When I opened the email attachment and saw the photograph Toni had sent, my breath caught in my throat. A wash of sadness flowed over me, even though the photo showed a wizened grandmother with twinkling eyes and a cherubic smile. I had to look away and focus on something in my office – anything. And then I wondered how could I ever hope to give Toni a reading?
When people book a telephone or Skype session with me, I give them the opportunity to email pictures of those in spirit they would like me to try to contact. I’ve found that pictures help me touch in with the spirit person’s energy, which is often captured in a photograph. Holding or seeing the picture is like ringing a doorbell in the spirit world, so the spirit person knows they’re being summoned.
As I concentrated on the picture, unhappiness came tumbling out. Widowed at a young age, and never remarried. Child died in utero. Her last days spent in an ICU unit. Feelings of abandonment. Yet this picture on my computer screen had an elderly woman with such a happy, peaceful expression.
Don’t say that, whispered a voice in my head.
As I gazed at the picture of Toni’s grandmother, the lady came in loud and clear. But there was no sadness with her. It was only in the picture. I couldn’t make sense of it. Then I remembered: The picture wasn’t for me to understand, it was for the spirit person to explain herself.
“The photograph is…” I struggled to find the right word. “…intriguing.”
“There’s an interesting story behind it,” Toni said.
So I began speaking to Toni about what her grandmother was telling me. She was happy that Toni’s husband had replanted the lilac bushes that had grown around her house, and she was proud of her great-granddaughter’s – Toni’s daughter’s – piano recital. “Grammy” had loved music so much when she was on the Earth plane.
I gave Toni more information, which she could confirm, and soon our session time drew to a close. “I’m glad Grammy is happy in heaven,” Toni said, sniffling. “Excuse my tears, but I feel so relieved to hear what you’re saying.”
“That’s fine,” I said reassuringly. Then, curious, I asked about “the interesting story behind” the photo.
Toni was quiet a moment, then sighed. “Grammy Rosa was such an unhappy person. She had one child and several miscarriages, and her husband died on his 35th birthday. She never remarried. The picture you have is the last one we ever took of her. She was in the hospital with kidney failure. I asked her to smile on her bed, but she said it hurt too much. ‘Please, Grammy,’ I said. ‘Do it for my children.’ And for the briefest moment, she smiled and I took the picture.”
I thanked Toni for letting me read for her Grammy, and after she disconnected the call, I deleted the picture from my computer. Grammy was gone from my system, but I felt her lingering with me, thanking me for not speaking right off about all the sadness in her life. It’s not important anymore, I felt her say. She would rather know that people remember her in happier times, when she gave others joy, and not as an unlucky woman who, in the end, felt her body surrender to disease.
I believe pain and disappointment are facets of life that belong to the physical world, and we shed those distressing sensations when we enter the spirit world of love and light. As the saying goes, a picture contains 1,000 words, but the words that come to us from the heart are the ones we should always listen to.
If you have any questions or comments on this subject or on any other spiritual matter, feel free to write me at mail @ carolynmolnar.com. And please visit me again!