HARD TO WRITE-My own heartbreak story, Tragedy Turns To Psychic-For Pap

I’m writing this blog & publishing it today because today is the day I began realizing I had paranormal abilities. Today is the day I started my journey of helping others in pain.  It all started with my pap whom I called Pap Donley (his last name).  I’m not sure I could ever put into words what this man meant to me or how close our bond was. It was the early 90s & I was only in my young 20s, I had a serious boyfriend but no husband or kids yet. My Pap was my world. I’d often spend nights with him & Grandma. He & I would joke as he’d make fun of things like how fast I drove when I took him to the Club (VFW) & to get a haircut or he’d fib about getting answers right as we watched Jeopardy together.  I loved just being with him, but my Pap was very sick for his young age. He had numerous illnesses including Alzheimer’s & eventually ended up in a nursing home. I went every single day to see him, sometimes twice a day. He sometimes was completely out of it but often he did recognize me.  He sometimes spoke as if his kids were little again or thought the nurses were “out to get him”. He had emphysema & needed daily breathing mask treatments but usually refused the nurses & so I did it when I arrived, I held that mask there for what seemed an eternity, staring into his eyes with so much love & admiration, I just knew he could feel it.  With each visit to him at the nursing home & at his home, I’d lecture him, pleading “Pap please don’t you leave me, I love you, you have to stay strong, you have to be there when I get married someday, even if you are in a wheelchair & I have to wheel you down that isle”, until one day I got the call, Pap had been transferred to a V.A. Hospital a little while before & wasn’t doing good, they thought he had less than 24 hours…I wanted to go see him, to beg him not to go, say my goodbyes etc. but my Uncle needed a babysitter & I felt as his son, he obviously should be there over me, so I stayed home & kept the kids while my Uncle went.  I don’t regret doing that or resent my uncle, it was the right thing and as hard as it would be, I’d do it again. That night or the next (it’s a blurry memory) my phone rang after midnight. I sat straight up & yelled “NO, PAP”, I answered & got the news, on March 10th 1994, my Pap passed away. It was the single worst day of my life & still is. My heart has never ached like that & to this day it still aches, not a single day goes by that I don’t talk to or think about my Pap. I’m crying just writing this, the pain is still that real for me. It was then that I first realized my ability. Looking back I think it was there all along, but as a child, I had never noticed it or realized what it was. As a medium I can’t talk to my own family, at least not like I do during readings. I get signs from them & within the months & years following my Pap’s death I started talking to him, through a lamp- sounds crazy I know but 100% true. I’d always believed the spirit lives on but never had anyone that close to me die, until then. I knew I felt his presence but somehow still wanted proof. My lights started blinking a lot, I knew it was him so I started to ask him questions, telling him to blink 1 time for a yes answer & twice for no & he DID, every single blink corresponded with the correct answer. I was elated but it took some proof for my mom & hubby, but one day I yelled at him “Pap! They think I’m crazy please show them?!” & he did! From then on they believed me. At this point the activity around me increased, strange sounds & smells, doors closing, odd phone calls, dreams ETC & this activity continued getting stronger for years until one day out of nowhere a thought popped into my head…”you can communicate with them”, I then practiced on strangers, neighbors, my kid’s friends…anyone that would allow me & time and again they told me I was spot on, they knew what most of it meant & there were things I couldn’t know unless I was talking directly to someone they loved who had passed. It was extremely confusing at first, trying to understand why I sometimes heard messages containing names of people in their lives still living or trying to decipher the symbols, but the longer I practiced & tested myself to see if I was actually a “real” Medium, the stronger & better those readings got. The rest, as they say is history. It’s not an easy ability to have & God knows I’ve experienced so much pain & hurt because of it BUT MY PAP is the WHY of it all. I can’t really talk to him like I do everyone else’s loved ones so I know first hand the excruciating pain that comes when you lose someone. I understand the emptiness & yearning, the anger, the depression & every other pain staking minute of life after they are gone & THAT is why I decided to make this my career…I always tell my clients, “I’m going to help you find a little peace knowing your loved ones are still with you, I’ll be proving it to you & it may help you a little it may help you a lot but to be completely honest, nothing-ABSOLUTELY NOTHING-can completely remove that pain, so I’ll do what I can to ease it. So, thank you to my Pap Donley, today is the day of both my paps passings & it also marks the day of the reason I do what I do! Thanks Paps! I Love you both!