Movies and Candy

Thirty years or so before I met Scott. There was David.

David was my brother, is my brother, in Spirit.

When I was twenty-three years old, David arrived.

When I first met David we connected at a social get together of local activists working on legislation to protect animals and the environment. I was anxious to move the group  rapidly forward instead of continuing to spin in slow circles of indecisive procrastination. David entered the room with infectious enthusiasm ready to get to work. That night, though, was the night I was ready to take a stand. After everyone settled in, I interrupted the gathering and proceeded to lecture the group on a myriad of issues and frustrations I had been harboring for months.

Within minutes of spouting off my twenty-three years of wisdom. I noticed thick silence extinguishing the light of my fiery passionate call to action. I scanned the room taken aback, seeing indifference and blank stares.

Immediately, I declared my resignation from the group and stomped out.

Grabbing my keys out of my pocket, I headed for my car. Before reaching the door, I felt someone following me. I turned around and there was David.

David asked where I was going. I had no idea, I just wanted out of the group, out of the parking lot and from there I didn’t care. I was frustrated, angry, and just realized I had cut off everyone in my social network.

“Let’s get something to eat at Good Earth. I’m not going back there. I’m going with you” .

That was the beginning of meeting the brother I always wanted.

When I was a kid, “My “David” chased after bullies and was just good enough to scare them off and not hold them down and beat them to a pulp. He was good-looking and all the girls wanted him, but he was mine always. He was my brother. My brother was always there for me no matter how many times I screwed up, said the wrong thing, or was banished from a group. I thought about my missing brother on sleepy afternoons gazing out the classroom window looking out to the empty playgrounds and basketball court.

I waited for him to pick me up after school and when he didn’t. I made sure he was there in my day dreams.

David and I bonded right away. We talked on the phone for hours just like me and Scott would do years later. Scott ended our late night conversations with “sweet dreams”. David clicked off the phone with “talk to you tomorrow”. David woke me up with a phone call almost every morning at 6 a.m. Scott didn’t sleep as much, he called me every morning at 5:30 a.m.

Over the years, my family and friends would wonder how I could talk to these guys for hours.

We never ran out of things to talk about. We didn't have enough time in the day  to finish our conversations. 

There was no end to them.

We talked on the phone while getting ready for work, taking a break from the phone while showering, and picking up threads of the last conversation while we dressed. I talked to David on cordless phones back then. Decades later on cellphones with Scott.

Times changed, with Scott we could text back and forth anytime we wanted to.

David had a soulmate, she was married. She wasn’t ready to leave her husband.

With David our conversations circled and deepened around crystals, the Lost City of Atlantis, Seth and the works of Caroline Myss . David didn’t keep pets and wasn’t close to animals except for my cat “Buff” who he liked. He said he didn’t want a cat, but if he did it would be a cat like her.

With Scott, we loved nature, trees and animals that lived wild. Scott was great with animals. Animals loved him. He spoke often of the pets he kept over the years. I remember bringing him with me to the barn, and leaving him in a large pasture with a herd of horses and a handful of treats. Before I opened the gate to the next pasture, I turned around and watched the herd of horses circle him, stand quietly together and take turns gently picking one treat at a time from his hand. We loved communicating with animals, sharing memories of the animals we came across and their lives in nature while on our walks and hikes. One night, Scott found a spider and wanted to get rid of it. I grabbed my cellphone and  looked up spiders and found out if they lose a leg, it’s been proven it causes them as much pain as if it happened to one of us. I shared the information and showed him the research I found on google. For nights, Scott would look for the spider on the ceiling to make sure she was okay and not being threatened or harmed.

Years earlier, David would pick me up on Friday nights to take me to the movies. He popped his own popcorn and separated the snack into two zip lock plastic bags, packed two bottles of water in his jacket and stopped by the discount store for candy before driving to my house.

At the theatre, before the movie started, he would reach into his jacket and pull out my box of red vines. He never forgot to bring them.

One night, driving on the freeway heading home. He turned to me and said “you have me for ten years and then I’m leaving this planet”. At twenty-three years old, ten years seemed like a long time.

David loved the song “Free Bird” and would play it full blast while we drove around town and through the Valley of the Moon where we lived close-by to each other.

From movies to books, we spent hours on the phone quoting and rehashing every chapter from the book “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer. A personal account of the tragic 1996 Mount Everest disaster.

David took up mountain climbing again. Back then, he had a pager and one of those huge cell phones that could knock you out if someone dropped it on your head. When he reached the summit of the mountain, and climbed back down, he would call me to let me know he made it.

Back home, back on the phone and on our drives, he would share his dreams of climbing Mount Everest. Of course, I would be there too. My job was to communicate back and forth during the climb while I waited back at base camp.

We never made that trip to Everest.

Within two years David would be gone, He died of cancer ten years after we met.

On one of our last phone calls, David sounded tired and worn down, but he stayed on the phone with me for a long time. He wanted to make sure I understood how important love is, it’s the most important thing, more important than anything else and to never, ever give up trying to find my soulmate.

Two decades would go by before meeting Scott on our “blind date”.  

My first date night  with Scott was going to the movies. Before the movies, we met at the park almost everyday for Scott’s lunch break. I would pack a picnic. During lunch on other work days, Scott would treat me to pizza or hamburgers. 

One late night, talking on the phone, he said if you want to know who I am, listen to “Simple Man”, the song by Lynyrd Skynyrd. After we hung up, I played that song over and over until I fell asleep.

A few days later, Scott picked me up after work. It was five dollar Wednesday date nights at our downtown theatre. He let me know he wasn’t romantic. Scott never lied. However, this statement turned out to be so far from the truth, it made me wonder what he thought romance meant.

Now I know.

What the women he dated considered romance was different than what he thought, and what I dreamed of.

On the drive to the theatre, Scott turned up the radio, “Free Bird” started playing. I could feel David saying to me, “Don’t blow it, he’s the one”.

Scott parked the car, he held my hand as we crossed the busy street to the movie theatre. Inside, we found seats away from the small scattering of people munching on popcorn.

I looked over at him and noticed he was wearing the same type of jacket David used to wear at our Friday night movies.

Before, the previews started. Scott reached into his jacket and handed me a box of my favorite red vines.

Our first movie we watched together was my choice, the horror film IT. Scott didn’t like horror films but he watched it all the way through while I missed all of it, consumed with excitement about our future together.

During my first mediumship session with a well-known evidential medium. Scott came through strongly as a friend. Before the session, I got up at 4 a.m. several hours before my appointment. I lit candles and sat in silence. The glow of the moon kept me company along with the stars in the dimming night sky until the neighbor’s rooster crowed. In the silence, I asked Scott to please meet me at the session. He answered “we are going together”.

The session started with an explanation of evidential mediumship and for me not to add any details, just “yes” or “no” to let her know whether she was on track or not.  Anxious, I watched my fifty minutes evaporate minute by minute. I prayed she would move along quickly and bring Scott in.

For days before my appointment, I set strict boundaries demanding my relatives, friends, and animals across the veil stay back and please not communicate through the medium. I let them know it wasn’t personal, I was hanging by a thread.

Two years earlier, I had booked a session with this same medium. I could feel my grandparents, my goats and horses, my dogs, David, aunts, uncles and ancestors crowding around each other. It felt like people hiding, excited, waiting for the birthday girl to arrive.

This worried me. I said to my mom “I think the medium is going to cancel. I don’t know how she is going to deal with everybody. All of them are here shuffling around anxiously waiting to come through.”

My booking with the medium was a month off, ten minutes before our session, she cancelled. During her premeditation before our reading, she texted “her mind was too full and she couldn’t make sense of anything.”

She offered a refund of the substantial fee or to rebook. I passed along the paid session to my Mom to communicate with my Dad.

Finally, sitting with her two years later, I tried patiently waiting for her to finish sharing stories of disappointed people who didn’t recognize the deceased communicating through her. Later after the session, they remembered details during the session and confirmed that yes, that was their deceased person after all.

Finally, the medium started our session. She scanned the room saying “oh there’s lots of people here”. People I’m sure, including my animals.

Disappointment started rising in me. Oh no, would Scott get through? I made sure to banish everyone from attending. I warned them over and over to please not come through, let Scott in. I only want to hear from Scott, please don’t cause an interruption.

Through the zoom screen, I watched the medium close her eyes and start waving her hands gently through the air.

“Oh, a man is coming through, he is a friend. I can’t see him yet. This is a very old, old relationship. It feels like you two are matching socks. This feels ancient.”

I thought to myself oh no, it’s David coming through not Scott.

The medium gave me a few more details.

“He’s fit. He’s agile”.

She asked me if I recognized the man. Worried and confused, I said to her I think I need a couple more details. There’s two men, and I don’t know which one this is.

Surprised, the medium reacted “TWO MEN, you have two different men that feel like matching socks!”

“Well, I can TELL YOU this is the Romantic One.”

I smiled, relieved, thank god, sorry David.

How could I think she was talking about David? David and I were like oil and vinegar.

Scott and I were matching socks.

“I don’t usually talk about this kind of thing in my sessions. He’s giving me the feeling that your sexual life was not like, you know, smacking of butts” .

Not Scott’s words, I thought, laughing out loud. Scott didn’t swear and never said something tasteless. I was the one with the “sailor mouth”. The medium revealed her mouth, one almost like mine.

“I’m getting the feeling the sex was deep, connected, a way to get to know each other. I don’t want to go woo woo, but this feels spiritual”.

Yes.

“He’s not the kind of guy that cares about material wealth, or status. Like he would never be the type of person to give a Ted Talk or care what people think.”

Yes.

“You're the only woman who understands him. Who else could keep up with him?”

Yes.

“It’s about the adventure. Both of you want to feel life. It’s feeling experiences and not about accomplishment or gaining anything. I’ve never heard anyone put it this way.”

Yes.

“He’s fascinating.  What he’s sharing here, He’s very intense. He keeps talking.”

Please. Keep talking.

“Does this resonate with you, so I can continue….”

Yes, you got him. That’s him. That’s us.