Now this is going to sound totally kooky, and it is I suppose, but it happens and I have no explanation for it. Perhaps science will figure these things out someday!
I was close in an odd way to my grandmother. She lived hundreds of miles away and I rarely saw her, but I resemble her a great deal and she felt this gave us a "special connection" (she was
very oddly superstitious). We loved the same things, right down to the same favorite color.
When she became ill and had broken her hip the second time, they took her out of her own home. This about killed her as she was a VERY independent woman and always swore she would, "die on this mountain!", but 'for her own safety' they set her up in a home next to my uncle. This was the beginning of the end for her and we would talk in a strange kind of "code" about it because who wants to come out and say "I want to die"? She withered away until finally she lay dying in the hospital. My family, of course went to be by her side. That is, everyone but me.
The night before we left I heard her voice, plain as day, say to me, "Don't worry about me honey. Don't come down here and stand and stare at me all sick. I'm on my way home." I'll never forget those words
My not going down caused a huge fight, but how could I explain? I just told them that I knew that she didn't want people staring at her all weak like that and that I prefer to remember her as she was. My father refused to speak to me for years over this. YEARS.
Two nights later I was suddenly awakened... like when you wake up when you hear a loud noise. That was when the strangest thing that's ever happened to me happened. There, at the foot of my bed, stood my grandmother. "Don't be afraid now!" she said. "I've just come to say goodbye as it's my time. Never forget who and where you
really come from honey. And don't you let anyone keep you from riding those horses!" and she was gone. I was WELL awake by this point and thought enough to look at the clock by my bed, so I could check if this had been real. The time was 11:42, three minutes after my grandmother's death.
The "horses" comment came from our shared love of horses. Sadly, when she was growing up at the turn of the century it wasn't 'proper' for a girl or lady to EVER ride a horse. She would play hookie from church to go ride the horses her father raised
My parents didn't like me riding either, as they considered it unsafe and unproductive, but my grandmother badgered them so badly about it I finally got lessons, competed, and eventually got my own horse. This made my grandmother exceedingly proud. In her living room she had proudly displayed a picture of me taken at a show. She told me it was one of her most prized possessions.
My grandmother still speaks to various family members, and not even in dreams. I know that makes us sound like a bunch of nutcases, but she really does. At very apt times, too. She was a kind of "spooky" woman, from a long line of what is known in those parts as "granny women", who would probably be burned as witches anywhere else. For example... she once told me when I was about ten that I had "special powers" and would probably make a good healer, but she couldn't tell me what those powers are or they would disappear. She was one fascinating woman!
And that's my kooky story!
Dana