Mother’s Day looms in the near future like a dark specter taunting me. I feel so conflicted. On the one hand, I should be rejoicing that day. After all, I do have four wonderful children still here with me on the earthly plane. On the other hand, this is the first Mother’s Day without Erik here in the physical. There will be no card with his chicken scratch handwriting on it. There will be no lukewarm coffee or burnt toast served to me in bed on a morning brightened by his heartwarming grin. There will be no hugging that skinny little body of his. This Mother’s Day will be hard, because now the word “mother” brings to mind other words like “loss,” ‘death,” “grief,” and “forever gone.” But like all of the “firsts” since Erik’s death, I will limp through somehow.

Enough sadness. Let’s allow my son to use his gift to heal. That said, here’s the next “Ask Erik” submission.

Lauren’s questions:

Hi Elisa,

I found your blog through your daughter’s (Kristina) whom I graduated with at MHS. Though we were never close friends, I was so moved by her facebook status updates about Erik back in October. Reading through your blog, I’m just amazed by the ways you’ve been able to “stay in touch” with your son. Watching Lisa Williams show in the past made me firmly believe in channeling, and I truly feel like I was meant to read your blog. Though Erik’s death was a tragedy, your blog is really a beautiful way to share his life and your journey in staying connected with him.

So I have a question for Eric involving my grandfather Charles Edwin Smith, Jr. (usually called “Ed” or “C.E.”… but I called him G-Dad). He was born I think in Houston and passed in 1999 in Houston.

I just want to know if all those times I see cardinals (like the bird) if it’s him? I’ve always felt like it is…which makes me think he’s watching over me.

I was also wondering if he has any words for my mother (his daughter) as she has been very invested in caring for my elderly grandmother (his widow)…which has demanded the utmost in patience and love.

Thank you for offering “Ask Erik” to others. It’s so generous of you to share the time you have talking to him. It’s strange because I feel a little selfish asking about my grandfather when I know of other people close to me who have dealt with much more tragic losses and would benefit from some form of communication with that person. I was torn whether to ask about G-Dad, or an Army buddy of my boyfriend, John, who died in Iraq in front of him. His name was Sean. I think my boyfriend has always struggled with why it was his friend and not him who died. I supposed I’ll leave it up to Erik. Perhaps he’s been snowboarding with Sean lately, or run into G-Dad while boating. 🙂

Thanks for everything, Elisa. All my best to your family and you.

-Lauren Wolf

Questions posed to Kim:

Lauren lost her grandfather, Charles Edwin Smith. He died in 1999 in Houston. Is he watching over her, and are the cardinals him?

Erik’s response:

Yes, the cardinals are him, and this she knows already. She didn’t need to ask. He’s there, very protective. He’s there all of the time with the family. Well, sometimes he’s here in Heaven riding around in that boat of his. They were very close, C.E. and her. He loves her a lot, and she’s been his daughter in a whole lot of past lifetimes. He died of natural causes, but he would have liked to have stayed on the earthly plane to be, like, 150! He liked being there. He wanted to be there with the family. This guy always took great responsibility for himself, for the family. Others could lean on him. No one met C.E. Smith that didn’t love him. Oh, and if you want an honest opinion, you asked C.E. Smith. Ask Lauren about that and she’ll laugh. He spends all of his time with the family. He’s a little concerned about a brother of Lauren’s. He feels he’s not living up to his potential. He’s not frantic or upset, but a little concerned. But Lauren is living up to hers. He says he couldn’t be prouder of her. He says, “I adore her, I always have, and she knows that.” He wants you to ask her if she remembers how she used to sit on his lap when she was little. He loved her little pigtails. She was very special to him. Oh, and her little freckles, he says. He liked those too.

Me: Okay, I’ll tell her! Now her boyfriend, John, had an army buddy that was killed in Iraq right in front of him. His name was Sean. Is he okay?

Erik: He’s here, yep. It was his time to go. He knew when he went to Iraq that he was not going to come back. He knew it. He’s telling me this was not his first tour. He knew it was going to happen. He got the same feeling that he had before he died in WWI, in the Civil War; he has a lot of military lifetimes. He says he’s going to hang around John always. Mom, this is kinda unusual. He’s going to hang with John the rest of his life. He and John have been twins in past lifetimes. You know, Mom, a lot of times, people who mourn the most have had really deep past life connections. They usually find it hardest to recover even if you feel that person is still alive on a soul level, it’s traumatic to them that the person they care about lost their physical body.

Me: Oh, yeah, sure. How well I know that.

Erik: Sean is doing great. Not only is he spending time with John and his own family…oh he’s saying there was a girl he left behind. He’s visiting her too. But he’s also works as a guardian angel for other soldiers who are not supposed to die. He helps them avoid unnecessary danger. Like he tells them, “Don’t open that door!” “Duck!” or “Don’t trample over that piece of ground; you’ll be blown up!” So he’s kept a lot of soldiers alive who aren’t supposed to die.

Me: Good! Good!

Erik: Yeah, he’s helped soldiers not only in Iraq, but Afghanistan, too.

Lauren’s response:

Hi Mrs. Medhus,

What a wonderful response. Can’t wait to read the full transcription, too.

G-dad and I were very close. We shared the same birthday, October 9th, I look a lot like him, and I distinctly remember sitting on his comfy lap…. it’s a fond memory of mine. There’s a picture I thought of from this reading, me around age 3 or 4, sitting in his desk chair with pigtails, smiling big. I was always very different from my brother and sister…I was a “gifted and talented” kid in school, and in my youth that translated to me often being kinda weird and artsy as a kid. But my grandfather, as I’ve been told, was always very protective and if anyone commented on my sometimes odd behavior he was very defensive. He had a daughter, besides my mother, who was born with cerebral palsy and died around age 12, so perhaps I was her in a past life or another life.

G-dad was also VERY blunt and honest with people, so that sure did make sense. He passed when I was in 9th grade and my Mom always wondered if we might have butted heads had he lived longer because we both were so honest with our thoughts. He was very, very loved. If you believe anything about horoscopes, he was your typical Libran male, very sociable and fun-loving.

As for my brother- this certainly rang true. He has struggled in many ways in the past few years and I have also felt that he isn’t leading the life he could be.

It will take some time before I can approach the subject of John’s buddy, Sean, with him. He’s a skeptic about these things, but slowly and surely I will ask John more about him. I’m so happy to know he’s so close to him and spends time with him. I can’t say for sure that I’ve felt Sean’s presence because I never met him, but watching how John has progressed away from some of the drastic PTSD symptoms he’s had in the past, I’ve always felt like someone was there along the way. I’d wake up when John had bad nightmares and was yelling out in his sleep, but I never felt alone. I think that’s why I felt so compelled to ask about Sean.

I wanted to ask you, Elisa, about Kim. Is she located in Houston? My mother has always been interested in connecting with her family in this way, and she was certainly very taken by these notes I shared with her about her father. Is there a good way to contact her?

Thank you so, so much for taking the time to ask Erik about my grandfather and about Sean. While I can’t “fact check” details on Sean, I can tell you that everything you said about my grandfather is so, so, so accurate. So skeptics beware. 😉 I’m sorry to read you’ve been struggling with missing Erik. I read some of your entries to my mother, and they really touched her…I think it moved her so much to imagine how you’ve connected to your son, and it encouraged her to do the same with her father. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for sharing your experience.

From Erik and I, you are all most welcome. It’s a privilege to be able to help others, allowing our souls to progress as they should. I hope that you all will join me this weekend as I pray for the hearts of bereaved mothers the world over. Oh how deeply I understand their pain as our special day will never again be as it was in the past.