Ray Liotta

From the age of about nine I have been smitten with Ray Liotta's face. It's no secret that he was the sort of good looking that almost seems like it can't possibly be human. Human is flawed, and Ray had no flaws, according to me. Factor in that tough guy exterior with those warm blue eyes, and it was enough to keep my attention for a lifetime. I'm a middle aged woman now, and I can safely say that Ray Liotta has been the love of my life. He was my literal dream man ...

What I now understand about Ray is that he shined from the inside out. It's the reason why he seemed like such a perfect man. Ray wasn't prone to Depression, or deep sadness that overtook his  persona. He said it himself, in his after life communications with me. "I wasn't really a sad person, ya know? I guess I didn't really understand sadness the way some people do. My soul was beaten down at times, but I never lost that hope. And I like to think that I encouraged other people to keep it when they were down." Word for word, from the mouth of now deceased Ray Liotta, this is what he shared with me. 

The dead come to me in the absolute deepest private moments of my life. They arrive whether I am dressed, made up, or feeling well, Ray caught me at a vulnerable moment, as they sometimes do. Being that there are no barriers the dead have to put up with, he sensed my sadness, and the most extraordinary part of my interactions with him became about me instead of him. He sat with me, offering small pearls of wisdom, being fully present with me in my sadness. This is the kind of friend we all deserve.

He appeared to me in about his mid thirties or early forties. He wore a white button up shirt, and he appeared pensive, as if heavily invested in my woes over his passing, and general dissatisfaction, even if he was such a cheerful soul that he didn't understand it. I attempted to find questions to ask my favorite actor now that he was sitting in front of me, but it wasn't the way I had hoped to meet him. Still, we joked that his death had benefitted me, as now here he was, in my bedroom being interviewed for this blog post. He had a great sense of humor, and a gentle nature beyond the roles that he played in movies. Ray, really was the opposite of his on screen character's in life.

"The problem with being someone who chases demons away," Ray said, as we further discussed his upbeat disposition, "is that they never really go away. They just kind of stick to you." He did hint at having his battles behind closed doors. I just don't think that's the kind of energy he wanted to share with the world. It was a very active thing on his part, to only bring the best of himself to all situations. He was our happy friend, the one we could count on to lift us up, whether in real life on a personal level, or via the movie screen in a theater. And I think that's what was so magnetic about him. It's what pulled us in, whether we sensed it subconsciously or knew it consciously.

"The comfort of another is one of the greatest gifts you can give to somebody, but the key to making that matter, or count, is giving it selflessly, without any expectations. It is only then that you can shatter the illusion that most people have that love is something that is exchangeable. That the only way to be loved is to purchase it. Those are my last words." Ray loved life, and he genuinely loved people. He loved his fans, even if at times they overwhelmed him. If you approached him to compliment his work, or tell him you loved a certain role, he was open to that kind of praise. It was the other kind of fan who idolized him and put him on a pedestal that made him uncomfortable. 

Ray was very much a no non-sense, no bullshit, I refuse to buy into my own hype type of person. That part of his typical tough guy exterior was true to Ray's real life nature. When I asked him, as I do with most of my dead clients, "what was your favorite part of life, he said, "I loved it all. I loved every bit of it." He was obviously heartbroken at having to leave behind his daughter, and the love of his life. Ray was someone who appreciated life, who fought hard for the life he wanted to live, and wasn't disappointed. 

"I don't think I felt really loved until much later in life," again he hints at his unspoken demons he chose to slay behind closed doors. In the end, this interview wasn't done for Ray. It was done for me. He wasn't trying to leave behind a message for everyone to read, or put himself above anyone else. He spoke directly to me, and only me, saying what he knew he could share with me, based on his own dark night of the soul, to bring me comfort. Whether or not I chose to write about it, was completely up to me. That was Ray in a nutshell.