Recently I had a strange experience. I’ve been pondering it ever since. I woke abruptly around 4:30 am, because I thought I heard someone call my name. I sat up in bed, disoriented. No one around except my dog Goody – and Goody too was sitting up with her ears perked and obviously listening to something. Then I “heard” – not exactly heard with my ears, but sort of in my mind – my grandmother’s voice. She said, “When I was your age …” and then nothing more. It was very plain and it was definitely her voice. At this point Goody growled. I started rationalizing this as a particularly vivid dream and pooh-poohing my discomfort, but still I turned on the light, because it was kinda spooky, you know? And then I “heard” her voice again, only this time it really did seem like it came from across the room, not in my mind at all. Like I really heard it with my ears. She said again, “When I was your age …” This is when Goody jumped off the bed and ran out of the room. That’s the end of the actual experience. Grandma’s voice sounded quite happy – she often sounded kind of chirpy. I got the impression that she was trying to reassure me about something. So I’ve been thinking about my grandmother, who I was never close to, and actually didn’t really like all that much. Why did I have this experience? What was Grandma trying to tell me, or what was I trying to tell myself through my memory of my grandmother? Then I thought – I am slow sometimes – that maybe I should explore exactly what she said, “When I was your age.” So I asked myself, what was Grandma doing when she was 59? She was born in November 1903, so when she was 59 it was 1962-63. What happened then? Then it hit me – my grandfather died in June of 1963, when Grandma was 59 ½ — exactly the age I am now. He died after years of incapacity due to a series of strokes. His last year was spent in a nursing home. I’m sure it was a hard time for my grandmother, taking care of him, and I’m equally sure that his death was a relief to her, as well as a grief. So why would she sound happy when she said “when I was your age” and what was the point of telling me this? Then I had another aha – his death set my grandmother free. She married him when she was only 16, and they worked damn hard all their married life. When he died she was still energetic, and still very beautiful. She had his life insurance and a bunch of money through a lucky investment. When she was 60, about 6 months after his death, she embarked on a series of world tours, cruises, etc, traveling with one of her many friends. Later she got married not once, but twice, and both marriages were pretty happy and lasted nearly 20 years each! She lived all over the world, she had friends from Australia to England to Bermuda. She seemed to always be having a glorious time. So this is what I think: I think my grandmother was telling me that my whole life is in front of me. I think she was telling me that I’m being silly to think I’m old at nearly 60 – just think what she did in the last 40 years of her life. Furthermore, I think she was really there, in my bedroom that morning. If that makes me a whack-job, so be it.

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