There's More to Life Than This by Theresa Caputo

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction

Submitted by Gerti

Brassy Hicksville-native Theresa Caputo has become famous as the Long Island Medium, and not only has a TV show with that name, but also tours the country giving psychic readings, and was recently in Merrillville doing the same.

I’ll say first that I am a fan of the show, and did want to buy tickets for her performance at the Radisson Star Plaza, but was ultimately unable to do so. I picked up the book as I have always been a believer in “the other side”, but my father’s death last year and the passing of a number of other beloved relatives and friends in 2013 had me searching for a little more confirmation about that.

This book heartily supplies that confirmation for me. Caputo starts the book discussing her early life and how hard it was to make peace and understand the gift of channeling the voices of the departed. It was very believable to me that as a young person, such images and messages would be hard to integrate into her life, even for her family and friends. Finally she meets someone who can help her accept and fine-tune her gift, and then she becomes the Theresa Caputo so many people recognize and love. The book is written in that unmistakable voice of hers and includes moments of her irreverent and unexpected humor as well.

But this book is more than a mere biography, and more than a listing of the successful readings she has had with people. Caputo works to examine larger issues for her readers – why she sees a Christian God when she channels, what happens to children who die, and whether many of us are given signs from beyond that we simply fail to see because they are not what we are expecting.

Even more heartening for people who have lost loved ones, Caputo maintains that those who die (not matter how) are always happy as they wait for the chance to return to earth in another form. This sounds more like Hinduism than it does Catholic doctrine, but Caputo is undeterred. She says family groups tend to go through life cycles together again and again, so in theory my father who passed will be reborn as my grandchild in 20 years or so. The people we loved apparently wait in “heaven” until they find a family they want to reconnect with, and come back to earth to learn a virtue they failed to grasp in their last life.

That is strangely comforting, as is her contention that our pets are also in “heaven”, and that sometimes our pets channel messages from those we love as well, since they are more psychically attuned. Yes, I’ll grant that for those who don’t believe it all sounds a bit mad. But for those of us who want to believe “there is more to life than this” (her title), Caputo’s book hits just the right note, and although I won’t buy a copy (sorry, Theresa!) I recommend those who need comfort after losing a loved one to find it in this book, whether it’s bunk or not.