Visitation 2

s the youngest of five grandchildren, I was very close to my Grandpa because when I was little my parents would drop me off at my Grandparent's house to take care of me while they were either at work, in bowling league, or taking college courses (my parents about 30 years older than I am), that and the fact that three of my cousins lived in Ohio. As I grew older and became of school age, I would go to their house after school until my parents got off work,and, on the weekends, help them do their yardwork.

As he got older, emphysema and Alzheimer's Disease took their toll on my Grandpa and he wound up in a convalescent home because my Grandma could no longer take care of him. Although his memory was going, he always remembered me, because I was always there for him. Then on a Tuesday in January, 1992, my senior year of high school, he passed away. What was strange about his passing away was that I was on my school's soccer team playing in a soccer game about five to ten miles away from the convalescent home he was in when....in the middle of the game....I heard his voice in my head. I can never forget what I heard. It was, "Goodbye, Steve." After this I had this strange feeling, sort of like when you dream of something happening to someone you know then waken by a ringing phone and to find out from the person on the other end of the line that something happened to the person you were dreaming about, it was an urgency for me to get home. I looked at my watch and it said 3:35 p.m.

After the game was over roughly, an hour later, I hurried to get my belongings and jumped on my bicycle to go to my Grandparent's house 3 miles away to see if anything was all right. As I concluded, my Grandma wasn't there....she was visiting my Grandpa just like she did every Tuesday. I still had this urgency to go home so I rode my bike the last two or three miles to my house where after I got home, my Mom arrived home 10 minutes later with a worried look on her face. She said that both she and my Dad had been trying to track me down and had not been able to track me down. I said, "What happened? Did Grandpa die?" almost in a joking manner. She said, "Yes, but how did you know?". I told her about what happened at the soccer game and the strong urgency to come home. She had asked me what time it happened, and, when I said 3:35, she told me he was declared officially dead at 3:34. It sure gave me the chills for the rest of the night.

When I went to visit my Grandma a few days later, I rang the doorbell twice (the signal we had to tell her that someone in the immediate family was there and we were coming in) and then went into the house. I saw her coming out of her bedroom, while putting on her glasses, and she asked how I got back to the front door so fast. I said what do you mean. She said that someone my height had tapped her on her feet while she was napping, waking her, said goodbye, then promptly left the bedroom. I told her it was impossible for me to be in two places at once. The only other person that ever tapped her feet to wake her from her afternoon naps was my Grandpa. We both were a little spooked about this and believe that my Grandpa was waiting to make sure everything was all right with her before moving on to the afterlife.