I come from a religious family.  My mother’s family are devout Methodists and there are four or five ministers on that side. My father’s family are die hard Baptists and two of his brothers are ministers. However, both sides of my family are also superstitious. My mother’s great-aunt used to entertain us by telling us ghost stories that were supposedly true. My maternal grandmother also told us stories about the house she and my mother’s siblings lived in that was haunted by pioneer ghosts.  My father’s mother, “Big Mama” would beat you with a bible and sing the praises of Jesus with one hand then sprinkle salt around the house to get rid of  “haints” and “evil spirits” with the other. My dad’s side of the family is so superstitious that it is comical. One time I got a swat on the bottom for accidentally sweeping my dad’s feet.  I cried and told him it was an accident and he replied, “Don’t ever sweep someone’s feet girl! It’s bad luck, they could go to jail.”  Then he proceeded to spit on the broom, to counteract the bad luck.

In my family’s eyes, the supernatural is a real part of life. I have heard so many stories of dead relatives visiting that it doesn’t even creep me out anymore. My mother has prophetic dreams. She’s done this as long as I remember.  Let’s just say when Mother has a bad feeling about something -- we all listen. The times when we didn’t listen, we wished we did. I don’t have prophetic dreams (thank goodness) I just get “feelings” that I’ve learned to always trust. My daughter on the other hand is showing signs of my mother’s gift. When I was pregnant with her I had premonitions all the time. My husband didn’t know what to think. He is a born skeptic (probably because he is a Virgo). One incident that really freaked him out was something that happened when we were on our way back from a comic book store.  My husband has an annoying habit of following the car in front of him too closely.  I told him in a very firm voice (ok, I was pregnant so I yelled at him) to stop riding people’s asses while he’s driving behind them because he’s going to end up rear ending someone. Of course he gave me the typical male response that was something along the lines of, “Be quiet woman, I’m driving this car. I know what I’m doing, etc. I just rolled my eyes at him because he has the reflexes of a 90 - year old paraplegic. Then, wouldn’t you know it – he rear ended a woman and messed up the front end of MY car!  Thank God no one was hurt and we had full coverage on our insurance.   It would have been $4000 worth of damage! 

When my daughter was born, the “premonitions” stopped. When she was two I was brave enough to take her to work with me on the last week of school for teachers (the kids went on summer break the previous weekend). My co-workers were dying to see her. Our first visit was to my friend Ce Ce’s classroom. She had one of those large dry erase calendars on her wall. Emma was so entranced with that calendar. She kept saying “Look Mommy!” and pointing to May, 28th on the calendar. I just kind of  placated her by say “Uh huh, I see it baby.” Ce Ce who grew up in New Orleans looked at me and asked, “Why is your baby so excited about that particular date? Notice she only keeps pointing to May 28th.” At first, I thought she was thinking about my mother’s birthday, which is May 28th, but how would she know that? It wasn’t marked on any calendars at home. Did she even know the numbers 2 and 8 or 28?  Then CeCe said in her slight New Orleans accent “Girl, something is going to happen on that day.”  Then I thought of my friend Rachel who was pregnant at the time. She was due June 4th, but like most women in their last month of pregnancy she was miserable and eagerly wished she would go into labor yesterday. I called her up and said, “Rachel, according to my daughter you are going to have your baby on May 28th.”  She thought I was nuts, but she told me she would let me know.  On May 28, 2002 Rachel’s husband called me around 4:00 pm to tell me that his wife gave birth around 3:00 pm to little Brandon.  To this day my daughter Emma adores her younger friend and has appointed herself his older sister.