Questions to Ask a Psychic Medium About Loved Ones Who Have Passed Away and What They Want to Say to Me About My Life and What They Want Me to Know About Their Death and What They Want Me to Know About Their Life
Questions for a reading that covers both the life and the death: who they were before you knew them, what they were proud of and what they regretted, and how the end of their life went. Includes which of these questions your own family can answer better.
The questions
Open any question for the note
I want to ask about their life as well as their death. Which comes through more easily for you?
Why ask it
Practitioners differ, and the answer tells you where the hour is best spent. It also gives them an opening to say that they do not deal with circumstances of death, which is much better established before you ask than after.
What sort of person do you think they were?
Why ask it
Ask this before you have said anything about them. Character is harder to produce than facts, and what you are listening for is whether the awkward parts are there, since a description with no difficulty in it fits almost anyone.
What did they do with their days?
Why ask it
Work, habits, and the small routines of a life are specific and checkable in a way that sentiment is not. Look for something odd and particular rather than a category that would cover half the population.
Is there a physical detail you are getting?
Why ask it
Broad description is easy and particulars are hard: a limp, a ring worn on the wrong hand, something they always did with their hands. Ask for the particular, and do not fill in the general version when it is offered instead.
Is there a part of their life I never knew about?
Why ask it
Almost every parent had years you were not present for. An answer naming a place, a period, or a job can be checked against records and older relatives, while one describing hidden depths cannot be checked against anything.
Who mattered to them that I might not know about?
Why ask it
A first marriage, a friend, a colleague, sometimes a child. These are checkable through records and living relatives, and they are also where families discover something they were not prepared for, so consider in advance whether you want it.
Was there something they wanted to do and never did?
Why ask it
Most people have one, and the specific version is more convincing than the generic one. Travel and reconciliation are the safe answers available for anybody; a particular unfinished plan is not.
What were they proudest of?
Why ask it
Expect to be told it was you or the family, since that is what fits every sitter in the chair. What is worth more is something they never claimed out loud, especially if it turns out to be verifiable through someone who knew them.
What did they regret?
Why ask it
Harder to answer than pride and therefore more informative. A regret that matches the real shape of their life, including the unflattering parts, carries far more weight than a general wish for more time with the people they loved.
Is there anything about our family further back?
Why ask it
Claims about earlier generations sound impressive and are unusually easy to make, since nobody alive can contradict them. Treat any specific name, place, or trade as a lead to check in civil records rather than as something established.
What would they want remembered about them?
Why ask it
A good question to sit with regardless of what comes back, because the answer you form yourself is the one that lasts. If the reply is a version of being remembered with love, that is a sentiment rather than an answer, and you can supply better.
Is there anything they would want said on their anniversary or at a memorial?
Why ask it
This one has a practical use afterwards, whatever you conclude about its source. Ask for wording rather than a theme, and write it down, because a phrase is usable and an impression is not.
Is there anything about the end of their life they would want me to know?
Why ask it
Framed like this it invites the last months rather than the last minutes, which is usually what families actually need. Anything factual about the death itself belongs with the clinical team or the medical records, where it can be answered.
Were the last months more than just the illness?
Why ask it
After a long decline, families often find that illness has crowded out everything else in their memory. Whatever comes back, this is a piece of remembering worth doing yourself, with photographs and with people who saw them during that period.
Did they suffer at the end?
Why ask it
Almost everyone asks and almost everyone is told no. The answer you can rely on is in the medical notes and with the palliative or hospice team, both of which a family can normally ask to go through with them.
Is there anything about their death you would rather not tell me?
Why ask it
This gives the practitioner permission to withhold and gives you a moment to decide whether you want it. It also shows whether they will edit for your sake or simply say whatever arrives, which is worth knowing about them.
Is there anything you are picking up that does not sound like them at all?
Why ask it
Asking for the misses is more useful than collecting the hits. Someone willing to say that a detail seems wrong is being straight with you, and the pieces that do not fit are usually what you will think about later.
Which of the things you have told me came from something you already knew?
Why ask it
A blunt question, and honest answers exist: an obituary, a post online, the form you filled in when booking. A practitioner who acknowledges ordinary sources becomes more credible about the rest of it, not less.
Would you write down the details about their life so I can ask my relatives?
Why ask it
This turns the hour into a starting point for research you can actually finish. Aunts, uncles, photographs, and civil records answer questions permanently, and the answers do not need to be revisited every few months.
Which of my questions is better asked of my family than of you?
Why ask it
A generous question, and revealing. Someone who names several is being honest about the limits of a reading, while someone who says everything can be answered here is discouraging you from asking anyone else.
A life and a death are two different conversations
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Splitting the hour
Decide before you go how much of the time you want on their life and how much on their death, and say so at the start. The two pull in different directions: questions about a life tend to produce material you can check with relatives, while questions about a death tend to produce reassurance that cannot be checked at all. If you only have an hour, the life is usually the better use of it, partly because the factual questions about a death have somewhere else to go. Keep the last few minutes for asking what was said before you spoke, which is the part you will want when you listen back.
Recovering a life without a reading
- Interview the oldest people in the family now, with a recorder running. This is the work that becomes impossible later, and most people are glad to be asked.
- Go through photographs with someone who was there. Names, places, and years come back in company far better than alone.
- Civil records, censuses, service records, and old newspapers will settle dates, jobs, addresses, and marriages, usually for very little.
- Ask their friends and former colleagues rather than only the family. They hold the years the family never saw.
- Write down what you already know before you ask anyone else, including what you are unsure of. That list is what makes the interviews useful.
Where the questions about the death belong
- The clinicians who were present. Many hospitals and hospices will meet a family months afterwards to go through what happened.
- The medical records, which next of kin can usually request, and which contain timings, medication, and what was observed.
- The post-mortem report and the coroner, medical examiner, or equivalent authority where you live, if the death was referred to them.
- The palliative or hospice team, who can speak to pain and awareness at the end with reference to notes rather than impression.
- For a death still under investigation, the officer assigned to the family, who is usually the only person allowed to tell you what is known.
Claims about earlier generations
- Nobody alive can contradict a claim about a great-grandparent, which is exactly why such claims are easy to make.
- Be careful with anything about parentage, an unregistered child, or money that went missing. These reshape how families see each other and cannot be undone.
- Treat every specific as a lead: a name, a town, a trade, a year. Records will confirm or dismiss them properly.
- Do not present anything from a reading to relatives as established family history.
- Notice if an intriguing thread is left unfinished with the suggestion that another session would follow it up.
Afterwards
Listen back after a few days and split your notes in two: what was offered before you spoke, and what came after. Follow the checkable details as far as they go, because a detail that holds up is worth taking seriously and one that collapses is worth knowing about. Keep whatever helped and let the rest be. If the wish to keep hearing about them is what draws you back, the sturdier version of that is the remembering you can do with your own family: recorded conversations, photographs, and written notes that stay answered. Bereavement support through a hospice, a charity, a place of worship, or your doctor is available for months at little or no cost, and none of it asks you to give up anything you believe.