As he began the reading, he told me that a short chubby woman with red hair was there and she kept saying “Ethel, Ethel.” My grandma was a short chubby woman with red hair that looked JUST like Ethel Merman. A bit further into the reading, the medium said, “There’s a man with Ethel and he has a message for you. He wants you to tell Ruth that he loves her.” Little did the medium know that my mom and dad had been married for 35 years when my dad died and they were the most madly in love people I’ve ever met or that my mom’s middle name is Ruth and he always called her “Ruthie” (and he was the only one — everyone else called her by her first name). I was shocked.

With the hairs on my neck already standing on end, the medium said, “There’s more. He wants you to tell her that she can get rid of his neckties now. Does that make sense?” And I was stunned. I responded, “Yes. Even though it’s been quite some time since he died, she hasn’t been able to bring herself to get rid of his clothes yet.”

I called my mom after the reading and told her what the medium had said about my father (supposedly) saying he loved her. She was crying when I said, “Oh. And you still haven’t gotten rid of his clothes have you?” She said, “Well, actually, I didn’t tell you but I finally cleaned out his closets and took everything to Good Will two weeks ago.” I said, “That’s so weird — the medium said that ‘dad’ said you could get rid of his neckties now. It was time.” My mom began to cry even harder and said, “The only thing that I kept was his neckties. They’re still in his closet.”

There’s no way the medium could have known that — I didn’t even know that. For Christmas that year my mom gave my two brothers and me quilts made out of his neckties.