I’ve learned since Erik’s death that many bereaved parents seek solace from those who have suffered a similar loss. I am no exception to that rule.  Bittersweet as it is, I’ve had the honor of meeting two lovely women. One lost her son while he was driving drunk. The other lost her bipolar son to a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.  We have been meeting for dinner each month to share our grief, our words of comfort and our tales of when our sons have contacted us. Rebecca, the mother of the bipolar son, asked me to pose a question to Erik, through psychic medium Kim, of course. Here is the transcription of that part of the session. Note that I have concealed all but the first names for the purposes of privacy.

I’ve been meeting each month with two other women who have also lost adult or teenage children. We plan to meet tonight, and one of them has a question about her deceased son, Michael XXXXX XXXXX. He died October 14, 2007 at the age of twenty. She wants to know if he’s all right.

Kim responds, “What’s his mom’s name? What does she go by?”

‘Rebecca XXXXX.’

“And if you were to guess her age?”

‘I don’t know, maybe mid to upper forties?’ I reply.

Kim listens for a moment and then begins to laugh. She says, “Michael, Michael, interesting. Erik says he and Michael are buds, but he calls him Mike.”

“Michael is incredibly happy,” says Erik.

I wasn’t expecting them to have met, so I respond in disbelief, ‘Why did you meet up with Michael? You never knew him before!’

“Because you guys have met up,” Erik answers.

‘Okay.’

“You see, it’s like I’m going to follow you. So you and Rebecca are connecting the thread between you and Mike, and then that connects me and him. Now Mike and me are buddies. We go snowboarding together. I’m teaching him, and he’s really good!”

I find it amusing that the whole snowboarding thing keeps coming up every session. It’s so typical of Erik to become fixated on new hobbies to the point that his conversations are heavily dominated by the subject. He used to pour his entire heart and soul enthusiastically into a new endeavor as he apparently continues to do in the spirit world.

“Okay, let’s see why Michael passed,” Kim continues. “Now I’m going to talk directly to Michael, and of course Erik stays here with us. Hmm, Michael is having some issues communicating. Erik, can you talk for him? Is it because he doesn’t want to talk to me?” She sounds almost hurt!

“Oh no,” Erik says shaking his head back and forth vigorously. “No, no, no!”

“Well he has a hard time speaking, communicating? Why is that? How can that be?  Here on the earthly plane, we might have a throat issue or laryngitis or something, but we don’t have that in the spirit world.” After a brief pause, she has a “Eureka moment” “Oh, I see! I got it! I got it!” Then she chuckles in obvious amusement. “Erik is saying ‘Helloooooo, Mike wants to save his energy so he’ll be able to communicate with his mom.’” Struggling to continue while giggling, Kim says, “Okay, okay, I understand. I gotcha. So Erik, what was the circumstance behind Michael’s passing? Has he discussed it with…”

“Oh yeah, Hell yeah!” He interrupts.

“So what was that situation? Your mom is asking.” After listening for a while, Kim says, “Oh, Erik says it was not his destiny to do it. But he’s also very happy to be back in Heaven and really enjoying his time here. He has a girlfriend!”

Just like a guy to set the priorities straight.

Kim continues with, “They’re showing her to me. She’s really pretty. She has blue eyes, long copper red hair. Wow, she also committed suicide. You know, Michael has a suggestion for you, Elisa. It’s not for his mom. It’s for you. It’s to write a screenplay about a bunch of teenagers who also commit suicide and what their lives are like in Heaven. What an amazing, am…”

‘He’ll help me write it; I know he’s a great writer.’ I interject.

“It’s Michael’s idea,” she adds. “Erik says to tell his mother that he loves her and that he’s always hugging her. She has been asking him to be more tangible. He hears her and he’s working on it. He also wants her to know he WAS the bird! He’s not only going to manifest physically, but he’s also going to telepathically say, ‘Hey Mom, that’s me!’ Because there are lots of birds out there and there are lots of rainbows, so Rebecca will know it’s him because she’ll hear telepathically in her head, ‘Mom, it’s me.’”

I’m a little thrown off by the confirmation of Michael visiting his mother in the form of a bird. (See a previous entry, “Little Black Bird.”) After digesting the amazing miracle that just occurred, I respond, ‘Okay. Good! All right. Very good.

I continue with my next question: ‘One of Michelle’s former elementary school friends, Kevin XXXXXXXX, committed suicide in the last week or two.’

“Oh my!” Kim reacts in alarm.

‘It apparently was an overdose right after he got out of prison. I’ve known him since he was in grade school because he came over to the house to play all the time,’ I add.

“He absolutely positively did not try to commit suicide,” Erik interjects.

‘He did not try?’ I ask. The assumption was that Kevin had committed suicide intentionally.

“Absolutely not. It was like he was taking more and more and more and more to take him to a place he wanted to be to get high,” Erik explains.

I go on. ‘Is he with you, Erik? We asked you to look out for him and show him the ropes.’

“No, man, he is NOT! Kevin is really unhappy, really upset, really pissed off. He did not mean to kill himself, and he’s just so pissed off that you can’t even talk to him. I tried, but Kevin’s attitude is like “Fuck you, man! Get away from me! Fuck you! Fuck you and you and you ad you!  Fuck you, fuck everybody here!”

I can picture Kevin reacting this way, particularly considering what he stood to lose. I also remember he use to pepper his language with the “f word” a lot when he got older. Kim can’t possibly be comfortable spewing these from her Midwest-raised mouth.

‘Uh huh, I bet. He left behind a baby daughter and wife,’ I say.

“Ohhh!” Kim says in horror.

“He’s here, but as soon as Kevin pulls his head out of his ass, I’m going to be right there to show him the ropes,” Erik promises.

It’s comforting to know that, although I no longer have my sweet boy to hold in my arms, he’s there in the spirit world to comfort others in need.