The earliest memory that I have of this is was when I was seven or eight years old, I said to my mother, “Did you read in the newspaper that the mayor died? He had a heart attack.” She said, “No, it’s not in there,” and we checked the paper from cover to cover. The next day it was in the paper that the mayor had died of the very same thing I thought I’d read the day before: a massive heart attack...I was very confused and baffled.

Around that same time, my younger brother and I used to play what we called “mental games.” We would lay head to head on the couch and pick out an object in the house. He would think of it and nine out of ten times I would get it on the first try. As we got older, he would write me a letter or a paragraph, with just the first letter of each word written--lines and lines of letters--and I would be able to pick it up and read exactly what he said as if I was reading the words. At some point, I realized not everybody had [this ability]. When I was young, I thought everybody did.

My family is very hospice-oriented. So for me, it was a natural thing to volunteer in local hospices. I’m also a nurse, so I didn’t find death frightening…At hospice, as I was working with cancer patients who were dying, I could see that a spirit would come. It was as if I was having a memory, but it’s not my memory. That’s how it is when I’m doing a reading. In hospice I would say to a patient, for example, “John, I see a woman. She says her name is Eileen and she’s wearing a green dress.” And he’d say, “I see her too,” and he’d point right where I saw her. For the first time in my life, I realized “You’re not crazy and this is not evil. This must be a gift.” That’s how the whole thing opened.

I don’t know how people found me, but I would do readings for everybody, friends, associates, etc. It was mainly through referrals. Much to my shock and surprise, I’d be getting things that were amazing to them. I’d watch their faces and some people would be crying. Some people, their jaw would just drop.

A neurologist friend once asked me to do a reading, purely from a research point of view. At the end he concluded that about one in a million people are psychic. He said that a psychic brain is able to get to a portal--or a level of either consciousness or unconsciousness--that the average mind cannot reach. He believes that’s where the psychic phenomenon occurs—where you’re given messages and get visits from spirits of loved ones. He said there are seven criteria that make a person psychic and you have to have at least three. He said that I have seven. I am clairvoyant and audiovisual. I’m also an empath—which is a really cool thing. If we were doing a reading, 10 out of 10 times I will land in your body. Sometimes I land in your head, sometimes I land in your intestines, and I can actually tell you what’s going on there.

Here’s an example. A client of mine and I used to do monthly readings for business strategies, etc. At one reading, I told her that I saw a pinpoint shadow on her husband’s prostate, and I didn’t like the looks of it. She said, “He just got it checked. He won’t go back to the doctor.” I said to her, “We did a lot of “future’ stuff today. If any of the things we talked about happen, would you just humor me and have him get it checked.” Two or three months go by, and things [that I had predicted] start to happen. So she had him get it checked and they found a pinpoint tumor. They zapped it out and now he’s fine. I’ve done a lot of readings with outcomes similar to that.

Was there a turning point that made you decide this could be your life’s work?

There was time when a good friend’s friend—a young woman--was very sick. I called her only to find that her friend had just died. All of a sudden, I could see her friend on a gondola in a cool place, a very pleasant place, under a bridge. I knew she was in Venice. She said to me, “Tell Grace that I’m sending her blue roses. Tell her, ‘You’ll know it when you see it. They’re for you.’” I edited the message to say blue flowers, because I didn’t believe blue roses could really exist…So, they had a two-day wake and nothing happens. Then on the final day, in the morning, Grace was sitting in the back on the couch near the coffin, when a man came in with the biggest arrangement of blue roses she’s ever seen. He’s looking around, not sure where to put them. There was no card. How do you explain this? In that moment I realized, no more games. This is what I was born to do.

Readings are generally from 45 minutes to an hour. In the beginning, as I get into your energy, I start to get names. I close my eyes. I don’t read your head; I read your heart. If there’s something of great importance to you that you want me to answer, try not to think about it, because sometimes it will lock in your head and I won’t be able to get it. Let it filter into your heart…When I do a reading, it’s like I’m experiencing a memory that is not mine. Then the memory takes many different bodies. It can be through a spirit that comes to visit in my mind’s eye. I can hear something, smell something, I can see something. It comes in many different ways…Second readings and thereafter are very different. First readings to me are always the strongest, while second and third readings are usually more focused on a specific area.

Yes. Because I don’t always know the difference between past and future, I actually prefer that you tape a reading. If you can’t tape it, use a pen and paper. The thing that makes no sense at the time is probably what you should remember the most. If I’m struggling with something, let me struggle. Sometimes I need to go the long way to get to your place. Don’t give me anything. You’ll walk away knowing you did not put the words in my mouth. The less I know about you the better; it’s like the clearer the canvas, the stronger the reading.

Gallery readings are done in larger groups. The length of the reading really depends on the type of gathering and number of participants. For instance, if I do a reading for a family, it’s generally the same spirits who are visiting for all of them and it ends up more like a séance. In an office, it’s a different agenda where I might receive snippets of information related to the various people present.

I’ve solved two murders—one where they caught the guy, and the other, they know who did it but don’t yet have the physical evidence to prove it. I want to do more of this. I feel it’s a way to give back. My passion is to work with police departments and detective agencies, especially finding kids who are missing.

No. Here’s how I see it. I think if you don’t have the gift, you need props. That’s the hocus pocus stuff—the lady with the turban and the jewel--the camouflage, the smoke and mirrors. If it’s real, why do you need those things? For me, it’s just there.

Everybody comes for the same thing: finances, love, where am I going to be next year, life problems and life strategies, whether to seek another job, general guidance. It’s all that and more. As a mature woman, I am very humbled by this gift. I see it as a very powerful tool to heal, never to hurt. A lot of people want me to be their therapist. I tell them that legally I can’t do that. But I will sit with you and help you with your problems. There’s such a bond that forms with my clients--a relationship and a sense of nurturing, safety, being at peace.

When you die and your spirit goes back home, it has to come out of this body to get to heaven because there’s nothing tangible there. I guess it’s a cerebral site, because you don’t take your body with you. You actually go through a tunnel and you see a white light—it’s got to be reminiscent of the same exact light you came through when you were born. It can’t be that different. In fact, some people believe it’s the same portal that you go back through…I don’t know if that’s true or not. And, then I believe, at the very end of your life, at the second when you die, your spirit knows home and goes willingly. And I really believe that there is no fear in that moment—it’s a time to rejoice and go back home. There’s no getting buried in dirt. If you cut your hair, do you mourn the loss of your hair? When the spirit goes, the body’s nothing more than cut fingernails.

I believe that death is like when a rollercoaster goes up and there’s that one second before you go down, that’s what it feels like to me. That it’s going to be that exciting and that joyful. When you’re born, someone usually holds you and is so happy you’re alive. I feel it will be like that at death, a welcome back to the fold--something so great that you can’t comprehend it.

I think that heaven is not above or below us. I believe it is parallel to us. And the reason spirits are able to infiltrate our world is because there is nothing tangible, it’s thought. So I believe that if you simply say their name, it’s like you just called them on the phone and they’re there. There’s no way that they’re not. They don’t miss us because they’re with us all the time. But we miss them because we can’t see them. Did you ever have a loved one, like [a grandmother who’s passed on,] and can’t you ever just feel her? If you talk to her, it’s like she’s just right there listening, because she is. She really is.

I think that heaven is so bright that it would blind us. To me, earth is the opposite side of the tapestry; everything is muted. So, if heaven is so magnificent and this is the opposite side of the tapestry, coming back to earth would be like you’re choosing to live in a slum when you could afford to live in a mansion. Why would you want to come back—there’s got to be a reason. To me, heaven looks like a high rise, and the reason to come back is to evolve and elevate your spirit so you can get to different levels of heaven. That’s why we keep choosing to come back—to perfect ourselves.

I believe that the same group of people, say 80 to 120 of us, form a community of spirits. If you look at a huge tree in a forest, one of the branches is your community of spirits. Did you ever have a feeling like you already know somebody, or there’s just a connection, like you’re supposed to know them? Chances are, that’s one of them. Some of them come for a very short time, and some for a lifetime. For some it’s a thirty-year marriage. But everyone is incorporated into each other’s life theme. It’s just amazing how it works…We really do have the same family throughout every lifetime, but your mother may not be your mother the next time, she could be your son. It’s however that spirit works into your life--whoever’s on earth at that time. It’s almost like putting a play together—scene one, scene two, the end.