Wk 3: Evidence for Synchronicity

Helen Costello - "Gram"

My grandmother, Helen Costello, was the matriarch of our family.  Gram was a 2nd generation Italian immigrant, and though she was less than 5’ in height, she cast a tall shadow and was nicknamed “the General” by her daughters, my Mom and Auntie Sandra.  The loss of their 3rd daughter and middle child, Annette, at 18 years of age only served to make the family trinity of my Mother, Aunt and Grandmother a tighter knit group throughout their lives.  My Aunt’s daughter, Nadine, is like a sister to me (I have 2 brothers) and we considered all of them part of our ‘nuclear’ family growing up.  

One day in the Fall of 1991, when I was working at a small Mom & Pop production company in LA, I walked into the storage room to get some supplies from the cabinet.  But, as I looked up to open the door, instead of seeing the storage cabinets I saw the following vision in my mind’s eye.  I ‘saw’ a vision of my Grandmother, exquisitely beautiful bouquets of flowers surrounding her, laid out in a coffin as if at her funeral.  My perspective was that of someone at her wake, standing beside her coffin to pay their respects.  A cold chill ran through my body.   I shivered and as I did so, the vision vanished.  Needless to say, I was startled, shaken and left wondering what -if anything- that vision meant.  As far as I knew, my Gram’s health was just fine!

My immediate action was to phone my cousin Nadine, who also was living in LA at the time, and see if she knew anything.  As it turned out, she too had just had a weird experience, related to our grandmother.   Although Nadine didn’t see a ‘vision’ or any thing, what did happen is she heard a voice forcefully say “Gram’s dead”, as if someone was standing next to her; but, in fact she was alone in her apartment.

The very next thing I did was to call my Grandmother’s house (in Lackawanna, New York) directly to find out what was really happening.  As it turned out, my Aunt Sandra (Nadine’s Mom) answered the phone.  Both she and my Mom were at our Gram’s house together.  It seems that earlier in the day Gram had failed to answer her phone when they both had called, independent of one another.  So, when my Mom and Aunt converged on our Grandmother’s house they found her cool to the touch, ashen colored, with breathing shallow –and- though she was seated on the couch, she was so weak that she had been unable to move by herself for some time.

My Mom and Aunt quickly managed to get my Grandmother into the car and took her to the Emergency room at a nearby hospital (they decided not to call 911, lest they freak Gram out).  At the hospital, it was determined that the battery in Gram’s pacemaker had run out of juice, and that’s what had caused all the alarm. Once they replaced the battery in Gram’s pacemaker she was like the ‘Energizer Bunny’ and good as new!

We found out later that it was a good thing that my Mom and Aunt arrived when they did, or there could have been a very different outcome to the day’s events.