A Message From a Moderator

Full transcript of the My True Ghost Stories episode “A Message From a Moderator.” Listen to this episode.

I am asked in a dream to deliver a message from the departed to the living. Will the message make sense? Welcome to Episode 35 of My True Ghost Stories. After I left show business for real, got married, had babies, moved out of the burrow of Manhattan, I still had some jobs that were in between show business and regular jobs. I taught dance, where I still had to clean sequins out of the bottom of my bag from time to time, although the sequins were from somebody else's costume, not mine, one of my students.

And after I stopped teaching dance, I started teaching a family music class, something like what they used to call mommy and me, although now it's daddy's, grandma's, nanny's, neighbors, plus mommies bringing baby to music class. With this job, there were no sequins at the bottom of my bag anymore, but I did have to do vocal warm-ups every day, so it was still a show-biz adjacent job. Plus there was jumping. That's all jump around. That would be part of the class.

So I still got dance injuries, which is also show-bizzy. The classes I taught were for a big company that franchises its business to individual center owners who promote to the public and hire their own teachers. And the big company supplies the curriculum and the materials that were handed out to the participating families. The hierarchy of this company was so organized and productive, and I got involved because I took my kids to these music classes when they were babies, and then I decided to become a teacher of this music curriculum, which involved a three-day teacher training at the end of which we trainees had to present a song as if it were a lesson, and the other participants were acting like the students, so they would sing and dance along with you. So one at a time, the teacher trainees would present a song, the other teacher trainees would act like the students, and Alice oversaw the whole thing, and gave feedback.

You had to choose your own song, and I decided to present Shake My Silly's Out, written by Ruffy and performed by many. And my song presentation of Shake My Silly's Out went so well due to my extreme silliness and complete lack of stage fright that I got scouted by two franchise owners and got two jobs right away that day before I even left the training, which I've heard is not always the case, so I am very grateful for my goofiness and my decent singing voice. When I presented this song, accompanied with the previously mentioned jumping and silliness, it was moderated by one of the founders of the company who were still very hands-on at that point in the company's history. And I'm going to call this moderator Alice. I finished my presentation, which involved me pretending to collapse from exhaustion from all the jumping, so my head was down and I was not looking at the other students or Alice the moderator after I finished.

And I eventually looked up, fully confident that everyone was also collapsed on the floor from pretended exhaustion, and instead everyone was sitting looking at me with wide eyes. I will say that the other presentations that day had been more shall we say reserved. I looked over at the moderator Alice, co-founder of the company, considering if maybe I should be embarrassed, did this not go as absolutely fantastically as I thought? My potential fears were quickly dispelled though. Alice was not looking at me.

She was looking around at the other students, mouth in a huge smile nodding her head with an emphatic yes. I was about the 11th person to present a song here on day 3 of the teacher training, and the first 10 presentations had ended with a reassuring good job from Alice, followed immediately with a little praise about what they had done right, and then all the things that they have to fix. Make sing louder, make eye contact, don't be afraid to look silly, make bigger movements, stuff like that. I was sort of expecting that, a list of things I had to fix, but to be honest, not really. Me in a situation where I had to sing and jump around and be extraordinarily silly, my confidence in this situation was through the roof.

And confidence is the name of the game. Thus the happy nodding and big smile from Alice and the wide eyes from the other participants and the two immediate job offers. I wish my whole life could be like that. So Alice, the co-founder of this company and moderator of my presentation, with no words, a facial expression, nods and a smile, gave me a confidence boost that lasted for me 10 years into this family music class career. And my family music class career went great.

My classes were always full, the families loved me, other center directors offered me work, as I said, it went great. My classes heavily featured dancing, which is my strength. Every teacher in this company has a strength, harmonies, rhythms, percussion, all of which I can do, except harmonies, not so much. But my classes were full of dancing and jumping. You could get a real workout taking my family music class.

One of the features of this wonderful big family music class company was regular teacher trainings, refresher courses that focused on different aspects of teaching these music classes. And these refresher classes were, at that time, still being taught by the co-founders. So I got to see Alice every few months. She did not remember me. She had met hundreds and hundreds of new teachers.

And while my presentation at that teacher training had been very, very good, I was still just another teacher to her in these refresher classes that she was teaching. But I loved seeing her again. And I would get a boost of confidence just being in the room with her, remembering her and her affirming nod and smile that she had for me at that first teacher training. I tried, every time I saw her to maybe catch her eye and jog her memory. I had fantasies that she would look at me.

Her eyes would light up and she would say, oh, you were that amazing teacher from that training seven years ago. But that did not happen. And that was okay. But I always held out hope that it would happen next time. Alice led the trainings with another woman who I will call Joanne, a former teacher who had risen through the ranks of this company and now traveled all around with Alice doing these trainings.

Alice and Joanne made a wonderful team. So life went on, classes went on, teacher refresher courses went on. And one day I received an email from the big company. It was sad news. Alice had passed away.

It was sudden, at least to the music class community, as we did not know that she was sick. But she had been sick and she had passed away. She had been active in the company until the end and I had seen her recently in a refresher class. It was sad. Really sad.

And this community really went into mourning because like me, they had all been encouraged by her. People posted testimonials about Alice praising her for everything from full on career mentorship to like me, nods and smiles of affirmation that gave me a decade-long confidence boost. And after a few weeks, I got a notice that there would be a memorial service for Alice at a church in Manhattan. And I knew I had to go. I wanted to pay my respects.

And also I wanted to witness a gathering of all these awesome people who taught these family music classes, musicians, singers, dancers. It would be that week's artist's date for me. An artist's date is a once-weekly solo expedition to do something that enchants or interests you. It's from a book called The Artists Way by Julia Cameron, link in the show notes. So I had to go.

I wore a good outfit. The service was beautiful. The people who spoke about her were grateful for how Alice had encouraged them. I wished that I could go up and describe my one interaction with Alice and how it had set me up for this career. A common theme in the testimonials about Alice at her memorial service was how she could convey so much with so few words, which had been my experience exactly.

And needless to say, the singing from the congregation was incredible as it was filled with music teachers and performers. One of the speakers was Alice's teaching partner Joanne, who talked about what an honor it had been to work with Alice all those years. She expressed gratitude for all that Alice had taught her and regrets that she would not be able to call her anymore for answers and guidance. After the service, the sidewalk outside the church resembled a huge reunion. Well, it was a huge reunion.

With people laughing and crying and hugging and exchanging contact information, it had truly been a successful artist's date for me. So after my own reunions out there on the sidewalk, I headed for the train by myself. And after that, of course, I continued to teach these music classes, although I was moving into other careers. So I was teaching less, but I got an email for an upcoming teacher refresher course a few weeks away. It would be the first without Alice.

I signed up knowing that it would be different without Alice, but I needed the refresher. Because this class was focusing on harmonies, and I really needed work on that. And the night before the training, I had a dream. And the dream featured a phone number being repeated over and over again. And at that point in my life, I knew that's Beard's contact with me.

I knew that they send messages to me in many different ways, including dreams. And I was settling into my medium ship as they call it. What I hadn't started doing yet though was right down the messages in the middle of the night. If I had been doing that, then I would have written down that phone number because it was probably significant. But in this phone number dream, after the phone number had repeated itself countless times, Alice appeared.

And she was talking to me. I was honored. Even in my dream, I felt the excitement of her finally acknowledging me. What I had been waiting for all those years since the training when she gave me all that encouragement with nodding and smiling. But she was not there in this dream to talk to me about me.

She had a message for me to deliver. She had a message for her co-teacher, Joanne, who I would see at the training the next day. In the dream, Alice said, tell Joanne that I am not going to hover around her, but I will come if she calls. And that was the whole dream. I got the impression that Alice was busy on the other side, maybe teaching, maybe working with kids, maybe something else altogether.

I don't know exactly what happens after spirits cross over. But there does seem from the little that I have been shown to be learning and progress and even jobs and projects. So this message for Joanne in this dream, this was even cooler than Alice remembering my awesome presentation of Shake My Silly's Out all those years ago, which I would have loved. But she never did remember it. No, this message was from Alice, co-founder of the company I worked for, and she was delegating an important task to me.

And I was very excited to see her. The next morning, I got up early to travel to the refresher class on harmonies in Manhattan. I walked in and there was Joanne up in front of the room, setting up, and she had a new teaching partner, a young man who I did not recognize. And you could see the sadness on Joanne's face. After all the teachers, slash students got there and settled in, Joanne began the class.

She introduced her new co-teacher and she gave a short talk about Alice and how this was her very first class that she would teach without Alice. The class went wonderfully. Unfortunately, we had to demonstrate harmonies to at a time and I, you know, did not really shine there. But I got through it and I reminded everyone that I am a dancer. And after the class, I approached Joanne, who really did not know me.

And I thanked her for the class. I asked her a question about harmonies. And then I told her that I am a medium and I have a message for her from Alice and would she like to hear it? And Joanne turned out to be one of those cool people who completely believes. And she said, yes, please give me the message from Alice.

So I said, Alice wants you to know that she is not going to hover over you. But if you need her, she will come if you call her. And Joanne smiled and she said, that's what I needed to know. She said she had been wondering if Alice's spirit would always be there around her. But now she knew Alice was busy on the other side and would come when calls.

And this was a clear, concise message from a departed spirit to the living, letting the living know exactly how this relationship would continue. Because these relationships don't end with death. They change and they continue. If you have enjoyed this episode of My True Ghost Stories, please take a second to review, subscribe and share it with a friend to help this show grow. And that's all for today.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. And if you think your house is haunted, want energy cleared from your space or need a custom spiritual ritual, I'm here to help. Visit jpclearing.com or email me at jpclearing60 at gmail.com. Don't forget to join me here every Tuesday for a new episode. Until next time.