A few days before my son Tommy suddenly passed away, he asked me out of the blue: “Mom, have you ever seen a psychic?”

Given that we had never had a serious religious or spiritual discussion before, I was surprised by the question. Still, I didn’t hesitate to respond with a level of maturity that I knew he expected.

“Yes, there’s one I’ve seen a handful of times, and I really like her.”

“What did she tell you?”

“The first time I saw her was in my late twenties and right when I sat down, she asked, ‘Who died?’”

“I said no one had died and figured she was just not very good at her job. But then she asked, ‘Did you have a painful breakup? Because that can feel like a death.’”

“What did you say?” Tommy asked.

“I told her I did. And then she responded, ‘Does he live in London?’”

“I said, ‘Yes,’ and then she went on to tell me what he looked like, why we broke up, and where our journey together was meant to lead. That breakup was the reason a close friend suggested I see her in the first place.”

“Wow,” my son said, sounding more intrigued than skeptical.

“A few years later,” I continued, “This same psychic told me I was going to meet and work for a Middle Eastern man and go down a new career path that would be positive for me. I thought she was way off. I had no thoughts of leaving my job at the time. Two years later, though, I helped my boss sell his office building to a Middle Eastern man, and after the deal closed, the Middle Eastern man said he was starting a new company and asked me to work for him. I accepted his offer and forgot all about the psychic at the time, but a few months after I started the job, it dawned on me that the psychic had told me that would all happen.”

“That’s amazing!” he exclaimed. “What else did she say?”

“Well, many years later, when I felt ready for a change and was trying to figure out where to work next, I saw this psychic again. Without any prompting from me, she said I’d have a new job soon, working for someone named John. I told her that I was actually thinking about working for someone named Tom. She said John sounds kind of like Tom, but that no, it would definitely be a John. Anyway, I got the job I wanted and started working for Tom, but six months later, John got hired and became my new boss.”

“That’s so crazy!” Tommy shouted.

“This psychic is now over eighty years old and not technically savvy,” I explained. “We never record or write down my sessions, but when a big change happens in my life I think back to her readings and remember that she often gave me some sort of clue. Sometimes when she asks me about a person who I don’t know she suddenly gets irritated and says, ‘I’m not asking if you know them. I’m telling you that you will!” Then a year or two later, people with those names usually start coming around in clusters. I know it sounds crazy, but I think it’s fun.”

“Wow,” he responded.

“Seeing this particular psychic now and then is like my version of seeing a therapist,” I continued. “Some of what she says resonates, and then I ignore or forget the rest. She doesn’t dictate my choices in life, she only reinforces what I seem to already know. I know some psychics are fake, and nothing they say feels right, but I like this one because she has super warm energy, gets a lot of information right, and I always feel better after seeing her. Plus, every time she brings you up in a reading, she reminds me that she once had a dog named Tommy.”

We shared a good laugh and then he said, “She sounds so cool. I’d like to see a psychic.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised by his open-mindedness and curiosity.

Maybe I’ll give him a session as a gift for his thirteenth birthday, I thought. It was only a few weeks away.

Unfortunately, he went to sleep three days later and never woke up.

Only a few months after he was gone, I felt an urge to see this psychic again.

When I walked through her front door, she opened her plump arms and wrapped them around me like I was her best friend.

I started sobbing.

“Darling, what happened?” she asked.

You’re a psychic, you should know, I wanted to remind her.

“My 12-year-old son unexpectedly passed away,” I responded, breaking a cardinal rule and not waiting for her to tell me what her senses and tarot cards had to say.

“Oh darling!” she jumped back. “I never would have known that. I don’t remember what we talked about last time I saw you, but I would never have been shown your child or any specific person passing away even if I sensed that someone would in the future.”

The truth was that even though she recognized me, she did not know me very well. She saw hundreds of clients a year, so I didn’t expect her to remember my random one-off visits over the past two decades.

“Why are you here?” she asked, wanting to know how she could help.

“I don’t really know,” I said. I guess I just want to give my son the birthday gift that he wanted, I thought to myself.

She sat me down and explained, “I’m not a medium. I can’t connect you to your son’s spirit even though I can promise you he is still here with you.”

Then, like a wise old teacher, she told me about all the loss she had personally experienced throughout her long lifetime, including that of her husband, the love of her life, two decades earlier.

She proceeded to share some of the beautiful signs and messages that she had received from his spirit over the years and expressed what her work communicating between different dimensions and worlds had taught her about life and death.

While it was clear that neither of us were in any shape for a psychic reading, she opened my mind, fed my curiosity, and got me thinking that the gift I wanted to give my son was actually a gift for me and might even connect us for eternity.

By the time our hour together was up, her warm energy had soothed my heart. Her wisdom had fed my soul. And her hug on my way out sent me off with a much-needed jolt of hope.

I know this psychic doesn’t have a fancy degree, and I’m well aware that science frowns upon her methods, but I can’t deny that after one hour together, I left feeling the way I told my son I always felt after being in her presence…simply better.