Apple Pie

In our work Marti and I deal with a lot of skeptics, and I have a thousand stories like this one.  To my mind, I don't care either way whether the woman I'm writing about believes me or not.  It is after all, she that missed out on a chat with her father.  I know also that people on the other side are not always chomping at the bit to change a skeptic's tiny world view.


A while back, a lady we knew, who worked at the store where we were to hold a group meeting, told us she would be attending and she that was bringing a friend who was a big skeptic.

"Great!" I said a little sarcastically.  "Just don't tell me who she is because I don't want to know."

The next evening we held our group meeting and almost half way through the evening I had a deceased father wanting to speak to his daughter.  I was guided to the right woman in the audience, and he came up with one thing after another to say to her, to which the only response appeared to be "No, no, no, and no!"  After trying very hard with her father for her, I finally got fed up with her and I said to her dad in my mind, "I've had enough of her; she's not going to make me look a fool in front of everyone.  So finish up what you want to say to her, and let's move on to someone else.  Her dad then told her she liked sweet things.

"Yeah," she said, begrudgingly.

"He tells me you like apple pie."

"It's my favorite," she answered, nonchalantly.

"Well, your father say's 'enjoy the apple pie!'"  And with that I went on to speak to someone else in another part of the room, relieved to be done with her.

The gathering was quite large, so we had a short break for people to stretch their legs and to use the restroom. During the break, our friend came up to me and told me I had connected with her girlfriend.

"Oh, good," I replied.  "Where is she?" my curiosity piqued.

"She's gone.  She left when the break started.  She couldn't get out the door quick enough. You freaked her out!"

"Where was she sitting?" I asked.

"Over there," she said pointing. "She's the skeptic!"

I never realized who the skeptic was, because our friend was not sitting next to her.

A couple of days later we met our friend again at the store and I asked her if she spoken with her buddy, the skeptic.  She had:  "I called her yesterday on the phone.  Her husband answered and told me she wasn't taking any phone calls right then.  When I asked him why, he told me; 'My wife's been on a diet for a month and she's had this apple pie in the fridge for the last few days, and she's eating the whole apple pie as we speak!'"

Mail from Ralphie

A letter we received from Dana

Hello to both of you.  I have never written before, but I feel that I must tell you what happened the day after Christmas.  Last year on December 4th, you gave a phenomenal reading to my sister in law and me at the Centre in La Mesa, (Myztic Isle).  It defiantly was a life altering experience for me and the reading wasn't even focused on me! 
One of the things that Michael kept alluding to was the story that I was writing for my family to celebrate the 10th anniversary of my brother Ralphie's passing.
I left KNOWING that my bro was with me or at least was cognizant of what we were doing down here.  I gave my Christmas story to my family (Ralphie's best Christmas) and it was a great hit.
This year I would have to say was the best Christmas for me and my daughter (who still lives with me) that we have had in many years.
On the day after Christmas, we hit the sales at 8am.  We were in the store for about two hours and just had the best time trying to coordinate next year's wrapping supplies. 
We left the store and as we came around the back of the jeep, lying on the ground right where I would have had to step to get into the door, was a long white business envelope.  As I got near, I saw that it had some writing scrawled on it.  Much to my surprise and delight the one word on the envelope was RALPHIE!  I am so glad that my daughter was there, because my family thinks I have an "I love Lucy" way of dealing with how I feel about the afterlife and particularly my brother. 
One word, "Ralphie" was the best validation I have gotten on my own (without you two's help!)
Thank you for what you have brought to me.

A Rose to a Rose

Mario Danelo July 3rd 1985 - Jan 6th 2007


The beginning of February 2007, I was walking into our living room, when a young man appeared in front of me. He made me aware of who he was. He had been on the news recently and he had apparently fallen to his death from a cliff not far from where we live.  He was a noted college footballer and there were still unanswered questions, so the media kept the story going.  I had not paid much attention to the news and so had not caught his name or any of the details about him.
 
As he stood there in front of me, I told him, "I know who you are, but I'm not calling your family or anyone.  It's not something I am comfortable doing."

He responded, "Don't worry, you don't have to.  I'm sending my family to you!"

"If you manage to do that, I'll be very impressed!" I told him.

With that, he left.  I had made Marti aware of the whole encounter as it was happening; she had been sitting at her computer listening to me talk with him.

A couple of days later, we were in Monrovia doing private sessions all day.  The appointments were set them up ahead of time by the shop owners, so we had no idea who was coming to see us that day.  One of the appointments was for someone we had seen before, but not seen in awhile.  They were a mother and son.  The mother has a son on the other side, who usually speaks to them.  During the course of our communication, a young man, who I at first believed was her son, mentioned something about putting flowers where the tree leans over, near where he is.

The mother thought for a moment, then said, "Well I did put flowers over on another grave near my son's and there is a tree there."

I then said the name 'Mo', which she didn't understand.  Almost immediately after, I said another name that sounded like Daniella.

She gasped, "Oh my god I think I know who that is! I think it is a young man that I saw on the news who fell to his death.  I felt sorry for him, so I drove to the place where he fell and put flowers there."  (It is over 50 miles away from where she lives.)  She told me his name was Mario Danelo.  We initially thought I had misheard the name Mario, but later found out Mo was his nickname.

I then realized that this was the same young man I had seen a few days before, "Wow!!!......It's him!" I exclaimed.  I then asked him to tell me what flowers she put there for him and saw an arm extend next to me toward her with a hand holding one red rose. "Thank you," he said through me. "A rose to a rose!"

She got a bit emotional.  "That's what I put there.  One red rose."

I had not understood he was there at first because her son had died at around the same age.  The session came to an end and we headed home.
The next morning, Marti was sitting at her computer and was doodling a football, when the phone rang. I was standing next to her and answered it.  A man inquired about our services and wondered which would work better:  to see us in a group or privately.  I thought for a moment and then I said to him, "Even if you came to see us privately, really anything could happen.  Just yesterday a lady came to see us and a young man she had never met came through to thank her for putting flowers where he died.  He was a college football player that fell off a cliff near here recently.

"He's my brother," he said softly.

"He's your brother?" I repeated in amazement.

".....yes," he said.

I told him about my visit from his brother and his prediction to me and then told him to come over to our home and see us privately.

I was more than curious at this point on how the deceased brother had pulled this off, so I asked the brother on the phone how he found us.

"A psychic, called Lori, told me to go see you," he said.

I'm still not sure to this day who Lori is, but my thanks to her.  She obviously could not make a full connection with the brother and, showing integrity, referred him to us.

A couple of hours later, an interesting synchronicity happened.  A lady with a TV production company called wanting to see if we were interested in what they were proposing.  Once again, I was curious how they came across us.  The lady told me a psychic, called Lori, told them about us.  It turned out to be different psychic called Lori!

Mario's brothers did come to see us and we had a very good connection.

A couple of years went by, and in that time Mario came by to say hello on a couple of occasions to some people that he had known him.

Sometime later, a friend of ours invited us to her ghost hunt event at the theater in San Pedro.  We took her up on the offer and attended.  After we got there, I felt a man in spirit standing several feet behind me.  In my mind I asked him several things.  He answered me saying he had lived in the area and was familiar with the theater and said one name to me.  I assumed at the time, he was connected to the theater itself.  We had not eaten yet so we decided to pop out and get something.  We didn't want to walk far and came upon a pizza restaurant.  Marti and I only eat pizza a few times a year, but we were hungry, so we went in.  The place was packed and there was only one table available  After we were seated, I looked around the place while we waited for our order.  There were posters of football players everywhere.  Marti pointed out that the painting right next to me was of Mario Danelo playing football.  I said what a coincidence that was.  I got up and looked around the whole place.  It was the only picture of him.

When we were finished eating, we went back to the theater and listened to our friend's talk.  When it was over, I decided I would share with a few people about the guy I had seen in the theatre when we first got there, the strange coincidence in the pizza bar and the connection with Mario.  I remembered the name I had first heard from the stranger in the theater.  One of the listeners standing in front of me said that he would have to sit down or he might fall over.  He was physically shaking.

"That's my name," he said. "And I personally knew Mario Danelo."