Connecting (Lily Dale #3)(78)

With each loss, I found myself regarding my visits to Lily Dale and my readings with the mediums there in a whole new light. But I still wasn’t sure what—or whether—to believe. I, after all, was there in the name of research.

A funny thing happened when I visited around the time I lost my grandfather. The medium—who of course was a complete stranger, with no advance knowledge of my loss— claimed to be bringing through my grandfather. Her physical description was pretty unmistakable. She said he had a message for my father, and it had something to do with the song “Zippity Doo Da.” She said he kept singing it, over and over, and wanted to know what it meant. I had no idea.

I later asked my father, who prided himself on being the ultimate skeptic. He was taken aback. Turns out the song “Zippity Doo Da” did have personal significance between him and his late father—and no one other than the two of them really would have known about it. He was shaken but insisted that if it were really my grandfather, he would have come through with his name.

“If he doesn’t come through with his name, I don’t believe it’s really him,” he said illogically, having disregarded the fact that the information I had been given was much more specific than a name.

“Anyone could come up with a name,” I protested. The way I saw it, a charlatan could conceivably have somehow connected me to the late Pasquale “Pat” Corsi, but “Zippity Doo Da”? Even I hadn’t known about that.

A year or so later, I went back to Lily Dale, to a different medium, for a group reading with my husband’s sister and brother. Right before we went I had lunch with my father, still a die-hard skeptic. He said he wouldn’t believe I’d heard from anyone on the Other Side unless they specifically came through by name. He was laughing about it, teasing me, really— but I knew darn well he meant it.

That reading began with some information for my sister-in-law. Then the medium said abruptly, “I have a Pat or Patrick here, and he’s very persistent . . . ,” and she turned to me. “I think he’s here for you.” She went on to tell me that he had a message for “his son.” And the message was that he had to stop being such a “bullhead.” I had to laugh at that. On my father’s side of the family, people were always accusing each other of being bullheads. My father and grandfather were the two biggest offenders, and believe me, the shoe fit both of them!

In any case, I went home and told my father that my grandfather had done just what he’d asked—he’d come through by name. Not even by his formal name, but by his family nickname. “Bah,” said the skeptic. “His name wasn’t Pat or Patrick. It was Pasquale.”

“But everyone called him Pat—and Grandma called him Patrick!”

“Bah. You told me last time that anyone could come up with a name—a name isn’t proof.”

Oh, for Pete’s sake. He was still determined to be a skeptic.

“What else did my father say?” my father asked me, after awhile.

“He told you to stop being such a bullhead.”

My father’s eyes widened and he thoughtfully rubbed his chin. Hmm. Maybe he did believe in this stuff, after all.

As for me, the tide had begun to turn the day I heard “Zippity Doo Da” from the Other Side. Since then, too many inexplicable things have happened to me in Lily Dale for me not to have an open mind.

I’ll tell you another ghostly tale from the Dale next time!