Diane Calderon- Shining Light Mother Of Matthew EP 360

Episode Transcript
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Brian Smith (00:00):
Close your eyes and imagine what are the things in
life that causes the greatestpain, the things that bring us
grief, or challenges, challengesdesigned to help us grow to
ultimately become what we werealways meant to be. We feel like
we've been buried. But what if,like a seed we've been planted,

(00:23):
and having been planted wouldgrow to become a mighty tree.
Now, open your eyes, open youreyes to this way of viewing
life. Come with me as we exploreyour true, infinite, eternal
nature. This is grief to growth.
And I am your host, Brian Smith.

(00:45):
Guess I've known Diane for aboutsix years now. And she always
has impressed me and the more Iget to know Diane, the more she
impresses me and sitting down atthis interview with her and
learning about how she dealtwith the passing of her son. At
the same time she was dealingwith her husband passing away
from dementia. And what she hasdone with that is just so

(01:09):
inspirational. So make sure youstay tuned for the whole
interview because this isincredible. Hey everybody, this
is Brian back with anotherepisode of grief to growth,
where we explore theintertwining paths of grief,
love and the everlasting bondthat transcends the physical
realm. And today I'm reallyexcited to have with me, a

(01:32):
friend of mine, a federalshining light parent, someone
who has a child to spirit. Hername is Diane Calderon Diane
story is a testament to thehuman spirits capacity for
transformation and for healing.
After decades of dedicatedservice and various levels of
government from local andfederal, our life took a series
of profound turns. Our roleshave been as diverse as a

(01:54):
community organizer, a trainingcoordinator of research and
statistician, a postal worker oreven the Union officer that
showcases our commitment toservice and community and
community as you'd say. She alsoserved as a deputy director for
the Governor's Office ofaffirmative action under
Arizona's first female governorrose Malford, making marking a
significant milestone to Diane'scareer. But after retirement,

(02:17):
Diane's life took anunpredictable turn like all of
us do, down pat she neveranticipated. After she retired,
she found herself as the fulltime caregiver for her husband
with his during his strugglewith Lewy body dementia. That's
a child to tested her strengthand resilience in ways of
course, she couldn't foreseen.

(02:38):
But even during that Dianeexperienced the tragic death of
her son Matthew, the markedanother pivotal moment in her
life, and led her to where sheis today. She is a customer
service manager for a famousmedium that Diane both both both
those Suzanne Wilson. She's anew author, she's got a great
book out, we're going to talkabout her book today, we're

(03:00):
going to talk about all thethings that that Diane has been
through and the resilience thatshe's shown through that. And I
hope that it's going to bringhope to everyone listening for
regardless of whatever it isyou've had to go through or
going through now. So with that,I want to welcome to grief to
growth, Diane Calderon.

Diane Calderon (03:18):
Thank you very much, Brian, I very deeply
appreciate the opportunity tomeet with you and talk a bit
about my book and to share someof the things that both of us
have gone through and many ofyour listeners have experienced
the loss of a child. And I knowfrom the bottom of my heart, how

(03:42):
challenging that can be thatexperience. And it's great that
people like you and I have foundan opportunity to meet with
others who are going through asimilar process to support each
other, and bring us to a betterplace. So thank you very, very
much, Brian, and I know yourpodcast touches a lot of hearts.

(04:02):
Thank you.

Well, I said I'm excited to have you here. I do
want to let everybody know rightnow Diane, and I were internet
connection. There's a little bitof delay. So we're going to try
to work through that. So theremay be some pauses between our
our questions and responses. Butwhat I like to start with Diane
is whenever I talk to a parentwho has a child and spirit and

(04:24):
you and I are very carefullanguage I don't say lost
children because I don't thinkthey're lost. But when I talked
with a parent that has a childand spirit, I want to ask about
Matthew, tell me about Matthew,who he was as a little boy who
he was as a man he was here andwho he is now.

Okay to talk about Matthew this kid was not
anticipated birth I ended uphaving this guy named Matthew
because I saw him as sounexpected that he was a gift
and when I researched name'sMatthew met gift from God, and I

(05:02):
thought that was a perfect nameto give him. It was the sweetest
little kid. My mom would callhim her little angel, which, you
know, over time, we thought thatwas really kind of funny because
he wasn't that much of an angel.
But he was a pretty good kid. Healways had friends, he loved
sports, he loved doing thingswith his friends. He was not the

(05:25):
greatest sports person. Often hesat on a bench on the teams. But
he got really involved insupporting a team. He played
basketball, baseball, LittleLeague, everything that you
could possibly think of as hewas growing up. In school. He
was a good student, not thegreatest but a good student
hated reading, which surprisedus because my husband and I were

(05:49):
big readers, we just lovedreading. Matthew, though, would
just absorb knowledge by doinghe was that kind of an
interactional person. As he gotolder. We had bought property up
in northern Arizona. As a youngkid, we were in the Phoenix
area, but we bought property innorthern Arizona with the idea

(06:11):
of eventually moving up there.
And we began to build a homefrom the ground up, come up on
weekends to build so Matthew was13 when we started. By the time
we moved here, he was in highschool, and he began to learn
how to build by just watchingsounds from plumbing,

(06:33):
electricity, framing, everythingMatthew absorbed it. In school,
high school, he tookconstruction classes. When he
went into community college, hewas in construction management.
He had big ideas about being ageneral contractor building
homes for poor people.
Basically, he had plans he haddrawn up to buy property and we

(06:54):
would invest and build homes forlow income people. None of that
came to fruition because hewould get distracted with life.
Matthew did design and build ahome for us on a piece of
property we had and we sold itto make a few bucks, beautiful
home, it's still sitting there.
It's gorgeous. But in the next1015 years of his life, he had

(07:19):
scattered energies. He worked ata gold mine in Nevada. He was a
river rafter in Colorado, he wasa project supervisor for a huge
construction project in Indiana.
He worked on a lot of differentprograms in Phoenix and in the
Prescott area, renovating homesand doing maintenance and things
like that. It was always hisdream. He just couldn't settle

(07:40):
into anything. When he was about35 years old, he began to get
serious with life decided it wastime to pull himself together
and work towards hiscontractor's license. At that
time, I was dealing with myhusband Sal, who was showing the
earliest signs of Lewy bodydementia, those progressed

(08:02):
pretty quickly into the mediumstage where he needed quite a
bit of care. Matthew had offeredto bring me into his little
business enterprise, he wouldtake the contractor's license if
I would do the business aspect,since I had some time on my
hands. And I had a little bit ofbackground on, you know,
computers and business andaccounting and things like that.

(08:24):
So the plan was Matthew wouldget moving on his business, and
I would have something to helpkeep me busy in between taking
care of sound. At the height ofthis Matthew called me one day
and said, Hey, I'm going to beup tomorrow, I'm going to help
you out. But I'm going to aprogram tonight. And it's about

(08:45):
contracting. So I'll see youtomorrow. So the next day,
Matthew kinda left this placeand left me hanging for a bit.
But to sum it up, Matthew was agood person. He had a lot of
friends. He was most socialanimal I ever knew. And I just
missed him terribly. So.

What can I say?
Yeah, I know that his passingwas was sudden and unexpected.
So but there was I'm trying tofigure out what order we want to
tell this in because even beforehe passed it Sal had the Lewy
body dementia and you haven'texperienced before Matthew
passed that. I don't think youthought at the time for shadow

(09:30):
dip. It seems like it might have

right about a month before Matthew had passed.
Sal had a neurology appointmentdown in the Phoenix area.
Matthew was living down inPhoenix renovating a home we had
bought and working on aconstruction project. He had a
day off same day I had to takeSal down for the neurology

(09:57):
appointment. So when we exitedthe doctor's office As Matt was
out in the parking lot and said,Hey, I surprised you, ha. Let's
go for lunch. So we went tolunch had a very nice time.
Matthew asked if we would stopby the house where he was
staying to pick up a few things.
So it was on our way home. Onthe way over to the house, we go
down Camelback Road, if you'refamiliar with Phoenix, we turn

(10:19):
north on 23rd Avenue. It's asmall residential feeder Street
in the Phoenix area not thatbusy. We're driving up 23rd
Matthew's house is just off 23rdAvenue. Before we got to, you
know, a few blocks away from thehouse, Sal starts freaking out.
Now, this was not unusual forhim because of Lewy body

(10:41):
dementia, he would sometimes gointo periods of paranoia and
hallucinating, I'd hadexperiences before where I'm
driving, and he's afraid I'mkidnapping him and he tried to
escape from the car. But on thisday, he seemed fine. Until we
drove up that street and gotcloser to that house. He started
freaking out on me and wasmoving his foot as if to hit the

(11:04):
brake and saying Stop, stop,stop, stop. I stopped I then
pulled over said What's wrong,he's gonna get hit, he's gonna
get hit, somebody's gonna getkilled. I don't know where that
came from. Because there'snobody in the street. There's
hardly any traffic whatsoever.
It is a residential area. So Iwas insistent not to continue on

(11:27):
that road. So I flipped the cararound, did not go to Matthew's
house, hit the freeway andbrought South home. weeks later
when I'm reviewing what hadhappened that day, it just
surprised me because that streetthat we were driving on that
location where South startedfreaking out. And I pulled over

(11:48):
was like two blocks away fromwhere Matthew actually crossed.
And he got hit by a car. So wasthat a premonition somehow
sounds mind was out there in afuture point. I'm sure of it. He
foresaw something. He justwasn't real clear in his head as
to what that something was.
There were no details. He justknew something bad was going to

(12:09):
happen in that location. That

I when I read that in your book, and I've known you
for for years, but I didn't knowthat story. I was just like,
that just blew me away. SoMatthew, you mentioned he'd come
to see you before we pass. Andso tell me about how you
discovered that he had beenstruck by the car?

Well, kind of a long story short, Matthew had
been up for a few days, the weekbefore he passed over. And he
was very engaged in helping mewith Salah was at a point where
I couldn't take Sal anywherewith me if I took him to a
grocery store or anywhere hecould get into a point of fear,

(12:55):
didn't know where he was. Andthat was kind of challenging to
get him through the store backinto the car and get him home.
So Matthew would come up when hehad time so I could run and do
errands and get groceries.
Matthew was also working on thiscontractor's license and needed
to collect paperwork in thecounty and in the Prescott area
to submit for the license. Wehad a long discussion one day
the last day Matthew was hereabout a lot of things and one of

(13:18):
it was about life and death andspiritual matters things that
Matthew and I had never reallydiscussed before. But on that
day, we did. Matthew then left.
He went down to Phoenix. He wasat a hiking club. He had some
work to do. He called me up onwhat was that Tuesday morning,

(13:39):
told me he'd be up later that hehad a conference he wanted to go
to that night. So what happenednext is the next morning I get a
call from a detective in Phoenixtelling me you know, I asking
are you the aware of a MatthewHelmick and I said yes. And the

(14:00):
detective said, or How are yourelated? I said I'm his mother.
And he said Matthew died lastnight he was killed in a hit and
run accident when he said that Ialmost lost it. But I had to
keep it together because ah youknow it's that news one might

(14:22):
get and you you've got to knowsome details. You've got to know
what's going on. How is thispossible? This can't be real. Am
I imagining it? kept mycomposure heard more from the
detective asked some questions Ineeded to know you know, where
did this happen? What time washis dog with him because Matthew

(14:44):
would take the dog to the dogpark Matthew's house was a block
away from a park. He wascrossing 23rd Avenue the street
that Sal had freaked out on withthe dog. Fortunately, the dog
was ahead of him and not on aleash because she was a really
good dog and he didn't followrules and put her on a leash
like you're supposed to at thepark. So she did not get

(15:04):
impacted but he as he wascrossing a car had hit him and
kept going, I hit and run. Thedetective said Matthew had died
pretty much instantaneously fromwhat they can tell. And the
detective told me the time ofdeath. So there I was on the
phone, trying to figure out youknow why that happened? What to
do, I couldn't believe my ears.
I get off the phone. I go tosow, who then was not all there

(15:28):
that morning. And I said to him,Matthew died Matthew died the
police call and said he got hitby a car and the best style
could do was tapped me on thehead and say, I'm sorry. That
was kind of it was Sal thatmorning. So that's kind of
bringing you up to that point offinding out about Matthew.

And I, I'm so sorry, I don't even know what to
say, you know, dealing with withyour your husband would lead to
Body Body dementia, I'm sure.
And I've gotten through dementiawith my in laws. So I'd have
some idea of what that's like.
And, you know, being hiscaregiver and then having
Matthew pass, I can only imaginethat must have been devastating.

(16:15):
What were your thoughts at thetime? You know, when you got
that call?

Well, to tell you the truth, when I first saw
the caller ID that it wasPhoenix. My first feeling was,
oh, that must be Matthew callingbecause sometimes he would lose
his cell phone. And he wouldborrow one from somebody to call
me. And I knew that he was dueup that that picking something

(16:42):
up that day. So I thought well,I guess Matthew lost his phone.
And when I said hello, and Ihear a male voice and the male
voice says hello, this isDetective so and so. My heart
sunk. Matthew had had somebrushes with the law in his
life, but never had a call cometo me from a police officer. If

(17:05):
Matthew had been picked up forsomething. It would be him
calling say, Hey, can you pickme up at the jail, I got pulled
over for something. Never had acall come in from a police
officer. So once I heard, youknow, I have a detective calling
me I just knew something bad hadhappened. Something was wrong.
This was off the detective, youknow, work through the details.

(17:29):
And I did ask for details. Ispent maybe 15 minutes on that
phone call, grab paper. I'mwriting things down and got the
detectives information. And Iasked you know where this
happened? Did Matthew diequickly? Or was there a period
of time and the detective waspretty sure it was quick. He
said that the young man who hadhit Matthew that wasn't hit and

(17:53):
run he kept going. But he calledand turned himself in an hour
later. Apparently he had hismother's car. And the mother had
convinced him you need to turnyourself in. young kid about 20
years old. He doesn't rememberanything. He doesn't know how
that happened. So that waspretty devastating to hear that
news. I get off the phone. I didsit for just a few minutes to

(18:16):
kind of get myself together. I'mcrying a little bit but I knew
that I couldn't break down I hadSal in the wheelchair, dining
table and he he had been knownto sometimes push himself back
and have that wheelchair fallover. I couldn't just ignore
Sal. I had to go in and talk tohim. And then after I told him

(18:37):
what had happened, I was able tomove him into his recliner where
he wouldn't be safe. Then Ibroke down. And it took a while
to compose myself. Had to makephone calls. So you know you
call I had to call the hisMatthews girlfriend because the
detective said that Matthews dogAbby was at his house and was on

(18:57):
the front porch and was scared.
So somebody needed go over andget Abby and take care of her.
And of course you know who elsewould you call but the
girlfriend, let her know whathad happened. And you know, she
just fell apart but had enoughcomposure to run and get the dog
and later in the day she wasable to meet me halfway from
Phoenix to give me the dog. Ihad to call relatives I called

(19:17):
my sisters first and both ofthem dropped everything they
were doing and found ways to getto me that day. I asked them to
call my dad because my dad wasbeginning to get into his senior
moments and I wasn't in anemotional state to be able to
talk to my dad. She so one of mysisters called and told him and
they called some of the otherrelatives I called a couple of

(19:40):
very close friends of mine, onewho lived nearby and she dropped
everything and came over andspent the rest of the day
helping me. I call my stepsonwho lived about 40 minutes away,
he came over to help and Icalled my dearest friend who
lives down in Casa Grande,Arizona. Sal and I had married
at her house, we had been closefamilies forever. And I talked

(20:03):
to her because she had lost herdaughter a few years before to
another tragedy. And I knew thatshe would give me the advice I
might need in the shoulder tocry on and that she would
understand. She and Matthew werealways very close. And I called
her and she helped me throughthose first few days, she knew
who to talk to and what to do toget things arranged. So it was a

(20:26):
hard afternoon, Brian, a veryhard afternoon. Oh,

absolutely. I you know, it's just It amazes me the
resilience, the power of thehuman spirit to keep moving
forward. Because I know peoplelisten, this was saying, I could
not do this. I couldn't make itthrough this. How did she How
did she keep her composure? Howdid you? How do you do the

(20:52):
things that you know you need todo?

You know, you know, I know, it's, it's not
easy. making your way throughthat instantaneous
deconstruction of your life. AndI am very fortunate that at that
moment, I did have some supportfrom my friends and from the
family. I think I also had alittle bit of a spiritual

(21:19):
support inside of me an innerstrength that was able to come
forward and help me carrythrough those next few hours. I
just believe that Matthew wouldprobably be okay. I didn't have
any evidence at that time yetthat he was, but I wanted to
believe he was okay. But I alsoknew that I had to carry forward

(21:41):
I, I had a husband to take careof I had a home I had, you know,
later that day, I had Matthewsdog to take care of she was just
terrified. And I hadresponsibilities. I couldn't
just set all of that aside andfeel sorry for myself. It was
something like that thrown atme. And I needed to deal with
it. And I needed to deal with itimmediately.

Yeah. But you did have you said you felt like you
had spiritual help. And I cantell from from your book that
you did, there were a couple ofthings like almost miracles that
went around around this aroundMatthews passing.

Yeah, this is where it got really interesting.
Matthew and I in that discussionI mentioned earlier, where we
got into some spiritual topicswe mentioned, you know, how wise
told them how much I loved him,I loved him more than anything
in the world, him and Sal, theywere the dearest things to me.

(22:41):
And I told him that I had hadthis belief for a long time that
we as little souls before we'reborn, have a little bit of a say
in the lives that we are goingto enter we have some kind of a
planning that we get involvedwith, and that we have a say in
who our parents are. And I toldthem, I'm pretty sure you chose

(23:05):
me as your mom and Sal is yourdad. And I know sometimes that
hasn't worked out well betweenus. But hey, you chose me, you
can only blame yourself, Mr. Andwe laughed about it. And I said,
I don't know where I got thatidea from i It's been in my head
for a very long time. But I dothink we have some say in who
our parents are. And we got intosome other philosophical

(23:27):
spiritual ideas. And at the end,I don't know why I said this,
but popped into my head. Youknow, Matt, someday, one of us
is going to die before the otherprobably me because I'm older.
And you know, usually the olderones going to die before the
kid. But let's make a promiseright now, whoever dies first
has to come back and give a signto the person that's still here.

(23:49):
And he kind of looked at me andlike, Well, yeah, okay. Sure.
Let's do that. So here I amsitting on this. Wednesdays when
I had gotten the word that hehad died the night before. And
I'm sitting there waiting for mysisters to show up. I'd had a
long day. I was able to getSally to go to bed early that

(24:09):
night. And he was rather, youknow, sedate for a change
sitting at the table. And I'mthinking about, you know what
had happened that day? And howheartbreaking it was, and how am
I going to make it through thenext few days. I just don't
know, how am I going to make itthrough my life. We had plans
and those all went out thewindow. I didn't know what I was
going to do. As I'm sittingthere, I began to review that

(24:32):
last discussion I'd had withMatt it only been like four or
five days before. And I wasthinking you know, Matt, we had
this talk about how you and Imade you know an agreement that
if one passes the other one hasto let the person remaining. No,
I didn't get assigned. DammitMatt. Where's my sign and as I'm

(24:55):
thinking that it hit me bangWow, wait, I did get us line,
holy cow, did I ever get a fine.
And here's the sign I got this,this changed everything for me.
I'm telling you. The nightbefore, it was a Tuesday night.
Sal and I were sitting on thesofa, a program was going to

(25:17):
start, in fact, it was the Stateof the Union by the President,
we would watch the State of theUnions almost every year, we
were just sort of politicaljunkies. And we loved Obama. So
we're sitting there waiting forthe State of the Union. And Sal
had been pretty quiet thatafternoon. And he's focused on
the television, and, you know,they're getting ready for the

(25:38):
proceedings. And I'm kind offidgeting because I don't know I
have to multitask. I guess ifthey're not talking on the TV,
you know about something I'minterested in, I'm doing
something else. So I'm kind offiddling around, and all of a
sudden, I saw in front of me,little lights sparkling. I mean,
they were like sparklers, thatyou light up on the Fourth of

(25:58):
July. They're the sparklingright in front of my face. And I
look at it, I'm like, oh my god,what is that? They were there
two, three seconds. I'm not sureI didn't count. I just saw them.
And they disappeared. Eitherthinking, Okay, that was really
weird. What the heck was that?
looked off toward sow. Andthey're sparkling in front of

(26:20):
him. About the same distanceaway about an arm's length away.
But he's looking straight at theTV. He doesn't seem to see the
lights. He's not responding toanything. He's just watching
this TV screen. I'm looking atthem, they disappear. I look
ahead again. And I think okay, Imust be losing it. That's not
going to be good. If saleshallucinating and I start

(26:42):
hallucinating. Who's going totake care of things. Oh, my God.
And then they showed up again,same thing sparkling in front of
my face. All different colors,just sparkle sparkle. They hung
out there for a little bitlonger. But this time they moved
to my left. I followed them.
They went about a 90 degreeangle. And then they
disappeared. And I'm lookingover that way. And I'm like, Oh

(27:04):
my God, I am. I'm going crazy.
I'm losing it. I'm looking overthere. As I look over there. I
notice on the table next to meis a book. Now like a dog sees a
squirrel. I do the same likebook. I pick up the book. It was
important because it was a bookabout Edgar Cayce. He called

(27:26):
There is a river. And I knewthat when I saw that book,
that's where I got my idea aboutchildren choosing their parents
now am I knew, I don't know howlong that book had been sitting
on the table. South tended towander around the house, pick
things up and drop them. It hadprobably been there earlier in
the day could have been therethree days, I don't know. But

(27:48):
here it is. He had pulled it offthe shelf and art library and
had dropped it there. So here'sthis book, I knew that this is
where I had my idea from I openthat book, right to the page,
where they're talking aboutchildren choosing their parents,
I couldn't believe it. It'slike, oh, my, this is the page.

(28:09):
Well, Matthews coming uptomorrow, I'm going to show him
this book, I'm going to show himthis is where I got my idea
from. So now my head's you know,focused on the books. I'm
ignoring the State of the Union.
I mean, the Union could be greator not, I don't care. I'm
reading this book. So I'mprinting the whole chapter. You
know, like refreshing my memorylike yes, yes, yes. This is
where I got my idea. And I closeit and I set it down and I'm

(28:30):
watching the program on TV.
didn't think much more about it.
So 24 hours later, I am sittingat that dining table and I'm
saying dammit, Matthew, where'smy sign? And that all floods
right back into me. Whoa, wait,those lights last night, the
lights I forgot about because Igot distracted by the book. I

(28:51):
didn't think anything more aboutthose lights. Until I remember.
I had those lights in front ofme. I knew at that moment. That
was Matthew, that was his energyshowing up in our house and
saying hello to me and sayinghello to sow and then draw my
attention to that book. I had nodoubts. There was nothing that

(29:14):
could distract me from that.
That was Matthew. And I'mtelling you, Brian, that changed
everything for me. He brought methat side. He said, Yeah, Mom,
you're right. We continueliving. There's a great
afterlife, and hey, look at thatbook. That's where you got the
idea. You're right, man, you'reright.

That I've just covered and goosebumps right
now. That's just that that's soamazing. And I think it is such
a great example of how theuniverse supports us, even when
we're unaware, you know, andsometimes we don't figure it out
till later on. We look back onit. And realize, you know what
had happened in the moment butthe conversation you had with

(29:56):
Matthew which it sounds like youdidn't have these conversations
often right? It just gets himout of the blue and you're
saying things you don't know whyyou're saying them?

Yeah, yeah, I have no idea why that
conversation came up that day.
It just did. I mean, you know,over his adult life once in a
while you talk a little bit ofphilosophy, but he was not a
deep thinker. He wasn't much,you know, for reading. I
discovered later as we werecleaning out his house and going
through his things that he hadactually, in recent months

(30:27):
before he passed, taken aninterest in a few spiritual
things. He had some books by acurrent toll that he had been
reading he had been listening toaudiobooks by, what's his name?
Don? Miguel Ruiz, I think is hisname, the guy who does the Four
Agreements. Yeah. Yeah, in fact,one of those audio discs was in

(30:50):
his truck when I picked up thetruck at the house, and it was
playing. And it kind of shockedme, it's like I recognized it
right away, I noticed the trackthat he was listening to. And
later, when I was able to get myhands on the book, I read the
section. And it was reallyremarkable that the last things
Matthew would have beenlistening to in that truck, you

(31:11):
know, moments before he died,because he had driven home that
night, and then took the dog forthe walk was these four
agreements. But in the book,it's talking about being a
warrior soul, and then going andhaving a resurrection. Yeah, it
was just, it just blew my mind.
So Matthew had been having someinterest in spiritual matters

(31:34):
towards the end. And I found outthrough his friends that he
often talked about, well, I'mnot going to be here long. And
you know, I'm just going to behere for a short time. Nothing's
he would ever say to me, I don'tthink he wanted to get me going
and get me upset or something.
But there was something in hisbeing that knew he wouldn't be
here forever. Well, he justseeking answers. Just

a really small aside, you mentioned Don Miguel
Ruiz. I was listening to apodcast this morning. And it was
an interview with his son. Soyeah, that was pretty wild. So
So you, you have thisexperience. And you kind of have
this knowing that Matthew isstill with you. And I don't want

(32:16):
to take it. I want people to getyour book, because there's a lot
of great stuff in the book, alot of great sides in the book,
but you, you start to get thesesigns that Matthew was showing
to you and other people aroundyou, et cetera. But you're
dealing still with you know,with Sal with what's his
dementia. So how did your lifeprogress after Matthews passing?

Well, after his passing, I had two years of
dealing with cells growingdecline into dementia. And they
were very challenging years. Andthey took a lot of my energy. I
was homebound for a good part ofthat I ended up having to pay
somebody to come one afternoon aweek to watch South so that I

(33:04):
could go and get groceriesbecause I didn't really have a
family nearby that could takecare of them for me. And I
didn't want to put the burden onfriends like come over every
week and watch sow, I paid forsomebody to come I got them on
hospice at some point. And therewas a lot of care through them.
And I could no longer, you know,get him bathed, or or do some of

(33:25):
the things that needed to bedone. So I had some support. I
also had a little bit of time onmy hands shortly after Matthew
had died. And I was puttingtogether the, you know,
announcements for the paper. Ihad someone at one of the local
newspapers tell me, you know,this is a great announcement. I
don't usually get things likethis. I think you might be

(33:45):
interested in reading books by acouple of people. One's a
medium. They're both from thePhoenix area. One book is by
Allison DuBois. And another oneby Mark Ireland look it up. I'd
never heard Mark Ireland orAllison Dubois didn't know
anything about mediumship.
Really, I mean, I knew there wasa, you know, programs about
mediums or that movie Ghostwhere Whoopi Goldberg plays a

(34:09):
medium but I really hadn'tpursued anything on mediumship.
So I got a hold of those books.
I had some time on my hands tosit and read when Sal was
snapping or you know, asleep orsomething. Found out that
mediums can connect with peopleon the other side. Wow, that's
really fascinating. MarkIreland's book really touched my

(34:31):
soul because he had lost his sonto an unexpected death. Lived in
the Phoenix area Scottsdale, Ibelieve. And he his book went
through a lot of tales in whichhe describes trying to find out
about his son to connect throughmediums. Mark's dad was the
famous psychic Richard Ireland.
Oh, I recall my mom wasinterested in when I was young,

(34:55):
she would watch programs and Iremember seeing Richard Ireland
being interview Dude, I don'tknow why that name stood out. So
here's Mark Ireland with histail and I followed it
faithfully. I learned abouthelping parents heal through
Mark's books, got my hands onother books by other mediums
about mediums. I watched theLong Island Medium to see how

(35:15):
she operates. I learned a lotlater in 2015, so about Matt
died in 2014. So a year and ahalf after he died. I had an
opportunity one afternoon tohave someone take care of Sal
for the day and I went down toPhoenix to helping parents heal
meeting. And the medium therewas I believe it was Jamie

(35:38):
Clark. I listened to Jamie inthat session, and I'm sitting
there like all the otherparents, I Oh, please connect
with my son connect with my son.
And Jamie had a couple of littlethings that I almost said that
might be me, but someone elsetook it. I thought that was
amazing to watch Jamie and Icould see how he was helping so

(35:58):
many others. So I became apretty strong believer in
mediumship. Prior to that,though, just to say, in 2014, in
the months after Matthew haddied. I was so intrigued by the
medium ship. I thought I'm goingto have to have a reading. I
just have to have a reading. Ihave to know one thing. Why did

(36:22):
Matthew put himself in dangerthat night? Why was he even in
the street if there was a carcoming up that road? Why was he
in the street? Like I said it'snot a busy road? It was
nighttime when he got hit? Heshould have seen the car's
headlights. I had asked thedetective. Did the guy have his
headlights on? And he said yeah,yeah, they were on they were on.

(36:43):
So I couldn't figure out whyMatt would have been in that
row. So I had a medium reading.
I chose to have the reading Ibelieve it was at the end of
May. Matthew died at the end ofJanuary. I felt by then I was
comfortable enough withmediumship that it was worth a
try, though I was still a littleskeptical. When I tried to find
a medium. I went to Best psychicdirectory because I had stumbled

(37:07):
into some works by Bob Olsen andI felt that he had done some
research and trusted that hislist of mediums would probably
be a good one to pull from. Thevery first medium I pulled up
was one in Arizona I thought ohI got one in Arizona didn't
realize mediums can meet you onon over the phone or on Zoom or
some other means thinking I'dhave to have an in person. The

(37:32):
first one who I pulled up wasSuzanne Wilson, the carefree
medium. And I'm looking at herpage. It's like Wow, she looks
really nice. And that's incarefree. I guess I could
probably arrange to go downthere. But then I got hesitant
and skeptical. I don't knowenough about mediums. The news
about Matthew's death was in thepapers. It was on television, I

(37:53):
could go back and see the videosof the crime scene, so to speak,
because it was available on theinternet later on. So I was
skeptical. Now I don't knowshe's too local. She could look
it up, right? I'll find somebodyon the other side of the
country. So I did pick theperson named Cheryl Cheryl was a

(38:14):
retired nurse. She had donegeriatrics, I thought, well,
this is good. Maybe she couldconnect with Matt. And if
nothing else, maybe she couldgive some insight on Sal and his
condition. So I arranged for amedium reading with Cheryl. All
she had was my name, Diane.
That's it. Didn't ask anyquestions. We opened up that

(38:36):
meeting. It was towards the endof May. And it was remarkable.
What Cheryl brought in. It wasjust remarkable. It was healing.
It answered questions. And Ididn't really have a lot of
questions that I was allowed toask. I had a list. But Cheryl
had said, Okay, let's just seewhat we get. And I only want you

(38:57):
to say yes or no. And if I needclarification, then I will ask
but don't give me too muchinformation. So I was pretty
comfortable that, you know, Iwasn't giving her leading
information on you know, givingher the names and the and the
circumstances. In this readingCheryl had my mom come in first,
which was really incredible. Shedidn't expect mom to show up.

(39:18):
Mama died three years before.
And some of the informationCheryl gave me was right on
target with what my mom had gonethrough in her life and how she
had passed. Then mom bringsMatthew as a little boy in the
Cheryl's presence. And then, ofcourse, Matthew grows up pretty
quick. And Cheryl had so muchinformation about Matt. She had
his dog over there with him andhis cat. I had forgotten that he
had had a cat that had diedshortly before he had passed.

(39:41):
Describe Matthew to a tee. Shejust had so much information. It
was incredible. But she had thatfeeling that he had died
quickly, tragically, butcouldn't quite get her fingers
on it. And I didn't tell heranything. Finally she says okay,
Matthews trying to give me moreinformation Question about his
passing. So what he's telling menow, Brian, if you if you have

(40:04):
time, I want to tell you what,what she said. Absolutely. Okay.
Cheryl said, he showed me thathe was trying to go to the other
side. But instead of going tothe other side, he went to the
other side. His angels werethere. They told him, it's time

(40:27):
to go. And they took him to theother side. I'm really not sure
what that means. It seems likeit was something pretty quick
and tragic. It was clear as abell to me, Brian clear Isabel.
So I said, Do you want me totell you how he died? And she
said, Yes. Matthew was on oneside of that street, he was

(40:49):
getting ready to cross over tothe other side of the street. He
got hit just before stepping onthat sidewalk on the other side.
So the angels came Brian, andtold him, it's time to go to the
other side. They had him. Theyhad him with him. He didn't see

(41:12):
that car, he wasn't meant to seethat car. It was time for him to
leave to go to the other side ofthe veil. And they had him in
their arms. I got so muchhealing and relief from that,
that, hey, my kid wasn't drunk.
He wasn't on a death wish. Hewasn't ignoring the dangers, he

(41:33):
was a kid who would kill a grownman who would take the dogs for
walks and always make them stopon that corner. And look both
ways and make sure it was safebefore they crossed because he
had a fear that someday one ofthem might get out of the yard.
And they would head over to thedog park on their own and get
hit by a car. So you know, it'slike it didn't make sense that
he would have crossed in adanger zone. Well, he didn't the

(41:58):
angels were there. He wasn'tmeant to be here. He wasn't he
was meant to go. And I feltit was just a perfect way to
know, he didn't feel anything.
You know, you always worry whenyour child dies of something
that's tragic, that they were inpain that they suffered. He
didn't feel anything, Brian, hedidn't feel anything the angels

(42:18):
took him. And he was a littleconfused, according to the
medium at first, but they, youknow, explained to him what was
going on and he was given achoice. You can go back to that
body. He was looking at his bodyand seeing how broken up it was
you can go back and they showedhim what would happen if he were
to return and how his life wouldbe and how my life would be

(42:41):
impacted. And he told them no, Idon't want to put my mom through
that. I'm ready. Let's go. Andhe left.

I think that is such an important Dianna point.
Now I want to interrupt you forjust a second because there's so
much what you said there was so,so important for people to
understand parents who have lostchildren, our minds tend to go
to the worst. Were they in pain?
Were they were they scared? Werethey alone? You know? Did they
die alone? And Robin told uslike nobody dies alone, we

(43:09):
always have someone there tomeet his angels, loved ones
guides, whatever, that there'stypically no pain associated
with death, the lot of times thespirit will leave the body
before. And then there's alwaysthis thing with again,
especially with parents, but theother people also, what if, what
if the why? Why did my why didthey have to die? Why couldn't

(43:31):
they come back? And I thinksometimes the body's just not
viable. And we never know, fromthis site. What if we think oh,
if only they live, we don't knowwhat kind of damage they might
have gone through? They don't.
And you? I mean, I can imaginethinking okay, well, I'm losing
my my husband to this thing. Andthen I lose my son, this is

(43:54):
terrible. I want him back. I wasjust talking to someone
yesterday, I want them back. Andwe'd like we don't know what
it'd be like if we had themback.

Yeah. You're right, you're right. Brian, you
don't know what it would belike, it probably depends on the
circumstances of everyone'spassing. And if it was something
tragic like that, you don't knowwhat it would be like to have
them back, it might have beenmuch more challenging and
difficult. I believe in Matt'scase, it would have been a long
road to any kind of recoverybecause he was pretty, you know,

(44:27):
battered and broken. And he wasable to see that and you know,
there's other people who youknow, may have come back and
things might have been worse fortheir family and their parents.
And I think they're given aglimpse as to what it would be
like if they stay on the otherside, and that they can be more
helpful to us on the other side.
I believe Matthew saw what wascoming with his story getting

(44:48):
out there and with helping hisfriends know that life is short
and you need to live it now andand enjoy it while you got it.
This is the theme that Matthewhas pushed from that other side.
And he certainly pushed thestore to get out in a book
format and to get me out theretalking about it, because he
wants people to know that, yeah,it's sad that you lose someone

(45:10):
you love dearly. But they'regoing to be okay. They are okay.
And they're right there withyou, pushing you and tried to
send you the signs to keep yougoing and motivated and to know
that everything was going to befine. And you'll be with them at
some point in your own future.

Yeah, well, I think that is, you know, there's lots
of lessons in your book and inyour story, but one of the one
of the lessons is that, uh, canwe look at it from the point of
that person's life being, quote,cut short, that, that that's the
end of their life. And you and Iboth know, now, that's the
furthest thing from the truth,that's not the end of their

(45:48):
life, it's not the end ofexistence. It's not even the end
of their influence in thisworld. Because our children are
reaching more people through usthan they probably would have
reached if they had stayed inthe physical.

Absolutely, absolutely. They have touched so
many hearts, with their stories.
And with them pushing peoplelike you and myself and so many
others out there, who are goingpublic, with, with their stories
with their emotions with sharingwhat they have experienced, and
especially with you, Brian, andyour work and helping people

(46:26):
through the grieving process. Imean, it's just remarkable. I
know you and I didn't see thiscoming years ago, right? Back in
2012, we didn't see this 2013.
And then things startedhappening. And here we are
connecting with each other. Andwith so many parents who are

(46:49):
going through these losses, andnot only the parents, you lose a
spouse, you lose a parent, youlose a best friend. It's all a
grief, differently levels,different layers, different
connections you may have withthose who have passed over. But
in our world, we learned thatthey're always there, they're
helping us they're watching overus, sometimes they can come in

(47:12):
and talk to us in a dream or,you know, if we get some
mediumship readings or interactwith people in this world, or
they'll drop in on them and giveus a message or a sign it's just
remarkable how life is and thatafterlife.

And, and the physical life against listen to
Dhamma rebel Merle Calvary isjust this morning listening to
his son in his interview, and hewas talking about the fact that
every relationship ends at somepoint, the physical realm, the
physical relationship, either bychoice or by a life circumstance
or by by one of the peoplepassing know, when we get

(47:49):
married. You know, it'sinteresting, we say in the vows
till death do us part becausewe're we're acknowledging the
fact that we are not going to betogether physically forever. So
every relationship ends we a lotof times against specially with
parents, we judge that passingof a child as it wasn't supposed
to. And then it doesn't matterwhether our child's 1538 I've

(48:12):
talked to parents who've lostchildren, their 50s and 60s, and
they still feel like they're notsupposed to end before my my
life ends. But this is somethingthat you we know it's going to
happen eventually to all of us.

Right, death and taxes that those are the two
eternal qualities in our livesis you're going to run into both
of them. That is a hard one forus. Because you've lost that
physical presence. You can't hugthem. I mean, I still have
periods where I just miss thoseguys are terribly watching

(48:48):
football, Brian, I mean, I'm nota big sports nut. But Sal and
Matt love football. They lovebaseball. Every year I find
myself drawn to watch the NFLplayoffs and the Super Bowl if I
can doesn't matter who the teamsare. It's great when it's a team

(49:09):
that Salar Matt loved andsupported, but I still watch
them and I feel like the guysare with me and that they're
cheering or they're booing orthey're you know, commenting on
you know, the the plays and whathave you. I'm still drawn to
that. But then I kind of missedit. They're not here and that
they're not sharing in you know,the snacks and the chicken wings

(49:29):
or whatever it is eating. I haveto eat that all by myself. So I
don't eat that much. But umyeah, I still miss them a lot.
Yeah, but I'm on there aroundme. It would just be nice to
have them come up and hug or youknow, hear the laugh. Although I
do feel some things. Sometimes Ishoot in the morning, almost

(49:49):
every morning. Something'stouching my hair right here and
I'm positive it sounds just thelight touch. And with math, I'll
hear him laugh sometimes I justkind of hear it. It's not clear,
but I can just feel him aroundme laughing because that would
be mad. He'd be standing therelaughing at everything I do. But
they're there. I just wish Icould have them in the physical

(50:12):
once in a while. My dream islike, I will join you guys one
day and we are going to hug man.
We are gonna hug when I get overthere. Good God, we have got to
hug.

Oh, yeah, we will.
We will. I want to talk to you alittle bit more about silent
and, and dementia. As I said,I've I've gone through that I
just lost my mother in law atthis point just a little over a
month ago with dementia. I wasgonna say I have a theory, but
actually, I've seen it. Peoplethe matches, sometimes it seems
like they allow spirit to breakthrough they they can see and

(50:44):
sense things that we can't. Andwhen I was reading your book,
the first thing that struck mewas Sal on that street, you
know, the premonition ofMatthews passing. But even after
Matthew pass, Sal had somecontact with Matthew, it sounds
like

he absolutely did. It was phenomenal when Sal
would share stories aboutMatthew coming in. One in
particular touch my heart. Oneday, Sal says clear as a bell.
Oh, Matthew came and told methat he will be there when I
die. by Matthew, Caitlin saidhe'd be there when you die. Yes.

(51:28):
He said that he's learning howto help people when they die.
And that when it's my time,he'll be there for me. He'll
help me pass over. I'll tellyou, Brian, that that's
remarkable that Sal would havesaid that. And it makes sense
that yeah, Matthew wouldcertainly be there. One Sal
passes over. I felt Matthew'spresence in those hours before

(51:52):
Sal pass. We kept Sal here atthe house through hospice. And
he passed here at the home. Andthere was a lot of energies
going on before his passing. Nowthe time Sal says to me, Oh, my
mom and Matthew were here. NowI'd never met Sally's mom. She
died in the 50s when he was, youknow, a teenager. And I had

(52:13):
never met her. I have herportrait hanging up in the
house. I know what she lookslike. But I had never met the
woman. But here she is withMatthew according to sow common
the visit. So I thought that wasreally cool. That sounds mom and
Matthew had never met in thephysical. We're hanging out
together. On the other side. Salwould sometimes have visits from

(52:35):
his deceased relatives, hisbrother, his brother in law. His
sister had died months beforeSouth Passover, she also had had
dementia. And he felt herpresence shortly after she died,
and was talking about her beinghere. So that was rather
interesting. I didn't write thatin the book. But it's he she was
visiting him. They had been veryclose when they were growing up.

(52:58):
So he had a lot of visitorshere. There were times he would
talk about people. He wouldreact sometimes I would see him
talking to someone. And I'd saywho are you talking to? And
settle spoke Spanish. He grew upin Mexico, and I often had
trouble understanding what hewas telling me with dementia.
They have a harder timevocalizing so we come out a

(53:20):
little slurred I'd have to callup one of his relatives and say,
Would you happen to know whoelse Zorro was? And they tell me
Oh, yeah, that was, you know, mydeals best friend back in the,
you know, 50s and 60s, that washis nickname. So Okay. Could you
tell me who l fail was? Oh,well, yeah, it was a guy he

(53:41):
worked with, he was pretty ugly.
And it's like, Wow, soundshaving all these conversations.
I don't know most of thesefolks. But when he would have,
you know, Matthew show up, orhis mom, or someone that I did
know, that was prettyremarkable. It happened quite a
bit.

And what to say to people. My father in law went
through something similar. Andthis was many years before I had
any kind of this kind ofunderstanding, and we dismissed
them as hallucinations. And wetalked and I don't know if there
might be real hallucinationstoo. But I know a lot of this
stuff is real. And in hisparticular case, he would only
talk about people who had passedaway. I mean, it wasn't like he

(54:19):
was saying the guy down the roadcame to visit and the neighbor
that was it was always somebodywho we had known that was no
longer in the physical. And itwas years later before I
realized I think he was actuallybeing visited by people.

You know, the one salad on hospice and you
know, I met with the doctor whoran the program. And I had
mentioned to him that Sal wasclaiming to be visiting some of
these dead people. The doctorsfirst response is, oh, well,
that's just part of dementia.
It's just hallucination.
Sometimes if it gets bad,there's some medications we

(54:54):
could do, but that's all it isjust ignored. And I know that in
reading about Lewy Body disease,And then all of the stages that
the people may go through thatare suffering from it. That
that's often dismissed thestories of visited visitors from
the other realms ashallucinations. Now tell you it
sounded hallucinate at times,sometimes that we get pretty

(55:16):
scary. But as lucid nations weremore about what was happening
now, like when he thought I wassome bad guy that was kidnapping
him and was taking him somewhereto kill him. That's a
hallucination was how it escapedfrom the house and head off down
the road. And I'd have to go andget him. And fortunately, I'd

(55:36):
have somebody around to help me.
That was a hallucination. Hewasn't running home to mama, he
was running away because hethought he was in a facility and
I was the chief medical officerand I was going to murder him or
some crazy thing. She was sortof a loser. Yeah.

Yeah, I so it's I want people that are listening,
if you if you're dealing withsomeone with dementia, or even
in the stages of life, you know,their listen, and try to observe
because it's separate, like,what's what's clearly Lusatian
versus maybe they aren't gettingvisits. And there's something

(56:16):
about the brain soul connection,it seems like when that starts
to break down, it's like, allowsspirit to come through, it's
like, they can start to see theother side because you're not as
connected here. But let's talkabout where you where you are
today. Because, you know, it'skind of it's wild that the
connections because when I thinkabout you and helping parents

(56:38):
heal, and with me, I startedlistening to podcasts, and I ran
into somebody who was a friendof Suzanne's and they gifted me
a reading. So the first meetingbringing Abraham was with
Suzanne. So we've got thatconnection in common as well. So
you the first medium that youwere going to reach out to was
Suzanne, and you decided to dosomeone else. Then later on, you

(56:58):
came back around and you haverelationship with her now.

Right, right.
It's interesting, you know howall of that came to fruition. It
wasn't something I hadanticipated. You know, like I
said, after Matt had died, I hadtime to learn about mediums and
I read voraciously, lots ofbooks. In 2016, January 2016,
Sal crossed over. And after hispassing, I had lots of free

(57:28):
time, I really didn't have awhole lot to do when you're a
caregiver, and all of that goesaway. You're kind of sitting
here twiddling your thumbs, Idecided that it was now time for
me to really delve into learningmore about that after live in
spirit communications and, youknow, things that I had read
about but hadn't had time toreally delve into. So I looked

(57:50):
further I stumbled into SuzanneGiesemann and her book Wolf's
message during my reading beforeSal died. Notice that shortly
after Sal passed in early 2016,Guzman was coming to the Phoenix
area and doing several classesand workshops, and one class was

(58:10):
like beginning mediumship. So Isigned up for everything I could
because I liked you know herbook, I wanted to learn more to
kind of a basic mediumship classand through those I met a
handful of people that were kindof her followers, or groupies
they really enjoy interactingwith her body year later, I was

(58:30):
invited to be part of a groupcalled souls awakening, which
was composed of a lot of peoplewho had met through policeman's
classes. And it was a lot of funto be invited to that group.
Prior to that invitation,though, I had to go through that

(58:51):
one year anniversary of Sal'sdeath. And it was a challenging
one, I didn't realize it wouldbe so difficult. I thought I had
my stuff together, so to speak.
And I can handle it. So I hadgotten into a practice of doing
a meditation every morning, Iwould use a guided meditation.
So that morning, been a year, Ithought, Well, I'm gonna do a

(59:14):
meditation. Maybe I'll hear fromSal today. And I opened up my
computer and I had a touchscreen and I pull up the folder
that had all of the audio files.
And I hit something on the upperwas at the upper left corner,
which was supposed to be ameditation, and prepared to
listen and instead startedplaying a song, which was the

(59:35):
ill Devo version of my way. Ifell apart because once I was in
his last stages, I had puttogether a little video of
photos and songs to show peopleat the celebration we did for
him and the very first song wasthe ill Devo song My Way Sal had

(59:56):
always told me that My song whenI die, you play my way. So when
I put it together I didn'tchoose the Elvis Presley or the
Frank Sinatra version. I likedthe ille de Vocus out being
Mexican and a Spanish speaker elDivo doesn't mix of Spanish and
English. I thought it was abeautiful rendition. So that
starts playing and it just like,melted me. I couldn't take it.

(01:00:20):
Oh my god, I can't believe this.
And why is that playing? I didnot touch that. I did not touch
that I saw you did this. And I'mI just had a hard time. I mean,
it was like gray, that's a signfrom cell. But it put me in a
funk. And that funk lasted fordays for days. So after all
about a week, I was hoping for asign I needed a sign and I asked

(01:00:45):
for it. I was feeling like I wasstagnating. And I needed
something. Went to bed one nighthad a dream and the dream. I'm
seeing Sal, I'm seeing a featherI'm seeing piece of paper. I'm
meeting with Suzanne Giesemannin the dream really an odd one,
I wake up, I get around toopening the computer that

(01:01:07):
morning. And Eastman would postsomething every day from her
team called Sanaya of dailymessage and there'd be a photo.
And the first message wasstagnation. And I'm like, Whoa,
you know, that's just what I wasfeeling last night, I need a
sign and I'm thinking I'mstagnating. I read the message,
I resonated with everything inthat message. It's, it was

(01:01:29):
calling to me it was my message.
The photo she had was a feather.
It was sitting in a weddingring, there's a piece of paper
under it. It's like oh my god,that's like the dream. This is
just crazy. I reached out toEastman and I said, Hey, I've
been in a funk. This is what'sbeen going on. And then this is
what happened. And this messageis meant for me. I just know it.

(01:01:50):
He's been writes back and says,Well, you know, that's really
incredible. I think it is foryou. I'm begging, I'm sure of
it. So we had a little back andforth. And she gave me some
ideas on you know how to get outof that funk and move forward
with life, which was great. Sohere we'd have this little
interaction. Up to three weekslater, it was shortly after I
had been invited to this groupof hers as souls awakening group

(01:02:13):
that I get a call from geesemen, and she says, Hey, Diane,
do you know Suzanne Wilson? AndI said, Well, yes, I know who
she is. I've gone to a helpingparents heal meeting a month
before she was the presenter. Ihad said hello to her. I'm sure
she doesn't know me. Why? Well,she's looking for assistant, a

(01:02:35):
part time assistant. And shereached out and I thought of
you. And so I'm like, Oh, wow,part time. What can I work from
home? Because I don't want to bedriving down to carefree to do
any kind of work. That's a longdrive. She said, Oh, yeah, from
home just part time. If you'reinterested, I'll let her know.
So sure. I'm interested. SoWilson calls me a little bit

(01:02:57):
later. And she introducesherself and I said, Yeah, we met
but I'm sure you don't rememberme. And I don't think she
remembered me. But because lotsof people go up and talk to her.
So she said, Yeah, I need anassistant. And I was looking for
someone who had some idea aboutmediumship and how that works.
And I'd reached out to SuzanneKaseman my friend, because I

(01:03:17):
thought maybe she would knowsomeone and she said, she did
call me back and gave me yourname. Are you interested? And I
said, Yeah, I am. We mentioned alittle bit of the details. But
then she said to me, you know,it's kind of funny. After I hung
up with gatesman, I put thephone down. And the ceiling fan
kicked on in the room there. AndI looked at it and Carl, my

(01:03:41):
husband looked at it and wenoticed the remote is sitting on
the table and no one had touchedit. But that fan was going and I
told her Oh, that's my son. Yourson said, yeah. I lost my son.
His name's Matt. He hadinstalled the ceiling fans at my
house. And often when I wouldhave visitors hear family or I

(01:04:03):
could be in the room on thephone talking to his old
girlfriend or whoever. Thosefans would kick on. No reason
they just kick on. So we figuredthat was a sign for math. So I
think he turned your fan off.
And Suzanne says, Oh my gosh,okay, hold on, hold on. Just all
right. I see him. He's standingright next to you. His hand is
on your shoulder. And he says,yeah, that was me. So hey,

(01:04:24):
Brian. There's my reading withSuzanne Wilson. She's got my
kids standing here. He's playingwith us. He had known Suzanne
gatesman He knew I had readwills message he had popped in
and given her reading throughher to me, you know, a long time
before. So there was aconnection there. I guess he

(01:04:46):
heard Eastman and Wilson talkingabout needing an assistant and I
thought, Aha, mom's just sittingthere doing nothing feeling
sorry for herself. Let's make aconnection. So that's how I
started working. was SuzanneWilson. And that was in 2017. So
that's Gosh, it's almost sevenyears since I started working
with her, Brian Yeah. Well, I

Brian Smith (01:05:08):
there's so much more, and I appreciate you share
that. But I do want to letpeople know, it's an it's in the
book. So if I can ever get it,right, they're living in loving
life all day, every day, whichwas something that Matthew said
that they came from him thetitle, I love that. And thanks,
Diane, for sharing, like, youknow, helping us realize the

(01:05:29):
universe is really a magicalplace. And then again, we've
just, we just skimmed thesurface here today, of your
story, and how all these thingstie together, connect together.
And, you know, for parents that,you know, we get to a certain
point in life, you know, youknow, starting over is, it's
kind of a daunting thing I canmake imagine you being retired,
probably thought, what am Igoing to do, and you're living

(01:05:51):
as you're now you're a medium.
So you're a medium yourself, wedidn't really talk about that.
But because of you meetingSusanna and develop your
mediumship you're doing that andwriting books. So I know you
have another book plan. So tellme about the other book that you
got planned.

Diane Calderon (01:06:08):
I do have another book planned. It's right
now I'm titling it finding themedium within. Part of the
reason for writing the secondbook is that in doing the first
one, I had a lot of storiesabout hearing from Matthew
hearing from south, being indevelopment circles, practicing

(01:06:28):
mediumship, doing an awful lotof communicating with with
others in the spirit world. AndI wanted it in the first book, I
had a person who was helping mewith the editing. And she
suggested that's a bit too much.
Let's pull that out and thinkabout a second book where you
can go into those stories. Thefirst book, we're just talking

(01:06:51):
mostly about Matthew and theincredible signs that he was
giving and how it led you towhere you are today. So book two
will be a little bit more aboutthat background, that that inner
communication through mediums asa medium, getting more signs
from spirit, Matthew, Sal, mom,dad, I mean, I have a whole

(01:07:12):
plethora of people in spirit whohave been coming in. So I'm
working on putting together astory that I hope will inspire
people to consider mediumreadings and consider maybe
being mediums if they're sodrawn. Because that spirit world
is incredible. And and and a lotof the books I had read, the
most exciting parts to me werewhen someone would say, oh, so

(01:07:33):
we have this medium reading. Andthis is what happened. And I
would like devour that like, Oh,what happened? What spirits
saying? So I'm hoping my bookwill give a little more insight
as to what spirit does, how theycome in and what they like to
talk about. Yeah,

well, there's a lot of great stuff in this book. And
I'm looking forward to thesecond one. So let people know
how they can reach you.

Oh, well, I have a website. We're still kind of
working out the kinks. But youcan go to Diane calderon.com.
Take a look at the website. Ihave started a little blog post,
I have one blog. I have links tosome of the other interviews I
may have participated in andanything coming up will go in

(01:08:17):
there. I have links topurchasing the book. The book,
again is living and loving lifeall day, every day. It is
available on Amazon, I believeyou can go to a little bookstore
and ask them to order it. Itshould be available for that
venue too. Yeah. So that's howyou reach me. You can just go to
the website, there's a place toput in your contact information

(01:08:39):
and I respond to whatever comesin. So thank you. Sounds

great. Well, Diane, thanks so much for doing this.
Thanks for being here today.
Thanks for sharing Matthew andSal with us and enjoy the rest
of your day.

Thank you so much, Brian. I again, I
appreciate it. Love you, man.
Love you from the day I firstmet you and Ty, which you know,
it's been a while it was likeseven years ago. I think we met
at St. Peter's Burg. Yeah, withmy dick and Suzanne Giesemann.
So you guys are wonderful peopleand God bless you. Yeah,

enjoy the rest of your day.

Unknown (01:09:14):
Thank you

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Diane Calderon- Shining Light Mother Of Matthew EP 360

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