A year after her father's death, a writer explores how connecting with a medium helped her cope with grief and find hope during the holiday season.
When my dad passed away a week before Christmas in 2023, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever put up a Christmas tree again. Once a magical symbol of the holidays, the tree was now an unwelcome reminder that my dad would never spend another Christmas with my family again. So when the paralyzing shock of his death thawed and the new year arrived, I didn’t feel the normal twinge of sadness when I took down the tree and boxed up my favorite ornaments. Instead, I felt a sense of relief.
It wasn’t only Christmas that felt like it had been taken from me, though. When my religious faith was temporarily shaken in the aftermath of his loss, I struggled to find something to believe in. I began looking for my dad in signs — like the time his favorite song welcomed me back to my hotel room in Paris last spring when I turned on the TV. I became fascinated with the idea of our loved ones sending us messages from the other side. Then, a few weeks after my dad died, I interviewed Theresa Caputo, the Long Island Medium, for an article on TODAY.com about her Lifetime TV series, and she briefly connected me with him. It was a powerful moment that left me eager to learn more about mediumship, and I quickly devoured her four books. I’d always been interested in psychic mediums, albeit with a healthy dose of skepticism, but our conversation sparked a new fascination in me. Two months later, I had my first proper sit-down reading with a medium named Travis Holp. Our conversation opened me up to the real possibility that there was an afterlife and encouraged me to keep looking for the signs my dad sent me. Perhaps most importantly, it also helped me grieve in a more optimistic way. Inside my reading with Theresa Caputo As I prepared to mark the first anniversary of my dad’s death, I had the opportunity to talk with Caputo again, this time for a psychic medium reading. It didn’t take long for her to ask if someone in my family had already decorated their Christmas tre
Grief Mediumship Christmas Spirituality Afterlife
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