A Question of Ethics

I was confronted with is odd situation and felt the sting of the pros and cons of my final decision.

This all began when I was invited to visit the parents of a schoolteacher I knew.  The teacher, (Pat) told how I was able to do things psychically that were outstanding and spooky. Pat wanted it to be a family outing and for the fun of it I agreed to the trip.

I sat in the back seat with Pat’s son Allen and daughter Vicky. I first met Vicky when I did some legal work for the company she worked for.  Pat’s parents were Marge and Oliver. They lived on a farm that straddled the states of New York and New Jersey

The farm was huge and had a number of buildings on it. As soon as we arrived Vicky whispered in my ear, I hate my grandmother. I let the comment pass.

After meeting Marge and Oliver, Marge quickly asked, “Is there anything you, see about me?”  I said this sounds odd, but I see both you and Oliver, years ago, standing by a wooden fence with a horse.  I could see you remove the feedbag from the horse, turn it upside down, put it on your head and dance the Charleston. 

Everyone in the room kept quiet and stared at me.  After an awkward 10 seconds, Marge said, we were dating at the time and Oliver was the largest producer of feedbags in the country.  She said she remembered doing that. At the time she was a dancer at a speakeasy and was showing off.  She said, “It must have worked, we got married a few months later.”

I asked, “Why do I see soldiers from World War II here?”  

Oliver replied, “There was an army base near here during the war and I had the only tavern in the area.  We served beer and made good food. A lot of that food was grown right here.”

We all broke off in separate groups and Vicky cornered me and said her grandmother was very judgmental of her. Criticizing  the men she dated, her job, her weight and even her makeup.

This was not my concern, but I couldn’t prevent images that entered into my head.  Those images were disturbing, Good ‘ol grandma was a wild one in her day.  She served more than drinks to those soldiers.  Images of Marge were rapidly pouring in.  I could see, her being arrested and the door on the police car read, Bergen County.

I said to Vicky, “If you found out bad things about your grandmother, what would it do to your mother and your brother? And when they found out that information came from me, they’d hate me.”

Vicky began to cry,  “My grandmother has been so bad us, and she couldn’t care less about our family even when my father died.”

She promised, “If you know anything about her, I will keep it to myself.  It will be my secret, and no one would never know how I got the information.”

Giving Vicky the information, was it the right thing to do?  Or would it be better to allow Vicky to live with the pain of her grandmother’s barbs?  Divulge nothing to Vicky, and let the grandmother live the rest of her life having destroyed her granddaughter, and suffering no consequences. 

I made my decision.  I told Vicky, about the arrest I saw. The records even back then were still available in the Bergen County Court House.

Monday morning, Vicky was at the Court House going through microfilms of arrests made during that time.  She found out that Marge was arrested twice for prostitution.

This information lifted a heavy weight off Vicky’s soul. Mentally and emotionally, she now had the upper hand and if push came to shove, she could put Marge in her place.

Vicky never spoke about this to her mother or brother.  She never complained about her grandmother to anyone again.  It was a closed case. The grandmother could no longer hurt Vicky and it remained that way until the deaths of both grandparents a year later.

Was my decision to give out this information the right one?   I’d like to know your opinion.