Fortune telling

Did you know that you can buy a psychic reading on Etsy?

During one of my bored rambling search journeys through Etsy, I found one. You can buy a psychic reading here? Woah. I did a more extensive search. You know, losing your baby, visiting the abyss, trying to conceive again, figuring out your future, fearing your living child's well being at every turn, well, sometimes you just want an impossible answer to a questions you dare not speak aloud.

When I was a child, my mother used to tell me about a psychic my parents saw before she got pregnant with us. My parents attended a party where this psychic was invited to give readings. (It was the 70s, and my parents named me after a Rolling Stones song, so you do the math.) My mother spoke with both reverence and fear for this psychic. According to my mother, this women told my mother everything that was to pass in her life. About my father. About us. About her. Later, after my parents divorced, she found this woman again, and she was still giving readings. She made an appointment for her, my sister and I. My experience with this woman at age 20 made me believe that some people have gifts that are not explainable. I still shiver to think of all the spot on things she said to me about my past, my present, and yes, even my future.

Many years later, I tried to find her again. Driving aimlessly through a town I dimly knew, I recognized an overpass, an oak tree, the scribbled address I wrote on the back of an envelope. A sign was posted on the front door.

"The fortune teller does not live here anymore."

:::

I am a rational person. I am. And yet, the impulse to have my future told to me is too alluring. To be fair, there were some aspects that were about the future. "You will have another child who will bring great joy." I think I got that in a fortune cookie once.

But my Etsy psychic experience was interesting, not because of what my future holds according to a complete stranger who sent me an email after I paid them ten bucks, but because of what the psychic is allowed to say to the grieving mother. The tarot reader said things that no one else in my life would dare say.

"The Past card for you, the ten of Cups reversed, shows that you thought you were bringing forth the perfect family situation and it failed to materialize. This has set you in this place of stasis, but you must move on. It’s not safe to stay here; your power is draining away and soon you will be overwhelmed."

It's true, but damn, lady.

:::

I turned to Sam after reading the psychic lady's email and said, "Is this comforting to you? This tarot reader said that Lucy was at the end of her lives. She was reaching enlightenment, but she needed her last life to be in me. That her life in a womb was an important experience that she needed to have. The closeness, comfort, love and safety of being in my belly served to heal some of her old wounds and once that was done, she could be free. The psychic said she chose me for my love and because I was a good mother to her. She also said that I also benefited, though it may not seem so now. This experience has opened me up in ways I will need to access later in life. Do you find that comforting?"

"Yes. I do."

"Me too."