A conversation between a father and his daughter

All three of my children have an amazing love for their father and feel the pain of losing him each and every day. Whether it be in the little things like calling his cell and him answering, “Ajax Liquor” or just the familiarity of coming over and seeing him sitting in his chair in front of his giant TV watching golf or Law & Order marathons or the more monumental emptiness of knowing he’s not here to see the milestones his children have reached in their lives.

My daughter Alison and I have talked about seeing a psychic here in Tucson to help ease that emptiness. She actually helped a friend as she was struggling with a huge loss in her life but we haven’t made that happen yet.

Alison and Brad spent last weekend in Sedona, AZ. Many of you know that Sedona seems to be the Mecca for all things metaphysical. Now they didn’t go there to have a vortex experience or to have crystals laid upon them, they went for a relaxing weekend that was somewhat forced upon them by their time share company. (They needed to use a weekend somewhere before the end of the year or else lose the time and since Sedona is an easy drive, well….) While there Alison decided to go ahead and make the leap and sit down with a psychic. They happen to be all over Sedona and Alison and Brad drove past many until she “felt” she had found a location that looked welcoming to her.

After meeting the psychic and telling her where Alison was from and introducing Brad, the psychic began with an invocation “prayer”. The woman closed her eyes and the first thing she did was draw a picture of a pirate hat on a piece of paper. She said the word “pirate” to Alison and then said something about not knowing what that meant, perhaps someone wanted to be a pirate or was a pirate in a past life. Alison knew EXACTLY what it meant. You see, there was a running joke in my family started by Brian, where we called Al, The Pirate. Sometimes when we’d be at family gatherings around the pool at Brian’s or when Al and Bri would go on a trip together and Al would have a few drinks in him, he kinda sounded like a pirate. Brian definitely exaggerated the pirate speech when making fun of Al and it all just stuck over the years. There is absolutely no way this woman could have known anything about that and it was very obvious that Al was showing her that he was there. Alison simply acknowledged by saying that she knew what the pirate reference meant.

The psychic went on to talk about other things in Alison’s life. At one point she felt the need to validate what she was saying to Alison. The psychic said she needed to tell Alison something so Alison would know this is for real. She told Alison that she saw a dog, a two-toned dog that was tan and white. She went on to say this dog pushes a ball all around with his nose. Alison told her they had three dogs. The psychic replied that this is the only dog that does this. Now you should all know that Alison and Brad have a dog named Zero who is a tan and white dog and he is a complete spaz and loves nothing more than pushing a hard plastic ball all over their backyard with his nose. It’s a ball that is impossible to bite and Zero is like a soccer player the way he plays with it. He runs all over the yard using his nose to push and guide the ball. They actually have to take the ball away from him because he rubs his nose raw against the spinning ball. And Zero is the only one of their dogs who plays like this.

One of the last things the psychic said to Alison is that her dad was saying “My baby girl” and then the psychic saw him holding his hand up to his mouth and say “Oops, I’m not supposed to say that.” I can say that Al called his two daughters his babies, often saying my baby girl to each of them. The surgeon who was to operate on Al’s gallbladder but instead ended up giving Al that fatal diagnosis works for the surgeon’s group Alison is employed by. His name is Dr. Sahai. Before Al went to see this particular surgeon for the first time Alison told her father to please not refer to her as his baby girl or anything like that during the appointment. She said that while the surgeon belongs to the group, he didn’t really KNOW Alison and she didn’t want her father to refer to her like that in the business setting. On the day of his appointment with this surgeon, I reminded him not to refer to Alison like that during the appointment.

It’s clear that Al was using this psychic to have a conversation of sorts with his daughter. He needed her to know that he’s here, he’s with her and that he loves her. When Alison called me from Sedona to tell me about the whole experience, I cried. I felt so validated in everything I’ve been feeling. I couldn’t help but wonder over these past 8-9 months if I am so desperate to feel Al’s presence that the signs I receive are really my imagination stretching to it’s limit. But now I know it’s not. It’s all very real. Very spiritual and very real. And very much a show of love.

An interesting little side note. My coworker and I were sitting in a conference room applying labels to over 800 holiday cards….the over 800 physicians affiliated with my hospital. I was telling my coworker about Alison’s experience with the psychic while somewhat blindly and automatically affixing the labels to the envelopes. While talking I realized I had mistakenly applied one of the labels very cockeyed and lifted it off as best I could to reapply it. Who do you think was on that address label? That’s right, Dr. Sahai.