Where have you gone?
I think it may be the oldest question grief asks. It can arrive in the quiet moments: setting out two cups instead of one, reaching for the phone to ring someone, hearing a familiar laugh from a stranger across the street.
As I write this, it is a year since my dad passed. I sit with the spirit world most days of my week, and I have still caught myself asking that question.
It is also the question that started Dutch medium Danielle Nijhuis on her path into mediumship, and it sits at the heart of the conversation we recorded for Soul Sync. Going back to that conversation now, a year on from losing Dad and only weeks after he came through to me in the sanctuary at the Arthur Findlay College, I hear it differently. So rather than retell Danielle's story, I want to sit with the question itself: what it asks of us, what it asked of her, and what it has asked of me this year.
The question underneath grief
Grief researchers have a name for this part of loss. The psychologist John Bowlby and the British psychiatrist Colin Murray Parkes, who spent his working life alongside bereaved people, described a phase of yearning and searching. You know the person has died, and part of you keeps looking for them anyway: in familiar places, in a scent on a jumper, in a voice in a crowd.
I find something deeply human in that. The mind understands what has happened, and the heart keeps looking. Parkes is often quoted as saying that the pain of grief is just as much a part of life as the joy of love. The searching, in other words, is love that still has somewhere to go.
As a medium, I would add one thing. Sometimes the heart is looking in exactly the right direction.
Danielle's search
Danielle was 24 when someone she loved deeply passed suddenly to the spirit world. She had been raised Catholic, and the answers she had grown up with didn't fit the size of what she was feeling. If there was a heaven where everything was at peace, where was he now? What about judgement, and personal responsibility? Nobody could tell her.
Then things started happening at home. Lights came on and off. She heard words spoken out loud, outside her own head. She told me, very simply, that she thought she was going crazy, so she went to her doctor. She was told she was too sensitive and hadn't accepted her grief.
Danielle was far from alone. In 1971, a Welsh GP called Dewi Rees interviewed 293 widowed people in mid-Wales for a study published in the British Medical Journal. Almost half of them had seen, heard or sensed their husband or wife after the death. Most had never told anyone, not even close family, and Rees concluded the experiences were a normal and helpful part of grieving. Researchers now call them after-death communications, and they have been studied all over the world since.
Something else Danielle said has stayed with me. The counselling she received helped, she told me, but it seemed to expect grief to move in a straight line, and hers didn't. Grief research has moved a long way on this. Two researchers at Utrecht University in her own country, Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut, developed what they called the Dual Process Model. Their idea is that healthy grieving moves back and forth: we turn towards the loss, then turn back towards rebuilding life, then towards the loss again, with rest in between. It is less a ladder and more a tide.
What none of it could give Danielle was an answer to her question. So she went looking for one herself, first at a demonstration of mediumship and then at a workshop where, on the anniversary of his passing, she saw a spirit person with her own eyes for the first time.
When an answer arrives
In 2012 Danielle made her first visit to the Arthur Findlay College. She expected to learn about platform mediumship. Instead she found her name on a list for a trance and physical mediumship week with the late Glyn Edwards, a teacher I only know through his books and his Sitting in the Power recordings. She was frightened and told him she didn't belong there. He suggested she give it three days. She never left.
That week led her, over the following years, to sit with physical mediums, including Scott Milligan and David Thompson. At one séance with David Thompson she took her dad along, aged 65, as an independent checker, sitting right at the front to make sure everything was above board. A child guide called Timothy called out her name. Then, as she describes it, the person she had lost at 24 materialised. He spoke to her in Dutch, a language the medium doesn't speak. He touched her and kissed her forehead. And he apologised to her dad.
It lasted about five minutes. "That was long enough," she said, "to say, okay, I accept." That was her pact: if the spirit world could answer her question, she would spend her life serving it.
I have sat in very few séances myself, and I know a story like this asks a lot of anyone hearing it for the first time. What moves me most is the shape of the answer more than the phenomenon itself. He was still recognisably himself. He still knew her. And he still cared about putting something right.
Healing goes both ways
That apology is the part of Danielle's story I keep returning to this year.
It suggests that the people we love don't simply stop where they left off. Something was still being mended on his side, too. Danielle's guide, John, says much the same in her book about guides and the spirit world: that in working with us, they are learning and developing as well, and deepening their love along the way.
Grief research has its own language for this. For much of the last century, healthy grieving was understood as gradually letting go. Since the 1990s, the idea of continuing bonds has taken hold instead: the relationship with the person who died carries on, in a changed form, and can keep growing. I don't need a study to tell me that, because I have watched it happen with my own dad.
A year with my dad in the spirit world
Dad came through to me quite soon after he passed, and I have written about some of his messages before. We had a fiery relationship in this life, and our relationship has kept developing since he died. My grief has changed shape over the year too, as grief tends to.
What has surprised me is how much he has changed in the way he communicates. Each time he has come through, it has been a little clearer and a little more confident, as though he has been learning the language of the spirit world, and learning how to speak it through someone else.
A few weeks ago I spent a week at the Arthur Findlay College immersed in trance mediumship. I went in with a very open mind, and I came home feeling healed in so many ways. That week, Dad came through one of my teachers, Eileen Davies, in the sanctuary.
[Optional: a line or two of what Dad said, in your own words, if you would like to share it publicly.]
The words of love he gave me touched my heart more than I can easily put into words. As a medium, I know how much effort it takes the spirit world to blend with us, to be understood and to get even one clear sentence across. I can only imagine what it took for him. And it showed me something I hadn't fully let myself believe: he has healed too.
There was one more thread I only discovered while writing this. Danielle's teachers over the years include Eileen and Christine Morgan, the same two mediums whose teaching shaped mine. Two mediums from two countries, shaped by the same teachers. I love that.
How grief has changed my mediumship
Grief is the foundation of what I do. Not every reading begins with a loss, but most of them touch one. Someone sits down with me holding a name in their heart, and none of us knows who will step forward.
My mediumship has changed this year, and so has my understanding. I have been on the receiving end of messages from my own dad, so I know from the inside what a single detail can mean when it lands. That is why I work the way I do. I ask sitters to answer only yes, no, don't know or maybe, so that what comes through is from the spirit world rather than from me. (I explain what happens during a mediumship reading step by step, if you would like to know more.) Evidence matters because it answers the real questions underneath the first one: are they still themselves, and are they still with me?
Evidence is only part of it, though. What I want most for every sitter is to feel the presence of the person they love, not only to hear about them. That is where I have seen healing happen.
If you are grieving and wondering about a reading
The right moment to see a medium is a personal one, and you are the best judge of it. Some people book within weeks; others wait years. A few gentle questions can help:
What are you hoping for? Evidence that they are still themselves, a sense of their presence, or the chance to say something left unsaid?
How would you feel if someone else came through first? The spirit world decides who steps forward, and sometimes it is the person we least expected.
Who is around you? A reading can sit alongside the support of friends, family and grief services, and it often works best that way.
Researchers are only beginning to study what readings mean for bereaved people. Julie Beischel and her colleagues at the Windbridge Research Center have suggested that readings with mediums may help some people by affirming that continuing bond rather than asking them to let go. The research is still early, and I would rather tell you that honestly.
If grief feels heavy right now, talking to someone can help. In the UK, Cruse Bereavement Support offers free support, with a national helpline on 0808 808 1677. And if after-death experiences ever leave you frightened or unsettled, your GP is a good first step.
Mediumship begins with your story
I asked Danielle to leave us with a final thought. She said that mediumship is not a gift, in the sense of being handed to a chosen few. We all have a story, she said, and wherever we are in life, the spirit world is walking with us.
Where have you gone? A year on, my honest answer is: closer than I thought. Life is eternal, love keeps reaching for us, and every one of us is a soul of unlimited potential.
Questions about grief and mediumship
Where do our loved ones go when they die? Spiritualist mediums understand the spirit world as a different state of consciousness rather than a distant place. Many mediums describe it as being all around us, more like a frequency we can attune to than somewhere far away. Our loved ones continue as themselves, with their personality, memories and love intact.
Is it normal to sense a loved one after they die? Yes. In a landmark 1971 study, almost half of 293 widowed people in mid-Wales had seen, heard or sensed their husband or wife after the death. Most had told no one, and the researcher regarded the experiences as normal and helpful. If such experiences ever feel frightening or distressing, speak to your GP.
Can a medium help with grief? Many people describe a reading as deeply comforting, especially when the evidence is clear and they feel the presence of the person they love. Early research suggests readings may help some bereaved people by affirming a continuing bond. A reading works best alongside other support, such as family, friends and bereavement services.
Do our loved ones heal in the spirit world? In my experience, and in the experience of many mediums, yes. People who were unwell or troubled in life often come through at peace, and their communication can grow clearer over time. Danielle Nijhuis's story of a loved one apologising to her father suggests that mending continues on their side too.
How soon after a death can I see a medium? It is a personal choice. Some people book within weeks and others wait years. It can help to think about what you are hoping for, and to remember that the spirit world decides who comes through.
Listen, learn and connect
Listen to the full conversation with Danielle at the top of this page, or on the Soul Sync podcast page. New episodes go out every Monday and Thursday.
Find out more about Danielle. Danielle Nijhuis is a medium, healing medium, trance medium and teacher based in Enschede in the Netherlands, where she runs the Soulconnections training centre. She is a certified teacher and healer with the Spiritualists' National Union, and she spent ten years as a psychic and medium on Dutch television. Visit soulconnections.nl, read her story, explore her trance circle and training, or follow her on Instagram. Her book, Medium tussen twee werelden (Medium Between Two Worlds), about grief, transition and spiritual awakening, is available in Dutch from Boekscout.
Read more on grief. Steven Trolland's story of grief and stillness is in When Grief Won't Let You Quiet the Mind.
Explore your own sensitivity. Join our free online development circle on Tuesday evenings, or the weekly Mediumship Development Class I teach with trance medium Donna King. You can read more about how I teach.
Book a reading. If you would like to connect with someone you love in the spirit world, you are welcome to book a mediumship reading on Zoom, wherever you are in the world.
