Navigating Profound Grief and Embracing Mediumship: My Personal Journey

In 2014, my husband and I were getting ready to move into a new chapter of our lives. We were living in Savannah, GA at the time. Both of us a few years out of graduating art school and working at a famous southern restaurant in town. I got a job teaching in Gainesville, FL where my husband's family is from, so we were preparing to completely pick up and start over in a new city.

We were excited! At least, I was. My husband has always been a little adverse to change. But there was a lot of opportunity for us in our move.

Sadly, the week before we left, my husband's father passed away. We were fortunate to drive down to say our goodbye's, but we then had to drive four hours back up to Savannah and pack our entire life up in one day. Our brilliant younger selves decided to have a huge goodbye party when we got to Savannah because we both needed a break from reality. So, hungover and exhausted we got everything into a U-Haul and made it back to Gainesville just in time for the funeral.

I wish I could say the grief stopped there, but not 6 months later, I found out my father passed while I was sitting on the toilet scrolling through Instagram (not my best moment). My dad and I had a rocky relationship, but I loved him. I was devasted, wracked with grief and regret and so so many questions that would never be answered.

My husband thought a trip to Disney would make us feel better. In years prior we had made Disney trips a special time for us and our little family, but everywhere I turned I was reminded of my dad. He loved the country bears and Huckleberry Finn island. When I was younger we got a photo together - him as the Beast and me as Belle. I felt like everywhere I turned there was a memory of him and it just compounded the sadness I was already feeling.

On the ride home, I got a call from my brother that I wasn't ready for. My step-father had passed. He had been fighting lung cancer for as long as I can remember, and it finally took him. I remember screaming into the phone before my husband took it from me while I sobbed in the passenger seat. We were on the next flight up to NY for the funeral. I'm so grateful for all my friends who were there to support me during this time. At a moment where I could have felt so alone, I had never felt more loved.

Needless to say, we had a really rough start to our life in Gainesville. We were both struggling with the change in our lives, the losses that we endured, struggling with our new careers, and trying our best to connect with each other when we felt so far apart.

I found that during this time there were a few moments I felt truly at peace. The first was when my husband and I started watching (and I learned about) college football together. He grew up watching UF Football with his dad (Go Gators!), so we would sit at the bar at BJ's, get some half off apps. and reconnect over something that was important to him and brought back fond memories.

The other moments that I truly felt at peace was when I dreamed.

For years, ever since I was a kid, I had dreams of people who had passed speaking to me. In fact, I freaked my dad out with it - but that's a story for another time. In these dreams my dad and step-dad would speak to me. They may not have been there in the way I wanted them to be, but they were still with me in the way they could be. It was in these moments I realized something that really changed my life: if connecting with my loved ones who had passed could be healing for me, it must be healing for others as well. That's when I made the decision to lean into and learn more about mediumship.

I don't know if you know this, but when you make a decision doors starts opening. And that's exactly what happened. It took time, but it lead me to my mentor who I can't even begin to thank enough for his experience, patience, and wisdom that was shared with me.

Now, I get to help others going through their darkest moments and I could not feel more grateful or fulfilled.

I've learned through my own moments of grief, of sadness, of loss, of uncertainty, of regret... are just a chapter. They are not the whole story of our lives. Grief never really goes away, but love does grow around it. Love from our family, love from our friends, love from our community, making the hurt a bit more bearable so we can keep moving forward in life until it's our turn to go.

The beginning of our lives in Gainesville was turbulent, exhausting, and life altering, but through the grief and loss I was given a gift. The gift of connecting deeper with my husband and the spirit world.