It’s kind of a joke between me and my co-editors at OnMilwaukee.com that I’m on the "tarot card beat." The truth is, I have written a few articles over the last 12 years at OnMilwaukee.com about tarot and other occult-y topics.

That said, you won’t find me booth hopping at the psychic faire or wearing my weight in crystals around my neck. And yet, and yet ...

Twice I have received a tarot reading during an OnMilwaukee.com interview and, both times, the reading was extremely poignant.

The first time was by Teresa Reed in December of 201o. My father had passed away  the month before and I was feeling blue and I asked her when I was going to feel better. She told me in the spring of 2012. 

"You have one more really hard thing to go through," she said. "It’s going to dominate 2011 but will be over by the end of the year."

I was a little unnerved at first when she said this but refused to believe it. However, a few weeks later, my friend and colleague Tim Cuprisin told me – along with the other editors – that he had melanoma. We watched him fight, struggle and finally lose his battle with cancer just a month before the year’s end. (Actually, on the same day my father died, one year later, but that's another story …)

Sure, sure it could be sheer coincidence that Theresa "saw this" in the cards. But I don’t know.

I had a second reading last week with Jen Cintrón as part of my research for the article I wrote about this fascinating woman and she expressed my biggest fear in the exact words that I use in my own head.

I can’t explain more because putting words on it seems like it would make this fear even more plausible, but I am actually taking a couple of steps to try to proactively prevent my worst feat coming to fruition.

The best I can come up with is that when someone who is really committed to tarot cards puts their best energy into a reading, it will conjure issues that resonate. I will call it an "uncanny coincidence" but I am going to attribute anything more hocus-pocus to it.

For now.