There's More to Life Than This: Healing Messages, Remarkable Stories, and Insight About the Other Side from the Long Island Medium

by Caputo, Theresa

  My brother Mike’s son Jason, when he was three years old, also saw his grandfather—but on his mom Corrinda’s side. Jason had never seen Grandpa Lou or even a picture of him, since he died before Jason was born. One day, Jason told my brother that there was a man in the kitchen with Mommy. Mike came in to see and only found Corrinda. Jason kept pointing and saying, “There he is!” but neither Corrinda nor Jason could see Grandpa Lou. When Corrinda asked what he looked like, Jason described the man as having black hair, and when they showed him a picture of a random person with black hair, Jason shook his head and said, “No, that’s not him.” So Corrinda went digging for a picture of her dad and when she showed Jason that photo, his face dropped. “That’s the man,” he said. “That’s the man who was calling my name.” This was the only time Jason experienced this. Of course, Mike called me and said, “Jason’s seeing dead people in the pantry, and it’s your fault”—and hung up! I suggested they explain who Grandpa Lou was, that he died and was in Heaven, and Jason never saw him or another Spirit again.

  But now, a few years later, Corrinda and Mike’s eight-year-old daughter Halle began seeing and sensing Spirit—and guess who’s back? I recently got this long and baffled text from Corrinda:

  Halle is seeing my dad in the middle of the night and constantly waking us up at 3 AM. This morning, she told me that she opened her eyes and saw him standing in her room looking at her. She said she was freaked out and when she got up to come in my room, she walked right through him! I asked her if he said anything and she said no. She said she feels her feet being tickled sometimes, too. I need her to sleep through the night; we are exhausted! Should I sage the house or tell Spirit to go away? Mike and I have also been smelling smoke in our room. I almost went back to Sleepy’s for a third time to tell them my mattress was used by a smoker, but it doesn’t always smell. My dad was a smoker for many years . . .

  Halle is clearly very sensitive to Spirit, so I suggested that Corrinda burn white sage to cleanse the house of Spirit every few weeks. (I personally do this every time a client leaves my home. My husband, Larry, calls sage “Spirit bug spray.”) Corrinda now does this, and at night, she also prays that Spirit does not touch, make sounds, or present themselves to her children, and asks them to go to the light. Although Halle still doesn’t sleep too well, she hasn’t mentioned seeing her grandfather again. I think it helps that she says a little speech of her own before bed, where she says good night to Grandpa Lou, Gram, and all their friends, and asks them to please not touch her, make any noises that could scare her, and to protect her from outside of her room. As for the smoky odor, Corrinda says it did go away for a while, but they still occasionally smell it.

  Speaking of Saging . . .

  Native Americans have burned dried white sage for purification and protection for centuries, and one thing it helps do is clear any negativity from your house. I know you’re not channeling negative Spirit, but just to keep any Spirit activity in your home in a good place, I recommend burning white sage—also called “smudging”—every few weeks. To do this, light a piece or two of dried sage in a shallow ceramic bowl, and then gently blow the flame out until it smokes. Push the smoke up to the ceiling with a feather or fan. Start by facing the front door, and go to your right, following the ceiling all the way around the house to include closets, attics, basements, and garages if they’re attached to the house. Pay attention to dark spaces, like the oil burner room, and you can also push some smoke under the bed and on top of it if anyone has trouble sleeping. Do all of this while repeating, “Only Spirits who walk in the white light of God are welcome here. All negative energies must leave by the power of God.” I also like to throw out a few positive affirmations and ask that only peaceful feelings, emotions, and thoughts dwell in our home. Let the sage burn until it goes out by itself, and if it dies before you’re finished, light another piece and keep going! Keep a window slightly cracked on each floor.

  Me? I’ve Got Spirit Coming Out of My Ears

  Although you may need to open your awareness to Spirit to experience it, I’m good over here. Your loved ones aren’t waiting for you at my house, though they may show up early if I’m meeting with you the next day or that week. Even still, Spirit is always around me. I’m constantly getting messages from my own loved ones who’ve crossed and those for people I know. I’ve noticed too that since my life and business have become more public, I’m seeing more Spirit than I ever have before.

  It doesn’t bother me to hear from the dead so much. I don’t constantly listen to them chattering, whispering, laughing, or clomping up and down the stairs. My lights don’t flicker all day like I live in a disco. Spirit knows when I’m working, or about to work, and they know when to give me space. Other times, I’ll catch a glimpse of energy or feel a presence, and I can decide whether to stay on it or let it pass. It’s like being in a crowded city, where people walk right past you, and you don’t pay much attention to them after a while—but you can always say hi or stop them to ask for directions, if you want. One time, though, I did see a man peeking in my kitchen window, which really scared me since I usually see Spirit as mists and silhouettes. I knew it wasn’t a human person, but he sure looked like one. He was wearing a flannel shirt and looked like the Brawny paper towel guy. I told my first client about him, and she said he fit the description of her brother who had passed. I was like, “Well, your brother just freaked me out, peeping in my window like that!”

  Because Spirit’s always around me, hoping I’ll deliver a message to you, their urgency can happen when it’s pretty inconvenient. The first time I ever got my eyebrows waxed at Nordstrom, I had it done by a woman named Geeta, who’s since become a friend. As she put hot, sticky wax on my face, I began feeling Spirit all around me. In my head, I was like, Stay away, Spirit. This is not a good time. I have wax near my eyeballs. I’m not answering you right now—but the energy was insistent. So I told Spirit that if they really needed me to deliver a message, to put the opportunity in my path. Just then, Geeta spun my chair around, looked at me with wax about to drip off her wooden stick, and said, “Some people say I’m psychic.” Geeta didn’t know I was a medium, and this was a good four years before the show was on, so I took it as the sign I’d asked for. Apparently, her mother, father, brother, and husband had all died—the woman’s in her forties, by the way—and they all had messages for her. After getting to know me, she began to develop her intuition and turned it into a gift of healing. She’s now a Reiki Master.

  Since Spirit’s around me so much, I’m not gonna lie—a few times I’ve used it to my advantage. Oh, come on, wouldn’t you? As a mom, being a medium always worked well with keeping my kids in line. I never really knew what was going on with them, but I’d tell them that I’d send my guides with them when they went out so they’d stay out of trouble! Victoria and my son, Larry, never thought about doing anything bad because they probably thought Spirit would rat them out. I even called them up a few times to find out if they were okay, and said my Spirit guides told me to. But I was just being a nervous mom—Spirit hadn’t told me anything! Now that they’re older, I don’t do this. I don’t even think Spirit would help me spy on Victoria at school, or on my son when he’s at a bar with his friends. Spirit probably thinks there’s a lot that I’m better off not knowing.

  I’ve also asked my angels to help me find a parking spot at the mall or items I’ve lost around the house. I spend most of my day searching for stuff I’ve misplaced because I’m such a space cadet, so if I didn’t ask for Spirit’s help with this, I’d get nothing done. To enlist their aid, I calmly sit down, relax, and pray to St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost articles, that he guide me to where I put the item. You can try this, too. My husband, Larry, always says I can talk to souls across many dimensions, but I can’t find the keys in my own damn pocketbook. If I ask for something too silly, my guides don’t pay attention. But once I ordered this amazing hand sanitizer for when I was on the road; s
ince I shake so many hands, I don’t want to get sick out there. It smelled so good—like lavender, chamomile, eucalyptus, and sage—that I couldn’t wait to get it! I’d placed the order a few months back, and the company said it arrived, but I didn’t remember seeing the box. So I asked Spirit to guide me to it, and they showed me my husband’s business checks. I remembered putting a long, skinny box on his desk that I thought was full of deposit slips, but when I went back to actually open the box, my hand sanitizer was in it!

  I’m also frequently asked if I’ve used my abilities for gambling or the lottery. Get your minds out of the gutter. What I do is for the highest good of all concerned, so I’d never do that intentionally! And let’s face it, even if I did try, I’m way too scattered to recognize what I’m being told. My aunt and I went to Belmont Park Race Track for her birthday one year, and I remember hearing “six ten” when I walked in—which is my birthday, June 10. How nice, I thought. Spirit’s acknowledging my birthday too. My uncle asked me what colors I liked best so he could bet on a horse wearing that color, and all the colors I said were losing. It wasn’t until after we left that I realized all the horses that won were a combination of the numbers six and ten! And then there was the time I went to a spa with my sister-in-law Corrinda. We went to Mohegan Sun one night, which was the first time I’d ever been to a casino, and decided to play roulette. Wouldn’t you know, every number we played on the wheel was a loser?

  To me, the best part about opening yourself up to hearing from Spirit is that you can do it just by being yourself. You don’t need tarot cards or crystals. You don’t even need to hold or wear an object with your family member’s energy, like a lot of people think. When I mention a necklace or ring during a session that you’ve brought with you, it’s not because I’m drawn to that energy like a magnet. It’s because Spirit tells me to reference it. In fact, I once did a phone reading for a woman who had a lot of female energy around her that had passed on, including a mom, grandmother, aunt, and cousin. She also had a grandfather and father on the Other Side. Anyway, Spirit showed me a picture I have of Victoria, wearing the most random clothes—a baseball cap, sunglasses, Rug Rat pajamas, holding the pet parakeet that Gram got her, and Mardi Gras beads. So I said, “This is going to sound bizarre, but I feel like you’re wearing a strange mix of items: pajamas, a silk scarf, a man’s hat, gloves, rosary beads, and jewelry that doesn’t match. Are you wearing an article from every dead person you want to hear from?” There was total silence on the phone. “I am,” she whispered. I think she was a little embarrassed, but I have to admit that I was actually relieved she didn’t dress like that all the time!

  5

  Once You’re Dead, Then What?

  If you’re one of those really busy or active people whose coffee mug says, “I’ll rest when I’m dead,” I’ve got news for you—the afterlife is not one long nap. You may rest for a bit, but you’ve got places to go, Spirit to see. You’ll glide around with the amazing ease and serenity that characterizes the Other Side, and not too long after your soul leaves the physical world, Spirit says you’ll account for your actions and either stick around Heaven a little longer or prepare to reincarnate with most of your loved ones. I know our souls also have fun, because Spirit loves to laugh. But your soul also has stuff to take care of while it’s in Heaven. It doesn’t just float around at one big after-party in the sky.

  Spirit isn’t too detailed with me about what happens after we die, mostly because I’ve told them that I don’t need a play-by-play; I believe there are things we know at a soul level that we aren’t intended to realize as humans. I also don’t deliberately travel outside my body to other places, and I’ve never had a near-death experience, so I haven’t been to the Other Side to report back. (I have met Gram there in a past-life regression, but there was nothing around us but a white haze; it felt very peaceful, and as much as I love my life here, I didn’t want to leave.) But Spirit has shared some cool nuances with me, and I’ve also picked up on some interesting details while channeling clients’ dead friends and family. For me, this is plenty, and I hope it does the trick for you too. It’s hard to live fully in this life if you’re always thinking about what comes next!

  Sweet Surrender

  I breezed through what happens when you die in chapter three, but I want to flesh it out a little more here. So when you pass away, Spirit says that the soul lifts out through either your body or head. I’m told that you then enter a tunnel, which you probably already know, since people who’ve had near-death experiences (NDEs) validate this remarkable journey for us. Better them than me! I’ll never ask Spirit to bring me through a tunnel to experience Heaven, not even for this book. Some NDE survivors go on to say that they became aware of nurturing thoughts that reached out to them while floating through a haze that felt like another dimension. This is actually how I feel when I channel, so maybe part of me is on the Other Side during a session, and I just don’t know it.

  Once you’re free of your body, any suffering or ailment you may have felt in the physical world is immediately gone. No matter how tragic, painful, or long-suffering your death, I want to be clear that your soul detaches quickly and peacefully. The souls of people in wheelchairs have shown me they can dance in Heaven, and if a woman died from breast cancer and had a breast removed while she was here, Spirit makes me feel like her soul is full in the chest. Because we don’t have bodies in Heaven, I don’t think we literally have legs or ample boobs—it’s just Spirit’s way of saying that pain stays with the physical body and souls move freely on the Other Side. Your soul may feel momentarily sad about leaving loved ones, but you’re not overwhelmed with grief the way people in this world are, because your soul quickly becomes aware that you will see them again.

  When you enter the afterlife, you’re greeted by the joyful souls of family and friends who passed before you and influenced your time here. During a reading, when Spirit shows me a person at the end of a bed with one arm extended, that’s my sign for a soul who greeted him or her at the time of death. I can’t tell you the number of instances a client has said to me, “That’s so crazy, because Mom called her brother’s name just before she passed,” or “She was reaching to someone we couldn’t see as she died.” You are guided toward a bright light that is God, no matter what your religion is. Jews don’t head to one cloud and Protestants to another. Some NDE survivors also say that they felt guided by musical sounds—not a song per se, but chords, hums, and vibrations. You’ll reunite with your primary guide, who’s helped you on your spiritual path in this life.

  Lights, Camera, Action: This Is Your Life!

  Spirit says that the main reason we’re here to begin with is to learn certain lessons, and as we do, our soul grows and graduates to different levels of knowledge. This is why, once you’re in Heaven, you and your primary guide will review your life on earth. You’ll go over everything you did—the good and bad—and evaluate how well you stuck to the path your soul chose and the lessons you were meant to learn during your time here. The review includes experiencing life through the eyes of people you knew in the physical world—you’ll feel their pain, happiness, fear, you name it—and you’ll understand the chain reactions of your words and behavior. Spirit says this happens pretty quickly and compares it to watching a filmstrip. Though our brains can hardly remember when we walked the dog or sent an important email in the physical world, in Heaven you don’t have to worry about recalling anything from your life, because you’ll emotionally relive it. As this happens, you’ll discuss how you could have spent your time here differently, so certain people wouldn’t have experienced negative feelings you inflicted on them. In our world, people who aren’t self-aware can be so naïve about how their actions affect others, but in Heaven, you have a clear understanding of all the dynamics.

  Though you’re held accountable for your actions, and you’re evaluated based on how well you understood and executed your role in this life, you aren’t chastised for
things you did wrong. Cruel punishment and judgment that make you feel bad about yourself are things that we inflict on each other in the physical world. When it comes to being held accountable in Heaven for your past deeds, I’m told that God isn’t the fire-and-brimstone figure that some people think. He and your guides are compassionate, and they have unconditional love. They may be disappointed, but from what Spirit shows me, I don’t feel there’s eternal damnation waiting for the average, flawed person.

  I’ve had souls step forward to apologize or take responsibility for actions, and it’s clear that the soul’s been through a life review. A client might say, “My father never took ownership for anything!” But in Heaven, souls must. The time it takes for a soul to reach this awareness may explain why it might apologize or discuss a wrongdoing during one reading but not another—at the time, it may not have grown to that level of understanding. Once I read for a young girl whose father left her family many times when she was young. He had no contact with them, sent no money, and acted like they never existed. Eventually, the man remarried and had other kids. When I channeled his departed soul, he said to tell his daughter, “I left because I didn’t know how to unconditionally love at that time. I’m not asking for your forgiveness, but I do need you to know how much I love you. Now that my soul has had to relive what it was like for you not to have the father you deserved and needed me to be, I understand, and I am sorry.” He went on to explain that he didn’t say this so that the girl would forgive him, but so she’d know he was remorseful and being held accountable for his actions. I’ve even had souls come through and say that if they could do it all over, they’d change certain undesirable characteristics about themselves. When a soul can finally appreciate the upsetting things it did to those in the physical world, with the help of a life review, it not only heals and grows, but it can begin to comfort the people it left behind.