Sometimes you just know...

For as long as I can remember I have questioned the spiritual world. What has happened in the past, what will happen in the future, and if there is any way that we as people are spiritually connected to it in our subconscious. Is it possible for us to know the fates of ourselves and of others before an event actually takes place, or is life just a series of coincidences??? This is definitely an age-old question.

My father has had a gift for as long as he can remember. He just knows when things are going to happen. As with anyone who is a parent can probably attest that they can do for their own children, he just knows when I am up to something. Even as an adult he will still call me right in the middle of a dilemma or a heated conversation just to ask if I am OK. But it goes much further than this. For example, he drives by a place on the street and he will visibly shudder - 2 days later there is a horrible accident at that location. However, the best example I can give of this came when my 18 year old cousin was killed in an accident. It's never good news when the phone rings at 2am, we all know that, but out of all my elderly relatives and grandparents that could have caused this phone call, my father sat straight up in bed and said "Michael is Dead." This story still haunts me to this day.

I remember myself the first time I felt this. I guess to everyone who has experienced something like this it comes differently - sometimes in a dream, or a feeling... Mine experience speaks to me in a clear voice - not an out loud audible voice, but a voice just the same and I will never forget the first time I heard it. I was 12 years old and I was playing in my front yard - leaning on the branch of the tree with white bark by my mother's window. It was my grandmother's birthday, and I remember it stopped me in my tracks when it said "Enjoy this time, because it is the last birthday she is ever going to have with you." I burst into tears... I heard this voice so many times after - as if it was preparing me for what was to come in a way that no one else would. The next time I heard it was 4 months later -when my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. My mother broke the news to me and I went out to take a walk to sort out my thoughts. This was the end of November 1995. On my walk I heard the voice say "She will leave you around Christmas Day." I was shocked. Where on earth was this coming from?!?!?!

Fast Forward to the day after Christmas. My mother and I were in her car and she was telling me that my grandmother was getting worse and that it was a matter of weeks before we lost her. I just knew she didn't have that long. The very next day my grandmother passed. The whole day is so full of activities that I can't bear to write them all down, but I do remember one part the most. I was in her house - as I had been everyday for the last month. My dad came by on his way home from work. He said his "hello's" and then decided to go home to change and grab dinner and then he was going to come back. He asked me if I wanted to come with him. I was suddenly faced with a serious moral dilemma - I knew that by the time I came back she wouldn't be there. I decided to go... I couldn't bear the thought of watching the woman I loved with all my heart take her last breath. Looking back now I don't think she wanted me to either - I had been staying at her house everyday for a month, and the 20 minutes I left for was the time she decided to let go... I got home with my father and not 5 minutes later my uncle called - saying that she was taking a turn for the worst and we needed to get back because she only had minutes left. We jumped in the car and sped back. I was silently praying to myself in the car - asking God not to take her please... We got to a part of the Main St that intercepted a street called Garden Road, and all of a sudden I stopped praying, looked up in the sky and heard the voice tell me "She's gone." I never forgot this. I also never spoke of it again for years, but little incidents like this continued to happen regularly.

About 3 years later an aunt if mine fell ill. She had a heart attack and was in critical condition. Everyone was worried about her. My mother was sitting in the kitchen crying - worried about her aunt, and even though I had a strained relationship with her I decided to console her. I sat down next to her and said "Mom, don't worry she is going to be ok this time. She is going to recover completely and come home, but in a few more years she will get sick again, but right now she is fine" My mother was so shocked that she stopped crying and asked me "Why do you think that" I told her that I didn't know how I knew - but I just did... She looked at me and said "you are truly your father's daughter" she then told me the story of my father and my cousin, and the things he "knew" over the years. She told me I should talk to him. So I did. I entered the conversation a few moments later and told him the same thing I had told my mother about my aunt. I told him that I don't know how I knew, I just did... He looked up at me and said "I know you do. Just like you knew the night your grandmother died." I was shocked. I asked him how he knew about that. He answered "Because looking at you is how I knew she was gone. I will never forget the look in your eyes when we passed Garden Road that night" I was floored...

Since that night these feelings haven't stopped. Sometimes they are direct and sometimes they are not. The night that my house was broken into I was feeling uneasy all day. While sitting on the couch doing my homework that night I was hit with the voice in the form of a question "if someone were to walk through that door right now, what would you do? Where would you go?" I was so preoccupied with this question that I got up to double check the lock... this is how I know that the man who entered my house did it deliberately. He had to pick the lock in order to get in. Just a month ago I heard a voice in my head tell me that I would be hit on my Scooter sometime soon. I thought I had paid my due when I slipped on some oil in the street and went down in traffic, but the feeling didn't go away until 2 weeks later when a car side swiped me while making a left turn from the right hand lane. But how could I have known that?

I have tried to reason away these feelings and thoughts. I have tried to dismiss them. I have tried to discredit them. It makes me think I'm nuts sometimes for thinking these things, and giving merit to some crazy hunch. But what if it is more??? I have said before in a previous blog that I believe that there are many levels on the scale of consciousness between being awake and being dead. What if some of us are just fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to get a glimpse into these? I mean we have all heard the stories - of people who regularly dream of the future, or who have dejavoo. I'm not sure if it is fate, coincidence, a spirit, or even God himself telling me these things, all I know is that they have touched my life and peaked my curiosity enough to write about them, and ask questions of others who have had similar experiences. In a world full of so many tangible matters and issues that can be defined as only right or wrong, it makes me feel good to be reminded that there are somethings that we just aren't meant to have answers to. In this crazy busy life, there are still things that open our eyes to the beauty of possibility. They happen for a reason - to teach us a lesson, or to help someone who needs us. My personal experiences have brought me so much closer to my father - who I wasn't really close to at all before we talked, and I consider this relationship a blessing everyday. I have to say, no matter where these feelings or voices come from, I hope they never stop.