A Chilling Family Reunion

I already told you at the beginning of this month’s theme that I personally believe that either my Asperger’s Syndrome and/or my being an empath is the reason I’m sensitive to so many things such as dream predictions that come true, paranormal experiences, instincts and gut feelings that pan out, messages from the “beyond,” déjà vu, visions, feelings of dread, etc., that turn out to be right on target.  That being said, it’s not uncommon when I’m driving somewhere that I might see either a person or an animal, and someone in my close circle of friends who was looking the other way asks, “Are you sure they’re alive?”  That always makes me chuckle because, yes, they were alive.  (At least most of the time.)  My passenger just missed seeing them.

A couple of years ago, my niece, Alicia*, passed away.  She’d been in the hospital for over a month then moved in briefly with her grandmother, then into a hospice center.  While she was in the hospital here in the town where I live, I tried to go see her every day.  She lived and worked near me, and I frequently saw her when I was out running errands, and she always had the biggest hugs for her Aunt Rachel.

When she was born, her name was Alicia Williamson.*  When she was eleven, her mom met and married a wonderful man who adopted her, and her name changed to Alicia Bryan*.  During the years she was little, she spent the night with me frequently, and we had a lot of quality time together.  When she started high school, she started calling herself Lecy Bryan*.  Her friends and even her parents called her Lecy, but her grandma and a lot of her family and I still called her Alicia.  She died just a month after her twenty-seventh birthday.

A few months after Lecy passed away, I was watching an old black and white sitcom on television, and the star and the guest star were both my Facebook friends.  So I posted a status of saying that I thought it was funny that in all my years watching reruns of that show, I never dreamed that one day I’d be social network friends with those two actors, and I tagged them.

After I posted that, one of the guest stars Liked my status, then I commented how it made me giggle that said star then Liked what I wrote about him.  In the meantime, Alicia’s mother, Marie*, Liked my status.  Marie is a very busy woman with two other small children, and she doesn’t often have time for Facebook.  Furthermore, unlike me, she doesn’t care for classic TV, so it was quite odd that she acknowledged my comment, but otherwise, I didn’t think much of it.

A week or so later, I started feeling a strong sense of Alicia being near.  It became so overpowering at times, it was if my chest was caving in!  This went on for several days, and a couple of times, my sister Michelle and my son Jeremy mentioned that they dreamed about her or couldn’t stop thinking about her for some reason.  My feeling went on for days.  (Usually when I have this, it comes and goes pretty quickly.)

After about eight days of this, I was home alone when I woke up.  But I saw Alicia as clear as anything sitting on the end of my bed!  She didn’t say anything, and I just chuckled.  I got up and went straight to the kitchen and started washing the previous night’s dinner dishes when suddenly, I “felt” Alicia with me again.  I stopped what I was doing and out loud said, “Okay, Alicia, thank you for visiting.  Do you want to tell me something, or did you just stop in to say hello?  I miss you, but I really need to get some work done.”

Suddenly, the feeling was gone.  For the first time in eight days, there was not an oppressive weight on my chest, and I didn’t have the feeling I was being watched.  I finished washing the dishes, then turned on my computer and checked my Facebook.

That’s when I found:  Over two weeks after my original post about the classic TV show, someone else (not my niece) named Alicia Williamson (my niece’s original name) who was friends with the actor that Liked my post (she was not my friend), Liked my two week old status!  And if you aren’t familiar with how Facebook works, this meant that anyone else who Liked or commented on that status got the same alert that I did:  “Alicia Williamson liked your post…”  Which meant that Lecy’s mother, Marie, also got that notification.  It also meant that the other Alicia Williamson had to go to that actor’s page and scroll through the old posts on his wall to find mine.  So when I read this, I went to his page and looked.  She didn’t Like any other statuses besides mine for the weeks before or after my post.  (Sometimes, a person will go to a famous person’s page and Like everything, and I wanted to see if that was the case here.)

I immediately called Marie, and she, too, was a bit freaked out by that notification and even more so when I shared the whole story.  She said she had been upset thinking about Lecy the past few days, but it actually brought her some comfort seeing her name like that out of the blue.  She felt it was definitely an omen of sorts.  A lot of people might say this was merely a coincidence, but as I’ve told you before, I personally don’t believe in coincidences.  And even when I tell this story out loud today, I literally get goosebumps which assures me that it was meant to be.

(*Not their actual names)

Time to talk:  Have you ever been thinking of someone who was deceased then seen someone else with their same name somewhere?  If so, how did you feel?  Do you believe there are coincidences or that everything happens for a reason?