In 2013, for my 27th birthday, me and my Nan went to our first Steve Holbrook show together at Sutton Coldfield Town Hall. I, at the time, had never lost anyone close to me but had been interested in what these type of spiritualist shows consisted of and was eager to give one a go. I think Nan had secretly hoped her parents might come through, as she sat through the talking kicking her legs back and forth like she often did, looking out the window, in her bag and everywhere else other than at the man at the front of the room. It therefore surprised me, when on exiting the building, she said how impressed she had been with the messages people were given and how specific they had sounded. It certainly made us both think about it but we concluded that we guessed we would never really know the truth and that was that. I did enjoy the show so much, however, that I went back the next year with my then partner and had a similar experience of enjoying it and feeling moved by what I had heard, again, being given no personal messages ourselves.
Like all none certain beliefs, I had my questions about how real these demonstrations are. Did they plant people in the audience, for instance. Did they read your body language and make general assumptions based on the safe knowledge that more than likely everyone there will have lost someone? Did they research names and deaths online and make general comments that would resonate with just about everyone in the room? It was with these questions in mind, and an open mind, that after she passed I felt I wanted to go again with the renewed experience of having now lost a close loved one and not just for entertainment purposes. I had also made a deal with Nan, a sort of half soaked one in good jest, about a year before she had passed, when she was really poorly, agreeing that if she passed away and there was a Steve Holbrook show just after, I would go to it and she would come through for me to prove to me that her energy was still around, by saying something to me that no one else would have known. Something specific that only she could have known. I secretly hoped that she would stick to our deal.
So last night, with my mom, sister and our friend (also Nans neighbour) in tow, we went over to Wombourne Civic Centre in Wolverhampton, not really thinking we would get anything but I think all secretly hoping for curiosity’s sake that we each would. It’s not something you want to admit to that you might have hope that energy after death really exists. But lets face it, everyone in that room wanted a message, that is why we all went. It was not only a full moon last night, but after sitting empty for some months now, yesterday a young couple with a baby, brand new life, moved into my nans house, completing the process for me of knowing that as her place. Whilst it sat empty, it still was. Yesterday just seemed like the day. If we were going to hear anything, it would be that night.
The very first message he relayed was for a lady who had lost her mom around June. Mom put her hand up but there was some confusion on the date as Nan passed on 2nd July, so not quite June. The two lines crossed somewhat and Mom dropped it as did he and he found someone else to tell the message to. However, this particular message sounded just for mom. He said how this lady wished things had been different between them in life and that she didn’t get chance to say goodbye. That she had a daughter. The lady at this point receiving the message looked a little confused and didn’t agree with all the information at first but then found things to relate to after this. We all felt, if it was real, that this might have been Nans message to mom, but in the confusion of dates it got lost in translation and given to someone else. It would be so like Nan to make a pact with me about showing her face and making sure she was first in line to do so. We said no more about it at the time, moving on with the first half of the show, transfixed by the seemingly accurate messages everyone else was at that point getting, maybe also a little frustrated that we might have missed our chance for contact because of an error with the dates.
After the interval, he went to the other side of the room and said “January 20th, whose birthday or anniversary is January 20th. And who is John?”. We looked at each other but said nothing to him, as he was half way through another discussion with someone else by this time. Nobody on that side of the room, however, could pick up that date or name, so he started looking back towards our direction. He skirted around a few people but was having a little difficulty pinpointing a person to give it to. There were also a few comments to people on the far side of the room in relation to having some lillies and changing their usual type of milk recently. Again, nobody picked up on this and Nans neighbour and friend was sure that these messages were for her. We had given her nans hall table and she had a picture of nan on with some lillies my mom had bought for her just after nan died. She also wanted to put some lillies on her coffin but couldn’t find any in time. She said she had also bought a different milk to usual and nan always knew which one she used. It’s little details like this you think about afterwards.
Then he looked to Mom again saying “The lady I got the date wrong with earlier, you lost your mom?”. Mom said yes. He said he had a lady with him who had tried to get through earlier and would have done sooner if she could have. I believe it was her trying to get through on that first message. My moms birthday is January 20th and my brother is called John. If anyones message was going to be scattered all over the place, it would be nans.
He asked who she was with tonight and asked for the family members to show them selves. Me and my sister put up our hands rather cautiously from what I remember!
He said this lady wants to speak to all of the family, but there’s too many to do individually. He said that she wanted us all to know that she loved us all the same and that there were no favourites.
He said that there had been some questions weighing over us about her death and in a sense we had struggled to put things to rest having had so many unanswered questions.
He said she wanted us to know that how she felt at the end overcame her very quickly and she didn’t know what was going to happen.
He said that had she known how good it would feel where she is now that she would have gone much sooner and stopped trying to be here so long.
He took a stance at the front of the stage, very proud, very strong and made the gesture with his body of great strength. He said this lady is VERY strong and I would use the word fighter.
He said her funeral had been all about her strength of character and her life and how she lived.
He said she had been in hospital sometime prior to her death and that she had recently had tests done just before her passing.
He stressed twice I think that she loved us all the same.
This could sound quite general and I know a few of us were cautious to want to believe this could be happening and rightly so. However, for me, this was a good start. Every point for me was bang on.
He never addressed anyone else in the room asking to speak to all the family, even though they came with some. The message about loving us all the same and wanting to speak to us all really touched me, because after Nans death I think we all felt a bit like some of us thought we should be more upset than others and that Nan had her favourites. We also all really fell out after her death, as happens sometimes, so to address us as a whole I thought really significant. Having spent the most time with her myself this last year also, I had that insecurity that the others were slightly angry at me for feeling so upset at the time of her death,like I felt I had earned the right to grieve more for being her carer or that I thought Nan loved me more for what I did for her. Of course that wasnt the case, but emotional times make everyone insecure.
What he said about our uncertainty over her death was also really strong. Everyone that saw her that week said how well she looked. The day before she was gardening. For me, I had initially felt guilty I wasnt around for her when it happened, as I think we all feel to start with. For weeks, I didn’t accept that she had gone to bed and just died. I had felt the very real possibility that she had, after calling me at 9am to say don’t come round, had a really terrible last day in pain, dragging herself up to bed at the end with a hot water bottle as we found her with and knowing she was going to die. Its made me really uncomfortable to imagine that she knew it was going to happen. I can’t think of anything worse than lying in pain knowing you are alone and about to pass. The answers to these questions are things we will never know because we were not with her. I think we have all felt that she wanted to be on her own and knew it was happening. So to have a message saying it overcame her very quickly at the end, along with the fact we found her in a sleeping position in her bed, did give me great comfort that it wasnt a long drawn out process. She may still have had pain in the end if it all happened quickly but at least it might not have happened quite as I imagined. In those last moments, she may even have realised it was happening. Those facts are things we will never know. But I did find comfort in hearing what I did. It gave me some hope that she just went to sleep as she looked like she did.
The stance he took at the front of the stage made me cry with recognition. Her strong presence was being felt I thought and anyone that knew Nan knew that she was a hell of a force to be reckoned with. We all said how sad it felt after she passed that her little body lay on the bed, with no fight left, no longer with that at times uncomfortable energy that surrounded her. She was such a presence. Her house no longer felt that way after she went. So if Steve Holbrook was feeling her energy and clenching his fist in a strong pose at the front of the stage, I found that all very fitting actually. To say she was a fighter couldn’t have been more apt. This woman survived things that would have killed others instantly. She had the strength of 5 men plus a few horses to boot I think! She had been severely electrocuted, had a gangrenous gallbladder, had burst appendix, had this cancer and probably lived with it for years not knowing. This woman did not want to die and proved she could fight the odds. Fighter is exactly the right word for her.
The comments about her funeral made me smile. We specifically said we didn’t want a religious ceremony because she didn’t want that. She wasnt religious. She thought there was some life force that continued after death and that the body was a vessel. She used to go to spiritualist evenings in her youth, so I know she was open to the idea. We made her funeral a simple humanist ceremony all about her life and her strength. It was spot on.
As was his comments about her being in hospital.She had been a year before she passed and my brother had taken her to her most recent scan only four days before she died. It was all very real.
That bundle of information to me was impressive enough and I was glad he spoke to us all as a whole.I would have been happy with that to be honest.
Then he looked at me and asked if he could speak to me directly. I said yes. I was already crying at this point, no matter how much you tell yourself you will take it with a pinch of salt, you can’t help feel moved by the detail. And I felt that after how I had been feeling, she knew that I needed to be addressed directly for my own comfort. I felt very moved.
He said that I was the sensitive one in the family (so true).
That I had a birthday or celebration just after she had passed and I had found it really difficult to celebrate that day after her passing (She died 2nd July, I turned 30 on 13th July, my milestone birthday.) He said she was raising a glass to me in spirit to let me know she was celebrating with me.
He said I in particular had been very upset that she didn’t say goodbye to me. (I had been feeling after spending everyday with her that she should have let me know what was happening if she had known herself on the day. To be such a big part of your everyday life and then just be gone, I have found really hard to deal with.)
He said she had already visited me first in a dream and I had been awoken really shaken, being in a daze about it all day the following day. (I had an awful dream a few nights before her 80th birthday on 7th August where I felt her sit on the bed next to me, feeling it go down with the weight. I knew in the dream it was Nan very clearly. I had felt her tickling my back and it scared me rather than comforted me as it felt very real and present in the room with me. I started to shout for Mom, actually shouting in my sleep, waking my daughter up and scaring her in the middle of the night in the process! Doing this, in the dream, seemed to annoy Nan, and she got up off the bed and made a comment as I heard it like “Oh go on, run to your mother again!”. The tickling turned to a sharp full nail scratch down my back as I woke up. It was really terrifying.)
This dream had left me in a cold sweat and I was terrified the next day and have had trouble sleeping since, not wanting to turn the lights off. He said that night it was her visiting me to show me she was still around. I had been so upset about her just leaving and being gone and not saying bye, that this all made sense to me. Nan could also be cold at times, not in a nasty sense, but if she didn’t like something she would be angry about it and refuse to speak to you or snap if she did. So the fact I was calling for my mom when she may have been trying to assure me she was there for me, I am sure, would have pissed her off greatly ha. Especially considering their difficult relationship.
He said that I had recently mentioned to someone about 2 stones in weight and she had heard me speaking about it. (I have said to someone this week that I ideally need to lose about 2 stones but wasnt sure how I would do it.)
He also chuckled to himself and said “Whats this about the perfume, does someone have her perfume? Whats happened to it?”. He was smiling as if finding something amusing. (I had taken Nans only perfume when we cleared the flat. Only the day before the show, I had caught my 3 year old daughter pouring half of it down the bathroom sink! I decided to pour the rest away as she also lost the lid to it. As I poured it I thought of Nan and wondered if I should be doing it.) He said she knows about the perfume and saw it. He seemed to find it amusing which I found nice.
Then he asked us all about her shoes. What happened with her shoes? (I remember when we were debating what to dress her with in the coffin, we asked each other if dead people needed shoes in their coffin. We decided she didn’t and as we weren’t going to view her she didn’t need them. I can imagine she felt half dressed to go without her shoes ha. She also had really bad feet and would have hated anyone seeing her toes.)
I have to say, I was very taken by the whole experience. The details, I felt, were specific to me and those I came with.
I can never have proof as such that life after death exits. However, I do think that energy of some form exists after death and as my sister said, there are some people who do this for a living that just prey on the vulnerable and give them really unspecific things that they can latch onto in the vain hope that their loved ones are still with them. Then there are those that want to do good things and help to heal people, regardless of how genuine it is what they might be relaying.
All I can say, after seeing Steve Holbrook a few times now and after hearing the specifics I was given last night, is that I feel that he is one of the genuine ones. I do think he is picking up on some kind of energy, regardless of whether he is actually seeing or hearing a passed person or just the energy left over. He talks and it flows out of him at fast pace as it is happening. He is not trying desperately to remember anything. He is not making up random bit’s as he goes along. It all seems very fluent, very organic and very genuine. I do believe he does his job for a positive reason. To help people, to heal people, to let them find peace. He has a gift.
Whatever happened last night, I left that centre feeling totally at peace about my Nan. It is a feeling that I have not felt until this point. I woke up today no longer feeling guilty about what happened to her. Whether it was me believing what I wanted to hear or a genuine communication that happened between us, it has helped me at least find peace with her death.If that was Nan keeping to her word and always delivering her promises, as in life, then I’m really proud of her 😊.
I have seen a few negative stories about Steve Holbrook on the internet and I think its easy to be a sceptic on things we don’t understand. The people who try to bring him down have never received a message themselves, or felt incredibly touched about what they heard in relation to their own lives. Whether its real or not (and if it’s not, it’s a bloody good job!), it is very convincing and it does do something really positive.
It brings people closure and the ability to find peace if they receive a message like I did last night. Who are we to argue with that? For that, I would like to say thanks to him for giving me a renewed hope that life doesn’t just stop when our bodies fail us.
I do know one thing. I will have to be really careful about what I say and do from now on, just incase she’s watching 😉 x
meandmygirlblog 