Beyond the Grave: One Person's Journey from Undertaker to Medium TRANSCRIPT

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Welcome to the Remembering Life podcast. I'm your host, Gail Marquardt. Every month we have meaningful conversations about life, death, and how we want to be remembered with guests who work in the end of life space. Today I'm speaking with Richard Schoeller, who has been working as a medium for the past 27 years. Through his work, Richard has been able to share information that has helped people move forward in their grief following a loss. I can't wait to dive in and learn more about how Richard, through his work as a medium, helps people on their grief journey. Welcome Richard, and thank you for joining me today.

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
It's my pleasure to be here with you today, Gail. Thank you for the invitation.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
So before we get into your work as a medium, because we work in the death care space, I understand you used to be a funeral director. Can you tell us a little bit about what inspired you to do that work?

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
Actually, yes, I can. To me, I think it's rather amusing. My father growing up, I have two older sisters and growing up, my father had been a drill instructor in Marines while he was raising us, he said to us, when you get into high school, I'd like you to consider what you want to do. He said, if you go into the workforce, I'll pay for a car. He said, if you go into college, I'll help pay for your education. And then he'd look at me and say, if you don't know what you want to do, I'll put you into the Marines. I was very clear that I didn't want to be a Marine at the age of, let me think, 16 going on 17, I believe it was. Yeah, 17. My grandfather passed away. My father joking around with me at my grandfather's wake, said, “Why don't you become an undertaker? No one will ever talk back to you.” And he started laughing. And as a 17-year-old kid, I laughed too, but there was something about it When my father said it, it felt right. So there was a local funeral home in the town that I grew up in. There were a couple, but through a friend of mine, his brother's best friend worked in the funeral home and I got an interview there. And at the age of 17, I started working in the local funeral home because I knew I was going to go into funeral service, both for the express purpose of wanting to help people at the most difficult time in their life, but also with a desire to know what happened to our souls after we died.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
So it sort of foreshadowed the work that you're doing now. How did that career evolve into the work that you do now as a medium?

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
So I'm amused. Yeah. That's why I tell the story the way I do because I had to come out to my parents at the age of 35 that I had this ability. But it happened at the age of 33, 16 years into funeral service, I decided to start attending a meditation class because it was a way to disconnect from the full-time work of being a funeral director. And one night I came home from a meditation class, and very simply, all four of my grandparents showed up in my bedroom that night. My logical mind was like, well, my logical mind was saying, you are dead. I can see you. I must be dying. And they responded to me, no, you're not dying. You can just see us now.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
What do you think caused that? Do you think the meditation inspired that to happen? It seems rather sudden.

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
I think that's a great question. I don't think the meditation inspired it because to take the story a little further, at 35, I was sitting in my parents' kitchen having a cup of coffee and a piece of cake with my mom and my dad. And I didn't tell them for two years that I had this ability. I kept it to myself. But my mother questioned me over the kitchen table and she asked me, she said, “What's going on with you?” She said, “The last few times you visited me and dad, you start looking around the room like there was a fly flying around. There are no flies in my house.” So I took a deep breath in and I said, “All right, mom, dad, I have this ability.” I explained to them what I had, and my mother very logically said, “I don't believe it. When you're dead, you're dead.” My father, to his credit, burst out laughing and he said, “Oh Jesus, Christmas, don't promise me you won't wear a shawl or carry a crystal ball.” So I promised my dad I wouldn't do that. That wasn't in the cards, no pun intended for me to have walked around with a turban and a shawl and a crystal ball. But my mother asked me to prove it to her. So I described an aunt of hers who had passed before I was born, and my mother said, “No, no, you could have seen pictures of her wearing that type of outfit.” And I said, “Well, mom, she wants me to inform you that she and Uncle Billy were never married.” My mother jumped up from the kitchen table and she looked at me and she yelled at me. “That's a family secret, who told you?”

And I just looked at her. I said, Mom, your aunt just told me that my father similarly was startled and very in this moment, he became militaristic. You have to tell me something only I would know. And I know that the spiritual realm gave me specific pieces in order for them to believe their son. I told my father of an aunt, he discounted the description based on my might being able to have seen a picture of her. But I referenced a childhood memory that she said was his favorite, to which point he started to weep. He said, you can't know that. Now, I told you that story for a reason because you asked me if I thought it was the meditation that prompted this, but when I did this at 35 in my parents' kitchen, when I told them about this in that moment, my father then asked me, did you always have this ability?

And in that moment, at 35, I had the memory of when I was five years old, I used to see people walking through my walls in my bedroom at night while I was trying to go to sleep. And I turned to my father and I said, “Dad, when I was five, I used to call you into my bedroom every night because I was seeing people walk through the walls. You told me I was dreaming as a kid, but one night I screamed out loud, leave me alone, and it stopped happening.” So I feel, to answer your question, Gail, that the spiritual realm waited until I had enough ego strength to deal with the awareness and then showed back up. I do feel that the meditation helped to take me and calm me down and expand my awareness, but I don't feel it was the meditation. I feel it was the spiritual realm trying to help me to get to that place of understanding.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Wow. So then your parents were believers, I presume?

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
Well, now I have to say this, honestly, they believed that I had something going on, and that was the beginning of their learning to trust what my experience was. They weren't believers that night, but over the course of time, they did come to an understanding and a belief that there was something more than this life. It's interesting because I very quickly, if you don't mind, I'm going to tell you a quick story about both my parents passing. Very simply. When my father passed, I mentally said to the spiritual realm, I need time to grieve, so I don't want to see my dad right away. And Gail, I'll tell you quite honestly, I live in the world to serve others. So I don't on a day-to-day basis, see my aunts and uncles and parents and cousins and friends, mediumship for me is of service to others.

But in this moment, three days after his passing, I was driving down to my parents' house to work with my sisters and my mom on the photo boards. And literally I felt energy in my car. I gripped the steering wheel and I'm saying to myself, don't look. Don't look, don't look. My father is sitting in the seat next to me. He pokes me in the shoulder and he says, Hey. And I looked at him. I said, “Oh, I didn't want to see you yet.” And in true military fashion, he responded, “This isn't about you.” He said, “I needed to let you know that I'm okay.” And then my grandmother leaned forward and said, “Don't worry, we have 'em.” And they both left the car. So the point of sharing that with you was that in the experience of my parents coming to believe it, they did.

To the point that after they passed, my dad showed up. And then four years later when my mother passed, I did not dictate to the spiritual realm what I thought I needed. But the day of her funeral, we were standing in the cemetery and my mother had asked me, I was no longer a funeral director, but when I was, my mother said to me, when I pass away, I want you to play this one song at the funeral home before you leave and at the cemetery, I want you to play this other song. So I said, of course, mom, whatever you need. And when she passed, I told the funeral director that was handling her arrangements at the cemetery, we're going to do a song after the priest is through, the priest completed his prayers. We put the song on, and all of a sudden my father was standing at the foot of the casket with his arm around my mother's waist, and my mother said three words to me. Her words were, “It was perfect,” meaning her funeral.

It made me feel amazing. Now, my mother was a sensitive woman, but not a flourishy over huggy, kissy, emotional. Not to say she wasn't emotional literally, but she didn't express herself that way. So her three words, it was perfect. It was perfect. But there's one more part to the story. My friend and colleague was at my mother's funeral, and she knew the spiritual realm, knew that I was questioning did I make that up in my mind? As I got to my car, my friend Sharon over to me, she said, “Did you see your mother and father standing at the foot of the casket?” I said, :Yes, I did.” She said, “Did you see both of your parents wearing the same outfits they wore to your eldest sister Valerie's wedding?” I said, “Yes, I did.” And then she said, “Did you hear your mother's three words?” I started to cry because it was my mother and father's way of helping me to not second guess what just happened, to know that it was real and they were trying to give me reassurance that she was in fact okay.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Wow. And what an incredible gift to you to have that experience.

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
I don't take it for granted. I do not take it for granted in any way. And to have my friend and colleague, Sharon, have validated the experience through the push of my parents from the spirit side of life that day was tremendous.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Right. So walk us through this a little bit. When you're just around friends, do you see the people who were important to them or are you able to turn it off? Is there an invitation that needs to be made of some kind?

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
Thank you. That's also a great question, and I'm going to tell you the relevance to this. I opened to my awareness as a medium in January of 1997. I was still a funeral director at the time. Two days after I opened into this awareness, I was directing the funeral of this woman. Now, the hearse driver was downstairs. I was at the front door awaiting the limousine to pull up. There was no one else in the funeral home chapel at this time. And the woman that I was about to bury, clearly, clearly came into my awareness, clearly. I saw her clearly. I could hear her and clearly, I could feel her. And she said to me out loud, “I know you can hear me.” And I thought, oh my God. And with that, after she said that, she said, you have to tell my husband my legs don't hurt.

And I responded mentally in my mind, I sent the thought back, okay, yeah, I'll tell your husband, but you have to go back into the chapel. So the point of this to very simplify this, is that woman followed me throughout her funeral to the final farewell with putting roses on the casket. And at the very end of the funeral, I just shared briefly, I said to her husband, I know that your wife's in a better place and that her legs don't hurt. And he wept and he thanked me for those words without knowing the truth of my statement. But the point of that, in that moment after I thought, I have to be in control of this. So at that point, I learned that it has to be closed down. So almost like turning on a television and turning off a television, you push the power button for lack of a better expression, when I'm hanging out with my friends and my relatives and when I'm walking through the local food market, the TV's off, so to speak. And when I am in session with people, that's when I open my awareness. And the simple opening to awareness of the spiritual realm is taking a breath in and inspiration. So literally taking a breath in and expanding my awareness past the physical five senses. That's the space I get to move into from a audience and clear sentient manner. And that's the space that those deceased relatives and friends who show up to a session used to convey information.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
So yes, let's explore that more. You talked about people showing up to a session. I imagine a lot of people come to you wanting to learn about a specific loved one. Are you always able to do that? How does that part of it work?

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
That's a great question, Gail, and thank you. That part of it. How does it work? First, I cannot make a promise to anyone's presence because that's not a promise I can keep it. Mediumship is not my searching out a particular person and pulling them in. That is not the process of mediumship. I encourage a client before they come to a session to put out thoughts, let's say invitations to the friends and family members who have passed away. And I ask the clients to keep an open mind to who does show up, because while they may hope to hear from one particular relative or two, one of them or two of them, or three of them, one, two or three other relatives might show up or one of them that they hope for might, but one may not. It's not an on-demand system, so to speak.

So well, I guess the best way I can say it is the way that I said it, is that if a client comes with a hope, yes, with a desire, yes, but with the understanding that that person or those persons may not step into a session, then it's going to be a lot easier for all of us. But I still hold the same hope as the client. I hope the people, they hope for show up, but I can't make a promise that I can track them down, that I can go get them, so to speak.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
So do you know anything in advance? Like if I would come to you and say, I wanted to see my grandmother. Am I supposed to tell you that? Am I supposed to give you something of hers? Do you need information or objects to be able to do this?

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
Thank you. First, let's clarify giving me an object. I would then be able to ize that object, which means reading the energy of the object by holding it in a hand. That is not what I do. And no, you would not give me information in advance of your arrival for a session. If you were to reach out to me, I would take your name, your telephone number, and your email address and just say, okay, I've got you down for a Thursday at 1:30. And then you would show up on the Thursday at 1:30. And I would sit and open my awareness. And for the sake of my calendar, yes, I've got your number and your email address because for my calendar, if God forbid I wasn't able to make the appointment or my assistant sends you an email of confirmation with datetime, et cetera. But it's not that I'm given information in advance and I wouldn't want that, and I don't want pictures or objects. You are more than welcome. If you wanted to hold, let's say your grandmother's handkerchiefs, you're more than welcome to do that. But that's not how I connect to your family members. That's again, psych traumatizing something. I just open my awareness and share with you the people who do show up.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
So is this a two-way street? If I wanted to ask a question of a loved one, would you be able to facilitate that and bring an answer back? Or is it strictly what the loved ones want to share?

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
Share? So part of me goes, wow, wouldn't that be phenomenal if it could be as easy as a conversation literally? And yet at the same time, there is communication occurring at the same time. And if you have a question, I'm not as a medium, I just keep my awareness open. And I'll say to you at different times during a session, do you need to ask anything? Am I making sense about what I'm sharing with you from your, let's just say grandmother in this moment. So since you brought that relationship up in your question, I might say to you, do you need to ask anything of your grandmother? Now before we start a session, I go through an informed consent explaining things to you about what might occur. And one of the things I say is if you ask a question, I cannot promise an answer because it's not mine to answer.

But let's say you want to know where your grandmother hid her diamond ring, and you ask it. If grandmother shows me, I'm going to say, oh, I'm seeing an image of a pink fuzzy bathrobe, her wrapping the ring in tissue paper and putting it in the pink fuzzy bathrobe pocket. And if grandmother doesn't respond, I'm going to say to you, Gail, I know you want to hear about your grandmother's diamond ring, but she's not giving me a response to it. Now there's one more part to this. That's if you have a specific question. But I also encourage clients to allow for the session to evolve, because many times in a session, the spiritual realm will have answered questions that the client might have had in their mind or in their awareness before the session began.

So I don't know if that makes sense to you, but I'll qualify this one more time. Many times the spiritual realm will answer the question that you have before you ask them. And during a session, I do create an opportunity here and there for a question to be asked, but at the same time, it's not meant for you to become, let's say, a journalistic reporter and just keep asking questions because the purpose behind the mediumistic communication is just as much important to them to convey the things that they needed to convey. If I can go back to what I said about my dad when I said three days after he showed up and I was like, oh, dad, I didn't want to see you yet. He said to me, this isn't about you. This is about my need to have let you know that I was okay. So the reason for bringing that back into the explanation is because your question is such that you may have questions that they may not feel are necessary, so they may not respond to it. They may respond to questions before you ask, but also, if the questions become the primary focus, they may redirect it so they can say more, and your questions may not be as relevant to them in that moment. I hope that made sense.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Yeah, that makes total sense. I think you're stressing also the importance of the client maintaining an open mind.

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
Yes, absolutely. Mediumship connection and a session is not about the medium and what they're able to do. It's not just about the spiritual realm and the relatives who are showing up. It is what I consider to be level of three part harmony between the medium and the client, the client and their family and spirit and their family and spirit, and those family members' ability to use the medium to convey information. I shouldn't say use the medium, I should say, work with the medium's ability to convey information.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
So is this experience generally comforting for clients? Do they ever learn something that they really wish they hadn't known?

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
I hope and pray that the clients receive information that is information that is comforting. I've had, as recent as last week, a woman who sat with me 10 years ago came back to me and said that I had given her a sense of comfort about something with her husband 10 years ago, and 10 years later, he's going strong and they're living very strongly in their marital life. So hearing that is very, well, first of all, it's very nice to hear, but more importantly, there is a sense of comfort. People have walked away feeling connected to those family members who have passed. I ask the spiritual realm that as a part of my rule, I don't want to learn bad things about people and what might happen or what potentially could occur in their lives. So my rule is if the spiritual realm stepping in and they want to give their family members support in a way, it has to always be supportive. And if there's a warning about something, there has to be a solution to that warning. They're not to leave me or the client with information that's not helpful. My hope and prayer is that in the 27 years that I've been doing this, that the work that I've done has been helpful and hopeful to the people I've sat with.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Yeah. So do you think connecting with loved ones provides comfort? Or the better question is, does what you do help a person better accept a death and move forward in their grief?

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
Yes. In my experience, I've had men and women come back to me and thank me because it helped them to move through their grief process. I've had men and women come back to me thanking me because it helped them to know that the relationship that they shared with an individual or family members has. Yes, it's changed that those family members have moved from a physical expression in this world into the spiritual realm. And in that way, they know that their family members are still active and very much alive in the spiritual realm, and that there will be a reunion and a reconnection in the future. So I do feel that it helps to bring comfort to those people who are grieving loss.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
I would think it would.

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
Yeah, I'm thinking even from my own personal perspective in the moments that my parents stepped in prior to their funeral and at their funeral, my father prior, and my mother at it helped to ease my own mind. And here I am, a former funeral director and currently working in the world as a professional medium. So yes, it does give comfort to know that those relationships continue even past the point of death.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
This is a really powerful gift that you have. What lessons have you learned from being a medium and how has it affected or changed how you live?

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
Well, Gail, thank you for that question. I'm smiling and laughing. Obviously, I worked with this woman, God bless her in the funeral home, Mary, she was a very dear woman and dear friend for the years that I worked with her. And when I left funeral service, I still maintained my friendship with her until her passing. And she said to me after I left funeral service and pursued my mediumistic ability and that as a career, she said, my God, I've never seen you this alive. And so I'm laughing because I can smile. That mediumship and the connection with the spiritual realm has helped me to, well, I hope not take life for granted and to really treasure and cherish the experiences we have, whether they be, no matter what the experience is, I don't have to qualify them. And the other thing it's taught me is to be as clear with people as I can, the people I love in my life and the friends to make sure that I express love to them, that I don't want to come through a medium after I've passed to convey to Gail, “Hey, Gail, that was a great interview.”

If you survived me, I don't want to have to come back and say it was great. I'm telling you right now. I'm enjoying our time together. Okay. I don't want to come back through a medium to say to you, “Hey, we had a great time back in that day.”

GAIL MARQUARDT:
I was going to ask you about that. If being a medium has inspired you to talk more openly with your friends and family about things they may want to know or express those feelings to them so they have fewer questions after you're gone, is that

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
I don't know if they'll have fewer questions because through developing my mediumistic ability, I find that every question that I get answered leads me to two more questions. So I don't know that we'll ever get complete understanding to all of our questions in the relationships with friends and family. They may not, if I pass, they may not have all of their questions answered, but the experience of being in relationship with each other and being able to feel complete and loving with each other before we go, I think that's the most important part. And I have to say that even in my own family, they don't openly accept what I do. How do I say this? My sisters both love me and I love them, and we get along exceptionally well. We have great relationships and we do agree to disagree about the process of mediumship and how I do it, but the point of saying that they still love me and support me in who I am, and I love them no matter what. And maybe when we cross, maybe the three of us will get together and then rehash the conversations we had here and see if we agree more with one over the other.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
That could be a whole separate conversation.

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
I agree with you because I'm ready to burst out laughing and also thinking, both of my sisters are older sisters, so I always give them a lot of credit because of their wisdom due to being two years and a few years more older than I am.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
And that whole afterlife question of what really happens, I mean, to a large extent, it is still quite a mystery, but you get really close to what the afterlife might look like. Very interesting. I have a few more questions for you. I want to switch gears slightly. I'm always fascinated by the answer to this question. What famous dead person would you like to share a meal with and why?

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
That's a wow. It's hard to narrow down one in particular because two come to mind.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
You can have two,

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
But thank you. Thank you. That's great. But in this moment, the part of my understanding is I want to go to Abraham Lincoln. If I could have a meal with Abraham Lincoln, that to me would be an amazing experience because I admired growing up as a kid and learning about history in elementary school, junior high school, the Civil War was always fascinating to me. Abraham Lincoln as a president was always fascinating to me. So I would have to say that I would love to sit across from him. I even know that meal I would want, it would be a very simple roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, and some sort of greens, whether it be spinach or peas or broccoli. But I've got the meal in mind, and I would treasure being able to ask him questions about his experiences as the president at that time.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Very interesting. I have to ask who the other one is, otherwise I'll be wondering.

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
Okay. So the other one is, I'm embarrassed, but it's true. It's Oscar Wilde, because I see Oscar Wilde, not that he had an easy life, but I see his writing as it was brilliant. And he lived at a time where his homosexuality was well forbidden, and yet I see him as a strong character, and I was always fascinated by him in life. So I even went as, oh God, I think how many years ago I went to Paris with my husband and my friend Bill, and at the time his partner Simone. And the first place we went to was the cemetery. And I literally, we walked around and I got to see Allan Kardec’s grave. I got to see Oscar Wild's grave. I got to see so many graves of men and women who were so interesting to me. So anyway, I'm telling a long story, but the two predominantly Abraham Lincoln and secondarily Oscar Wilde.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
I think those are both amazing answers. And now I have to ask, when you're in a cemetery, do you ever feel the energy of the people who are buried there?

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
That's a great question. And when I was a funeral director before I opened to this awareness, I never felt the energy of anybody in the cemetery. Literally, I cannot say that I was there as a funeral director. My sensitivity was not focused in any direction in that way. But if I go into a cemetery now, I can feel, not intentionally, but I can feel the depth of grief that goes with a cemetery, and I can walk around and sort of put up this energetic block so I don't feel the depth of it. But if I am not paying attention, I might experience some of the grief that is in that space.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Interesting. Wow.

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
And yet, if you take me, if I, you take me to a historic building, I have the pleasure of being with my friend and colleague, Bill in Scotland. And when we were going towards Edinburgh Castle, I could not walk into the castle. I literally had to stop and turn around because of the experience of what was done in that castle throughout history. So that was a psychic imprint in Edinburgh Castle that wouldn't, for some reason, my body, my sensitivity was saying, nope, you are not going to go in there. And I trust that sensitivity.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Wow. Yeah, because you don't know what you would've experienced on the inside and that it was better for you not to. Wow. I have one last question. I ask all of my guests this question. Who are you remembering today?

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
I am remembering right now, my friend, Darryl was a friend of mine. I met when I was first working in funeral business, I was still in high school. I was working at the local funeral home, and he was in the seminary with his vocation towards priesthood. He was working, or I don't know if you'd say volunteering, but he was interning at the church in the town I grew up in. We met outside the church one day. I had just finished directing the pall bearing funeral, and we started chatting and we became fast friends. There were times in my youth that he would come into the funeral home and if nothing was going on, we'd sit in the office and chat a bit. And then we just became friends where outside of the funeral and outside of his seminary education, we would get together and go out and we'd go to a friend's for ice cream and hamburgers.

And we had a really good friendship. And unfortunately at 35, he left this world. And when you ask who I'm thinking of today, I can hear his laughter in my head because it was this laughter that it was infectious, it, it was contagious. It people around him, if he started to laugh, you couldn't help but start laughing with him. He is not, was a beautiful soul and a brilliant man. So today there's a part of my heart that's missing his physical presence. And I say with love, since he's passed and since I've opened to this ability, he has shown up to me twice in the times that since I've opened to this ability, and again, I don't walk around in the world seeing my friends and family, but there were two particular times where things were, rather than say what was going on personally, I'll just say where the spiritual realm, I knew I could use an extra hand. And so twice in the 27 years, Darryl stepped in just to say, here, I'm with you and you're going to be okay. So I'm remembering Darryl with a great sense of love right now. Thank you for asking that.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Wow. Thank you for sharing that beautiful story. It sounds like an amazing friendship and that Darryl was really a wonderful presence in your life. So thank you for sharing that.

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
My pleasure.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
This has really been wonderful. I could probably talk to you for hours about this, but we don't have that much time. Thank you so very much for joining me today, Richard. It's really been a pleasure.

RICHARD SCHOELLER:
Well, I'll repeat. It's been my pleasure as well, and thank you for the work that you are doing in the world. I deeply appreciate it. Thanks again.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Thank you also for the incredible work that you do. Connecting people with their loved ones is some of the most meaningful work I can possibly imagine. So thank you for that as well. To learn more about honoring the lives of loved ones in meaningful ways, visit remembering life.com.