hi friends. In a moment of processing, and integration. Writing this the day after Mother’s Day, the second I’ve spent without my mother. An impossible day, so soon after the anniversary of her death. I am struggling with how grief is put on a timer in our society. Only given so much time and space to breathe before it becomes time to move on. Today’s essay is about my first call with a psychic and all of the feelings it brought up.
the psychic
It is known by every person who has ever worked from home that the two minutes before a virtual meeting are for gathering and doing every task that you should have taken the last 10-15 minutes to do. It’s for refilling water bottles, running to the bathroom, finding your charger as your device hits 5%, reading that document. It was the same with the psychic. I spent the 15 minutes before our call setting up an altar space. Then at the last moment I searched the upstairs, frantic, for a notebook. And so it was that as the clock struck 4pm, I was still digging in my email for her phone number, having forgot that I would be calling her on the phone for our half hour session.
I am frazzled but her voice is warm and welcoming. I have no fucking idea what I’m doing and I am already bristled against trickery. I don’t want to be stupid or gullible and calling a psychic to channel my dead mom the day before Mother’s Day feels cuspy. I am some bizarre coiled blend of hyper-vigilance and hope and I can hear it in my voice when I tell her my mother’s name.
My mother comes through immediately. The things she tells the psychic sound like her. My mother had no social media presence and she is not easy to mimic, which makes me think this could be true. The psychic tells me that my mother had wanted to go, there is nothing I could have done to stop it. She tells me it was a kind of prolonged suicide.
The psychic pauses as if listening, then relays the exact kind of deeply inappropriate suicide joke my mother would have made, chuckling at her own dark Scandi sense of humor. She was always saying the wrong thing. And it would be too bold, wouldn’t it, of this stranger to tell me my mother wanted to die if she weren’t hearing it from somewhere? I hope so.
“She wants to tell you she’s sorry, but she’s not.” I’m not surprised. She never was. Even in the afterlife, I cannot get one goddamn apology.
I ask about her father, curious about the intergenerational healing capabilities of what’s next. They have met, she says, but they are not close. She understands why he did what he did, killing himself on my grandmother’s birthday. She forgives him. He breaks into the conversation to tell me he always felt alone. Like he had no one.
My mother comes back on the line. Tells me to break the cycle of the drinking and the indifference to life that has plagued us through three lifetimes now. I thought that when I stopped drinking, it was done. I thought I had healed it, but now find that I have barely scratched the surface of this thing that has held us in its tides for generations.
The half hour session is weirdly long and short at once. I want it to be over. I don’t want it to end. I spend a lot of time picking at loose ends in my head, things that were not mentioned, things the psychic did not seem know. But I can’t shake the way that she has a handle on my mother’s way of communicating. “She’s funny” she says. I agree.
I’m not sure if I should ask questions or stay silent and accept what is given to me. As in all things, I want to win the psychic session. I want to be the best at it somehow, the favorite client, the best grieving person to reach out in desperation for some connection to what’s been lost. This is ridiculous thought, a comforting but unnecessary fixation.
I don’t know where my mother is. I don’t know what she’s doing now. If the grudges of this life are healable in the next one. I don’t know how to tend the hurts of my family while I have time. But I do know that I fall into the deepest sleep I’ve had in months on the night of the session, somehow released from some of the guilt I have been carrying for 13 months.
Last year, I spent Mother’s Day in a blanket cocoon on the couch of our rental home, surrounded by moving boxes. If I did anything other than cry, I don’t remember it. This year was different. I worked outside on the land in the way my mother loved to, a distraction and a homage. And always the conversation with the psychic played through my head on a loop.
Downstairs, pictures of both my mother and my grandfather sit framed and ready to go on our family history wall. In one, my mother is about 6 years old and sitting on the ground with her cousin, mischief in her eyes, arm dangling casually on her bare knee with a freedom that had left her by the time I was born. In another my grandfather stares into the camera, his face an echo of my mother’s. He is alone.
I put their frames close, surround them with great grandfathers and grandmothers and beloved aunts. They are both worth their space here, in all of their complicated glory. In this small way, I welcome every messy part of them home, surround them with love in the still unfolding story of us. And maybe right now that is healing enough.
What I’ve been watching, reading, and doing lately:
The Witcher: I know, I am very late! But I am finally into this show and heck I love a fantasy show. It’s so fun to have a new universe to get lost in, and I am really dorkily obsessed with fight scene motion economy and Henry Cavill is really talented at this!
It Didn’t Start with You by Mark Wolynn: Recommended by one of my therapists (who are basically my 3 Macbeth witches at this point), as I unpack inherited narratives. This book is blowing my mind a little bit. If you read it, I’d love to chat about it!
Violet Syrup: If you’re in the Northeast, you may also be seeing violets everywhere. This weekend I gathered some to keep ahold of some Spring joy, in the form of violet syrup. If you want to do the same, here’s how:
Note: Please make sure you’re identifying the violets correctly using a guidebook or reference with an experienced herbalist! Also, don’t gather from a spot where chemical fertilizers or herbicides may have been used.
Gather violet blooms and gently wash them, removing any grass or stems that may have come with you. Place them in a clean jar.
Pour an equal part boiling water over the booms (ex: if you have half a cup of blooms, use half a cup of water), cover and let sit overnight. Make sure to be careful handling the jar when it’s hot!
Marvel at the incredible blue/green color of the water. This is a crucial step!
In a double-boiler, add an equal part sugar to the water (No need to strain yet. You want the same ratio of blooms:water:sugar) and stir frequently until combined.
Strain, cool, and bottle.
Place in the fridge and use to make mocktails or elixirs of your choice!
Till next time,
in love and grief,
lisa