Me: Okay, Erik. Can you get Marilyn Monroe, Jim Morrison or Judy Garland?
Jamie: He’d going to get one of the ladies.
(Pause)
Jamie: Hi! This is Marilyn Monroe.
Me: Oh, Hello, Ms. Monroe!
(Pause)
Jamie (squealing with delight): Wow, she has a really nice voice!
Me: I know! Very soothing, huh?
Jamie: Yeah, it is! I just thought that was part of her act, but maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s all her!
Me: Maybe so! Norma Jean!
Jamie: Oh, yeah! Norma Jean M-mor, Morrison? Mort, uh Mortisson? I can’t understand what she’s saying.
Me: I don’t know. Oh wait! Mortenson I think. So, Marilyn, I suppose you know why we’re here.
Marilyn: Yes I do! It’s nice to meet you.
Me: Likewise. And I’m sure Erik is probably VERY happy to meet YOU!
Marilyn: He’s a very smart young man!
Me: Aw, of course he is! Erik, why don’t we start with you? Would you like to ask Ms. Monroe a question?
Erik: What beliefs did you have on earth, like were you born into a certain religion?
(Thank god he didn’t ask about her measurements and cup size. Sigh.)
Me: That’s a great question, Erik!
Jamie: It’s so cute; she has turned to kind of face him, so I’m really like a third wheel in the conversation.
I laugh.
Jamie: She’s telling him about two phases in her life: being raised Catholic, being baptized, and her family having all the holidays and expectations on what a Christian family should have. But then when she got older, like in her thirties, she switched to Judaism.
Me: Wow, I didn’t know that!
Marilyn: It was out of my own free will, and I felt that it fit my needs and beliefs more. It was more structured toward spirituality than the certain behaviors that are required of you.
Me: Oh! Is it like the Kabbalah type Judaism?
Marilyn: Yes.
Me: So it was more spiritual that what you were raised with?
Marilyn: Yes.
Me: Okay. Did that change after you crossed over?
Marilyn: I was happy that I took the time to follow my gut feeling in my life and change my beliefs to something that better suited me.
Jamie (snickering): I said just the dumbest thing right now in my head, and she just looked at me and laughed!
Jamie and I giggle.
Jamie: I said, ‘So really, Marilyn Monroe was a Jew?’ She just started laughing and she nodded her head, “yes.”
Me: You can run, but you can’t hide, Jamie!
Jamie (giggling): I can’t! I just didn’t know that about her!
Me: Me neither!
Marilyn: When I arrive, I felt like I understood more about what the afterlife was giving to her, and she wasn’t’ faced with fear and regret, because she had understood that the belief in God is the spirituality you hold inside of you.
Me: So, you believed in an afterlife before you crossed?
Marilyn: I did, yes!
Me: That’s good! Now what was your transition like for you, Marilyn?
Marilyn: It was definitely not what I had wanted. I didn’t take the medications that I did and want to be dead.
Jamie: I thought it was a suicide.
Me: So what happened, Marilyn?
Jamie: Yeah, I’m asking the same thing. She’s showing me pills. She said she remembered them not working, but in looking back, it was clear that they were.
Marilyn: But I wasn’t relaxing; I was having a reaction.
Jamie: It’s like a sleeping pill or a sedative, and you’re not allowing the medicine to work and you can have this alternative reaction of freaking out and then thinking that you need to take more.
Me: Oh, I see.
Marilyn: And so I took more, and my body couldn’t handle it.
Jamie: She’s calling it an accidental overdose.
Marilyn: I wasn’t planning on suicide. Now I had thought about death; I was having a very difficult time in my life. That’s why I was having difficulty sleeping. My health was poor, and in my life, I had so many secrets. It has to be my biggest regrets. My biggest love was being in the limelight. I really enjoyed what I did. I LOVED what I did, but all the secrets that I had—I couldn’t carry them. I wasn’t raised to be a woman who created lies and hold secrets, and it broke me.
Me: So, that was your top regret?
Marilyn: Yes, not being able to be truthful about who I was.
