Sensing

On Thursday, October 20th, I was taking my time getting ready for work. I didn't have any good reason to be running late, just didn't want to get ready. I was... lingering. And I know now that I was sensing something.

My wonderful companion, Mick, was diagnosed with lymphoma on Friday the 14th. It seemed almost immediately after that he took to spending most of his time out in the backyard, only coming through the pet door to get a drink of water. He quit eating and playing. He no longer slept beside the bed at night. He seemed to be unwilling to allow me to see him feeling poorly.

Then on Thursday morning he came inside the house. He didn't have the strength to follow me from room to room as he used to, so he chose the hallway to lie down. I sat with him for a long time, but I had stepped into another room at the moment he chose to pass. I'm not one to personify pets, but I think he wanted to be near me at the end and yet spare me the agony of watching him die.

There have been two other times in my life in which I have sensed, nearly to the moment, the passing of others. I knew the night before my mother died that I needed to stay in Killeen one more day, but my husband at the time insisted we return home so that we could go to work. On the way home we replaced a flat tire and a water pump. I kept saying, "I think we need to go back." I skipped work the next morning and stayed by the phone, and I got the call from my dad pretty much when I expected it.

When I worked for a church in Fort Worth, I was befriended by a retired parishioner. I was able to take baby Monica to work with me every day, and he would come to the church and keep me company. He was crazy about Monica, and she him, and he counted her as one of his grandchildren. We visited him regularly at the hospital when he battled cancer. Monica was one of the last people he spoke to the night before he passed.

As I was driving to work the next morning, a song came on the radio that just seemed to clamp down on my heart. I had to pull over on the shoulder of the freeway. I cried and cried. The minute I sat down in my cubical at work the phone rang. It was another church member breaking the news. It appears he died about the time I was pulled over. That same song was played at his funeral.

I do not consider myself psychic - not even sure I believe in any of that stuff. But I do believe that some relationships run so deep that you can be connected in inexplicable ways. And the severing of those relationships can cause excruciating pain, the kind of pain that makes you late for work.