalo, New York and I got lost. I reported a "lost grandmother," which she considered funny and we'd laughed about this over the years.
My grandparents moved to Kentucky from Buffalo, in 1976. I traveled with grandma to see her new house, it was summertime and we parted the waist high grass on their lawn to walk to the porch.
It was a brand new small brick with yellow shag carpet. Grandma wore a white pant suit and hordes of fleas attacked her before she took three steps inside. Her suit turned black, she was shocked, I was disgusted! We ran to the station wagon and found a motel our first night.
Her new phone number was 986-8776 and we only needed to dial 88776 because the town of Berea was small. We spent time finding new things with the number 76 in them. Grandma considered the bicentennial a very special year.
"Bicentennial quarters will be worth something one day" she said.
Every time she came across a 1976 coin she would save it in a white paint canister. If I came across a bicentennial quarter she'd trade me another quarter for it. A year later in fifth grade, I moved to Kentucky with her. All through elementary, high school and college, I saved .every bicentennial quarter for Grandma. Still today I won't spend a bicentennial coin.)))
Orion expressed surprise that she had died the night before, surprise at how quickly she came through for him. He told me it takes a while after physical death to receive a strong impression of communication from someone.
“I smell . . . cinnamon” He said. I explained to him how we'd boiled cinnamon to cover odors during her last days.
He shook his head and laughed. “I remain amused by how they get their messages through to us”
He described man “like a father figure’ who met her at death. “He was a rugged looking uncle on her level, not your uncle, but hers”.
"He lived on farmland, sort of like here in Kentucky." Orion said. "He drove in an old truck. You'll find a black and white sketch of this truck in a family book, or album. There are two or three distinct pieces of wood on each side of the truck bed. He took in the truck and they drove up a hill"
I didn't follow what he was saying, but felt glad we were taping this.
"She tells me she had ‘all her ducks in a row’ when she died. She was ready for this. She is smiling.”
The phrase 'ducks in a row' was said to her son before she died.
“I see her holding a container, like a bowl, and throwing flower. Just tossing white . . . flower from this bowl.” Orion pantomimed this.
I thought she was reminding us to spread her ashes on the wild flowers at Anglin Falls.
She is saying to you, “Indian drum.”
This also had meaning to me, as I'm a shamanic practitioner and work with a drum.
My friends said I smelled like ‘shampoo and vanilla’ musk when I to ruled out residue of any cinnamon scent on my clothing.
I sped back to Berea where relatives gathered in her living room, and they let me play the taped recording of Orion right away. Most of them were skeptical of psychic readings I think they humored me by listening to the tape.
"No I’ve never met Orion, never saw him before." I assured them.
‘Uncle Rodge’ turned out to be a man who spent a lot of time raising my grandma as a child. He owned a unique pickup truck named ‘Thundering Ann’ which had a forties style body and wooden beams across each side of the truck bed.
We paused the cassette tape long enough to search through some albums, and found an old black and white sketch picture of Thundering Ann.
Grandpa later listened to Orion’s reading several times, and even typed out each word onto his computer notepad to further contemplate its meaning. He called finally to say that I should have the white canister of grandma’s bicentennial coins.
Then he asked. "Do you think tossing flower from a bowl means grandma wants us to scatter her ashes?"
“Well, she did ask us to scatter her ashes on the wild flowers right before her death”. I answered.
“Yes, I think you’re right.