Finding friends in the highest places

DAVID SILVA

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few years trying not to worry

that my sister talks to dead people.

I’ve been getting better at it. These days, when she tells me

about some recent conversation she’s had with someone who turned to

dust years ago, I’ll just sigh and make light of it. “Next time you

talk to him, tell him he still owes me five bucks,” I’ll say.

But when she first called to tell me about her newfound ability, I

didn’t know if I should treat it as a joke or rush over to her house

with a butterfly net.

“Are we talking dead, as in ‘Pearly Gates’ dead, or dead as in

‘Living in Pacoima’ dead?” I asked her incredulously.

“Pearly Gates dead.”

“OK,” I laughed. “So do these dead people actually come down from

heaven to talk to you or do they just shout really loud?”

“You see, this is exactly why I was afraid to tell you about it,”

she said indignantly. “I knew you’d start in with the sarcasm.”

“Come on, Linda ...”

“Come on, what? I’m serious!”

“Don’t say that!”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re creeping me out!”

But she was dead serious.

The way it worked, Linda explained, was she was basically a

voice-messaging system for the dearly departed. She received messages

from souls in the afterlife and forwarded them to their intended

recipients when she felt “the time was appropriate.” She even said

there was a name for people with her abilities. They were “After

Death Communicators,” or ADCs.

“Well, I feel this is the appropriate time to tell you you’re

nuts,” I said.

I knew I wasn’t being terribly supportive, but it was a lot to

take in. And it turned out that although she said her decision to

call me and reveal her newfound powers required a lot of

soul-searching and courage, I was, in fact, the last to know about

it. The moment I hung up the phone with her I started dialing other

family members and friends to warn them that Linda had finally lost

it. All of them yawned and told me they were already in the loop.

“Oh, yeah, she’s been doing that for years. Creepy, huh? So what

else is new?”

Obviously, I had a lot of new information to wrap my brain around.

One was the fact my sister believed she was in communication with the

afterlife. Another was that my family was so weird nobody thought

this development interesting enough to tell me about it. But the part

I had the most trouble with was that so many family members and

friends actually believed her.

“She’s really good at it, Davey!” insisted Letty, a longtime

family friend who had known Linda since high school. “At first I

didn’t know what to make of it, and then one day she told me she had

spoken to my brother, who just passed. OK, I know that sounds weird.

But the things she knew -- he told her things no one in the world

knew except him and me. I was in tears while she was telling me, I

was shaking. And it’s not just me. People are always going to her to

talk to their loved ones who have moved on.”

“People are what?”

And that’s how I found out that my sister had become famous as a

spiritual medium among an ever-widening audience of grieving

neighbors. Linda lives in a largely Latino neighborhood, among a lot

of people who believe the natural laws separating them from their

lost relatives are filled with loopholes. Letty told me Linda had

spoken to dozens of bereft husbands and wives and sons and daughters,

relaying posthumous messages from people who had stopped breathing

but still had something to get off their chests.

“Have you lost your mind?” I shouted at Linda the moment she

picked up the phone. “Are you trying to get burned at the stake? You

can’t go around saying stuff like that to grieving people! It’s just

wrong!”

“I’m not ‘going around’ doing anything!” she replied. “They’re

coming to me! And there’s nothing wrong with it as long as I don’t

take money for it, which I don’t!”

“What, so you’re a pro bono ADC?”

“Exactly. I’ve got a gift, and it would be wrong of me not to

share it. These people are in need!”

“Buy them a fruit basket!” I shouted. “Tell them you have no idea

what they’re talking about! Tell them you can’t talk to their dead

grandma because THAT WOULD BE CRAZY!”

But it was no use. Linda had at long last found her calling, and

it didn’t seem to bother her that the call was long-distance. So the

years passed with Linda running her business, raising my nephew and

relaying messages from the dead.

Having an ADC in the family has lent a whole new dynamic to

holiday get-togethers. We gather around the table and Mom will serve

the turkey and tamales, and Linda will comment about chatting it up

with this or that expired relation.

“You know, Ma, Uncle Freddie really liked your tamales, but he

thinks you should use less salt,” she said once.

“That man never did know when to shut up,” Mom replied.

While most of my family were accepting of Linda’s “gift,” my

mother was a different story. “You need to stop with that crazy talk

before they lock you up,” she’d say angrily whenever Linda brought

the subject up.

Mental health is a touchy subject for my mom. Her own mother died

in an insane asylum, and she keeps a wary eye out for signs of lunacy

the way some are mindful of suspicious lumps. So you can imagine how

delighted she was to hear about Linda’s new circle of friends.

“Ay, mijo, I’m so worried about your sister,” Mom told me one day

over coffee. “This is exactly what my mother used to do. She’d have

people over and hold seances -- candles and everything. Your father’s

mother did the same thing. Both your grandmothers said they talked to

the dead.”

“Both my grandmothers what?”

And that’s how I found out that I apparently come from a long line

of after-death communicators. I imagine it must have been a big

disappointment to my grandfathers, who had probably been looking

forward to the day when they could finally get some peace.

This new piece of family history forced me to confront a question

I had been carefully avoiding for years, which was whether my sister

actually could talk to the dead. I’ve mostly decided that I don’t

believe it. As much as I love my sister, I simply don’t believe she

has that kind of hearing.

Had she really been getting advice from beyond, she never would

have married her first husband.

But I’ve also decided it best not to give her such a hard time

about it, just in case. If my job has taught me anything, it’s to

never underestimate the value of highly placed sources.

* DAVID SILVA is a Times Community News editor. Reach him at (909)

484-7019, or by e-mail at david.silva@latimes.com.