Answers From the Great Beyond
Personal Perspective: A visit to a medium told me everything I needed to know.
Posted May 19, 2025 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch
If you’ve never gone to a psychic or medium before, here’s your chance. You don’t have to believe in any of this otherworldly phenomena. I didn’t until I desperately needed to.
I went to see Fleur twice—once before Rob died, for what’s known as a “life reading” (Fleur is a psychic) and later for a “spirit reading” (she’s also a medium).
What follows is an edited and annotated sampling from our second session; Fleur’s comments are in italics. I didn’t tell her anything about Rob other than that he had taken his own life.
I see your father has also passed. I feel your son coming in on the right-hand side, your father comes in on the left, and they stand side by side. It feels to me that, prior to his passing, your father hasn’t done right by you. He’s acknowledging that. But he was there with your son to assist in making it an easy transition.
Right off the bat, I just lost it. I had never cried for my father before, but hearing that he was there to help Rob touched me so deeply that I forgave him for a lifetime of transgressions.
Your son talks about receiving help for sobriety, and this doesn’t just feel like AA, but also rehabilitation centers.
She’s in the right ballpark, but Rob never went to rehab. He did live in a few sober houses, though.
There’s the recognition that, as an adult, he goes back to living with a parent for a while.
He lived with my ex-wife, Caryn, for more than a year and with me for about four months.
He wants to thank you for it.
You’re welcome, dude.
It doesn’t appear to me when he passes that it’s simply an overdose. There may have been drug use or addiction in the past, but the way he chooses to go feels more deliberate to me.
Now she’s getting warmer.
He wasn’t sober at the time, so I don’t really experience the passing because I feel very disassociated with him at that moment, but . . . he must have had a gun registered to him.
He definitely had a gun; its provenance remains unknown.
It would have been a surprise to people that he had one. That doesn’t feel like information anyone is aware of.
That sounds about right. He once mentioned that he was thinking about getting a gun to protect himself from a loan shark, but the subject never came up again. When Rob said that he was “thinking about” doing something, it usually meant that he had already done it.
I feel like this is planned for quite some time . . . that the purpose of this gun is for that reason, nothing else. He hides that and puts on a bright face.
That’s right on the money. I had never seen him look happier than when he and Zach were at my house on Christmas, a few months before he killed himself.
He’s aware of that false presentation of himself and doesn’t want you or his mom or his sibling to feel that there is any sign that was missed. He didn’t want anyone to know.
That was when I knew she was talking with Rob.
At some point, he was prescribed drugs for depression , which I don’t feel like he was taking even though he said he was.
Rob got into a few legal jams when he was 17, and seeing a therapist and taking meds was part of his probation agreement. Years later, he admitted that he never took any of them.
He places sunflowers all around his mom.
Caryn had told me that she sees sunflowers almost everywhere she goes! When the two of us visited Rob at the cemetery some months after this reading, there was a giant one right next to where he’s buried.
He’s talking about you listening to music of his . . .
He’s been beside you as you listened to it. . . . He keeps making me feel that no one could have changed what he did, that he had made up his mind. He had a real struggle with addiction, which he does find relief from.
Did you ever get matching tattoos? There’s a feeling of being tied together by a tattoo.
Totally accurate: Caryn and two of Rob’s friends got matching four-leaf clover tattoos, which Rob had on his left hand. Caryn and Zach also got “Life Rolls On” tats, like one that Rob had on his forearm. I had one with the kids’ names on my shoulder and then got “You are the sand, little boy, and I will always be the water” tattooed on my left forearm. And Caryn subsequently got a sunflower tattoo. So big yes on Rob ink.
At the funeral, there were plans to say certain words that you did not say?
This gave me chills. I totally changed the eulogy that I had prepared on the plane to New York. The whole thing just felt too performative, as if I were going to deliver a speech written by Aaron Sorkin.
He was right there with you at the time. He makes me feel that you wore something very unlike yourself. He’s like, “Why is he wearing a tie?” He found what you were wearing to be . . . ridiculous.
That sounded so much like Rob that I felt like I was actually talking with him.
He wants you to know he had an amazing childhood . It feels like there’s a lot of joy there to be found.
There was definitely joy, but it’s interesting that he didn’t mention the many non-joyful parts. I guess every family’s history is a variation of Rashomon.
He’s acknowledging that you’ve started speaking to him quite regularly . I know he likes that. It feels like it’s on a nightly basis, and he’s there with you every time. It may sound silly, but he also wants you to look for feathers.
All true, especially about the feathers.
It feels like he wants his departure ultimately to strengthen the bonds in the family, and right now that’s not happening. There’s a sense of really needing to hold your people close.
This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.