BRIDGEWATER — She brings grown men to tears. She leaves widows in stitches. She hears dead people, and they're talking to you.

Maureen Hancock doesn't like the term “psychic.” She describes herself as a “comedian medium,” quipping that her link to the afterlife makes her an “overseas operator.”

She performed as a stand-up comic before she worked as a medium. “It was mostly joking about being blond, or making fun of my husband,” she said.

At a recent show at Uplifting Connections Cafe in Bridgewater, Hancock “read” a room full of 50 people, delivering messages from their loved ones who have died.

She performs her show, “Postcards from Heaven,” two or three times a month at Uplifting Connections. She also does dinner shows for 150 people and smaller group sessions in her East Bridgewater office.

Hancock has been doing readings publicly for more than five years. Lately, most of her shows sell out through little more than word of mouth.

The use of humor in her readings has proved to be an invaluable tool to get people to shed their fears of connecting with the dead, she said.

“Are you two related?” she asked two brothers who attended a recent show together. They nod. “It's not that I'm psychic. You look alike,” she joked.

She shares the personalities of the departed, not just their messages.

“Your mother is showing me a pot with burned food in it ... She says you don't make her sauce right,” she told one guest.

“She doesn't make it right,” nodded a relative at the event. “Well, I make it my way,” countered the daughter, among the living.

At the recent show, Hancock connected almost every guest with someone they knew in the afterlife, drawing tears and laughter.

She attributes part of her success in drawing crowds to the popularity of new television shows such as “Medium,” in which a woman uses her connection with the spirit world to solve crimes. A network of people who have seen Hancock's work also brings in new clients.

Hancock has produced pilots for a national television show with Boston-area psychic John Holland that may yet be produced. She turned down an offer from a major producer for a spot on a reality show for psychics when she found out it would be competitive.

While a lighthearted approach is a large part of her success, she's serious about the mission behind her work as a medium.

More than a comedian, she is a healer, she says.

“I am a soccer mom who talks to the dead,” she said.

As entertaining as her performances are, most of her work is done with terminally ill patients.

Determined to do good with what she considers a gift from God, she provides therapy through the Seeds of Hope Foundation for cancer patients and their families. She provides Reiki, massage and her work as a spirit medium.

The foundation started as Manifest A Miracle, which she used to provide pain relief to cancer patients, and for patients in hospice, to ease their transition to their afterlife.

Two years ago she met fellow medium Sandy Alemian, who established a similar foundation, Seeds of Hope, and the two merged their efforts under that name.

One of nine children in an Irish-Catholic family, Hancock grew up in Stoughton. While for many, Catholicism and being a medium don't mix, Hancock said she has reconciled the two.

“I believe you find your faith in your heart,” she said.

Hancock will bring her talent to two local fundraisers, Thursday night at the Shaw's Center in Brockton to benefit victim services at Brockton Family and Community Resources, and on June 7 at Middleboro Town Hall to benefit the “Chernobyl Children Project.”

The article above was found on Google and was published originally on The Enterprise at SouthofBoston.com