SAUGUS — Psychic medium Lisa Lanno will convey messages from the dead to their loved ones for two hours Sunday.
The Revere native and Massachusetts-based spirit medium and paranormal researcher hosts group and individual readings and helps with missing person and murder cases.
On Sunday from 5-7 p.m. at the M.E.G. Foundation Building on Essex Street in Saugus, Lanno will give readings to audience members to help Saugus residents Sharon Genovese and Kristin Callahan raise money for the Boston Marathon Cancer Walk, a 14-mile trek they will take part in in September.
“This is my fourth year walking in it,” said Genovese. “I have lost many family members to cancer. The suffering they all went through — this is a little thing I can do to help make sure other people don’t have to go through it. I want to help find a cure so that no one else will have to go through it.”
Genovese, who married Lanno’s cousin, said she had only ever met the medium one time before she attended one of her events. During a reading, Lanno handed Genovese a pink rose and wished her a happy birthday.
“When I was young, my father planted a Rose of Sharon bush for my birthday and, every year, I would have pink roses on my birthday cake,” said Genovese.
Lanno, a Revere native, said she didn’t realize her medium abilities until she was 54 years old. After the death of her oldest daughter’s friend, she closed her eyes and felt her presence.
“I felt like she was with me,” said Lanno. “I said ‘Amber, can you show me something that I wouldn’t know?’ She was looking into a mirror and she got two pink blouses. One was very high cut and one was low cut. I felt like she got right into my face and said ‘don’t let them put my hair back.’”
Later, she found out that the girl’s family was deciding between two pink shirts to dress her in for her burial. When Lanno learned the mortician was planning to put her hair in a ponytail, Lanno and her daughter told the girl’s mother about her vision.
Lanno said she was freaked out by her first communication, but soon realized it was a gift she could share with people who weren’t able to communicate with the deceased. She now schedules regular events, which she calls Messages From The Other Side.
“A few of us are given the gift — sometimes it’s a curse — the ability to hear from other people’s loved ones,” said Lanno, who said she most often has visions that convey messages the night before a reading, though sometimes they come in mid-conversation or just before she takes the stage.
“It’s like being the lead singer in the band and you don’t know what you’re singing,” said Lanno. “You can’t see your backup or what kind of instruments they have. You have to hope when they start playing, that you know the words.”
She has been giving professional readings for nine years.
Tickets to the fundraiser can be purchased for $25 each at LisaMLanno.com/events.
