Navigating Grief as a Medium

In a family of Born-Again Christians

My uncle passed away over the weekend. It wasn’t unexpected—after a 3.5-year fight with cancer, it was a relief to see an end to his suffering—but the length of the illness and the preemptive grief of knowing that we would be losing him soon amplified the emotions flowing through me. I am intimately acquainted with grief, and while my relationship to it has shifted as I’ve deepened my connection to the spirit world, this time I’m mourning much more than the loss of my uncle here on earth.

My uncle was a wonderful man. A dedicated father, husband, and member of his community. He also had a deep faith in Jesus that gave him peace and comfort as he neared the end. It was beautiful to see his approach to death, and yet it confronted a deep-rooted feeling of rejection and inadequacy within me. His faith was a constant reminder that the people I love most in the world believe I am going to hell. It’s a weird and painful thing to navigate. If you didn’t grow up in a fundamentalist evangelical church like I did, I can imagine it seems quite self-involved to make his faith about me, but if you’ve been there, you know what I’m talking about.

In my final visit with my uncle as he was in the hospital, we had a beautiful parting moment. It was so full of love, and I am eternally grateful for it. And, as I walked out of the room, I heard him say quietly to my Christian sister, “See you on the other side.”

It was such a sweet moment for the two of them, and I could hear the cheeky grin in his voice even as I walked out the door. And yet, I felt that pain squeeze a little tighter around my heart in that moment. He had to whisper it to her when I left the room because he wholeheartedly believed I was headed to hell and he’d never see me again.

Truthfully, even just a year or two ago, hearing that would have crushed me. I would have felt angry that he didn’t see me, that he thought I deserved eternal damnation, and that I was once again on the outskirts of my own family because, according to them, I wasn’t going to heaven. I would have taken that moment as a rejection of who I am at my core. Since deepening my mediumship and my connection to God, I can take it in stride and know that those beliefs have nothing to do with me or my worth, but the grief that I have spent so much of my life navigating when it comes to my family and my faith has stepped out of the shadows and is demanding my attention.

I feel that I am on the fringes of my family’s grieving process. The words they are using to comfort each other are beautiful, but they’re not words I am allowed to share. I can’t be wrapped in the same comforting blanket with them. I’m excluded from the reminders that we will all see him again in heaven because they believe I won’t be there. Our conversations about him and our mutual grief all dance around the fact that I’m not really part of the family when it comes to eternity. Once I die, nobody believes they will “see me on the other side.” To them, I’m gone forever.

So I find myself floundering. The grief I feel over the loss of my uncle is compounded by the grief I’ve held for most of my life over the distance between my family and me. I’ve always wanted to feel unconditional, familial love, but I’m not sure how I can feel that when they view my core as innately wicked. We’re both trying to navigate it. I can’t deny my own faith to fit in, and they can’t deny theirs to accept me. And yet, my family does love me. So I’ll keep floundering and attempting to connect because love is the other side of grief. They are one and the same. I’ll continue to sit in the quiet and feel those waves move through me as I remember my uncle and try to honour his spirit. Because from the other side of the veil, that unconditional love covers all of his family here on earth—even me.