This is beautifully captured by Jen Oliak about the essence of a mother’s spirit that I was able to communicate with and her daughter who brought her to life… It brought me to tears….. Thank you Beth for sharing your story, I love you and your mom 💕

Love and Loss- The Clouds Have the Answers: By Beth Wood

Love and Loss. We’ve all experienced it. Do clouds have the answers? I’m not religious, but do I believe in God. I’m not very spiritual, but I can feel energy all around me. This story from my friend Beth has me re-thinking.To all the people we have loved and lost. You are in the clouds…

Beth’s Story About Love & Loss

My mom passed away a few months ago. Shortly after my loss, I visited an intuitive (aka: psychic, medium).

Source: Horoscope.com

Why? I had tremendous guilt for the infrequent visits we made to the nursing home where my mom resided. It was a home for people with dementia. The last time I saw her, I felt there was no connection. She didn’t know who I was. And I no longer knew who she was.

I wanted to communicate with her again. It had been years since I’d been able to hear what she was thinking.

Was she mad at us for putting her in a home? Was there anything she wanted me to know?

When my maternal grandfather was in the VA hospital with the same early onset of dementia, it was.. memorable. But not in a good way.

I didn’t want my kids to see their grandmother the same way I saw my grandpa when I was younger and not capable of processing what was going on. I wanted my kids to remember my mom for who she was. Their fun, loving, funny, creative and kind grandma.

Not the lady who didn’t speak and watched movies in bed all day.

Years earlier, I communicated with my mom’s younger sister, Lynne, through a medium. She passed away from the same “family disease” at 60. Reaching her through the psychic gave me such a sense of relief. Not only because she told me my dad’s DNA stopped the gene from being passed on to the rest of us, but also because she told me she was happy. She was freed from her body that stopped working. She was in a better place.

I was hoping for a similar read with my mom. Well really, I was praying that she had “arrived” and would come through.

And She did.

My Visit With the Psychic

The first thing she communicated was, “Beth, don’t feel guilty about not visiting often, because I was visiting you.” Kleenex, please. Then, wait. Huh? She was in a nursing home in Ohio and we were in California.

She told me she assisted my daughter who cut her bangs in her bedroom. Viv did do this in 1st grade. They looked fabulous. She also told Jennifer (the intuitive) that my daughter had her name. Also correct. After 20 more minutes of communication with my mom, I asked her what she would like done with her ashes.

She said, “Spread them in Scotland.”

Yep. That was definitely her.

Honoring My Mom

Three months later, my husband, my kids and I were walking out of Dublin airport. I had my mom’s ashes in my carry on bag and a few loose ideas of what we wanted to do in Ireland before heading to Scotland.

We spent a few days in Dublin and then took a train to a ferry in Northern Ireland, which docked in Scotland. A local we met on the ferry gave us a ride to Edinburgh, where I walked around for days with my moms ashes in my bag. I was looking for a sign.

Every scrape of paper on the ground, graffiti on the wall. I was searching for a message that basically said, “Beth, spread my ashes here. Love, Mom.”

I was starting to get nervous. Although I knew she loved Edinburgh, there was a Fringe festival going on and the place was packed. I had envisioned the wind carrying her ashes off the highest point of Edinburgh Castle with my family around me saying kind words about her. But this place was wall to wall people.

With 3 days left of the trip, my husband, Erik told us we were going on a drive to St. Andrews. We protested. There were ashes to be spread in Edinburgh. We weren’t interested in seeing an old golf course or where Kate met William!

Finding Her Spot

When we arrived, I was underwhelmed. He dragged us here and he dragged us there. My mom wasn’t a huge golfer and I didn’t know if she had ever been here. What if she had visited with my dad and thought, “Never again?!” But then, something happened.

We walked to St. Andrews Cathedral (the ruins of a super old church) and their cemetery. With the soft wind blowing off the ocean, the green grass and the sun shining, it dawned on me.

I was so caught up in doing it right, I had become paralyzed over what to do with her ashes.

There wasn’t a right way to do this. I thought about my mom. A free spirit who read, “Free To Be You And Me” to us all the time as kids. I needed to let go of being caught up trying to make this the “perfect” experience.

I needed to just honor my mom.

At that point, I felt such peace and love for my family that a sense of calm came over me.

My kids found an isolated spot. There was no one around. We had all the time in the world.

Without hesitation, they grabbed a handful of ashes and joyously began spreading them.

Viv spreading her grandmother’s ashes in Scotland

They decided she needed to have her name in the cemetery. A place to remember where she was.

They each began to write a message to her on the concrete.

Erik cringed when he saw the kids writing, um, in her ashes. But he knew my mom, and knew she loved anything her grandchildren did.

My son, Alex knew she loved the color yellow and really wanted yellow flowers at her site. He found some tiny daisies and began decorating the area. He was humming a song about heaven. It was the perfect celebration for my mom.

Alex decorating a note he left for his grandma with daisies.

Closing the Chapter on her Loss

A few weeks later , I ran into Jennifer (the medium). I told her how we spread her ashes in Scotland. Did she remember telling me that??

While I quickly scrolled through my pictures to show her one, she laughed. “Your mom got a real kick out of it and loved it. She’s very happy with where she is.”

I showed her the picture and said, “I think that bird was my mom watching us.”

She glanced at the picture and said, “That’s just a bird. But look at the clouds. She’s smiling down on you. The answers are always in the clouds.”

Beth’s mom teacher photo
Wow. Love and loss – The answers are in the clouds. Powerful, right? I may be visiting “Jennifer” very soon! Cheers to gaining new perspectives. I never believed in psychics before. Have you visited one? What was your outcome?

Flavor Your Life with an Ounce of Salt. A lifestyle blog by Jen Oliak.