I was about 9
years old and I could say a happy girl, although rather nervous and
shy and absolutely a daydreamer, this I have always been.
One day my
father got a letter from my grandfather, telling him that my
grandmother had embarked upon a ‘shopping adventure’ and put him in
serious debt, and that he needed financial help for a few months. My
grandfather was a gentleman, a wonderful man; my grandmother was an
aristocratic lady that hadn’t realized she wasn’t rich any longer.
My father
started sending a money order every time he got paid, and this
brought
a disagreeable situation at home. My mother was angry. She was a
great housewife and spent money wisely and almost magically, so we
could live in a comfortable way and enjoy all the privileges of a
‘higher class’. My grandmother’s childish behavior made things more
difficult for her.
My father was a
good son, and he knew he had to help his father, so both were right
and this caused a lot of quarreling. At night when they thought my
brother and I were asleep, they would discuss matters frequently,
but from my bedroom I could hear them clearly and this kept me
awake. I was so nervous about the situation I started suffering from
insomnia. Of course, they never knew I could listen to them.
After 3 or 4
months, I dreamt the postman had come in the morning and had given
my mother a telegram that read: ‘Don’t send any more money,
everything is O.K. now. I’m sending back your last money order’ I’m
60 right now, and I swear to God in the morning the postman CAME
with the telegram and it said exactly what I had dreamt.
It made me
feel relieved and shocked but I never said a single word about it,
because
who would believe me? I still remember that day and feel as
impressed as I felt at that very
moment.
When I was 12, I was in Havana visiting my family on my father’s
side, and one
night after everybody had gone to sleep, my
grandmother told me to go to my aunt’s bedroom and sleep with her
because my uncle was away and I could keep her company.
I got up and
wrapping a sheet around me walked along the hall to her room. I
knocked
softly at her door because I didn’t want to disturb my baby
cousin, and my aunt who had already gone to sleep, opened the door a
little bit. I suppose the darkness in the hall didn’t
let her see me
well, she just screamed and slammed the door on my FACE. Now I
called
her name out loud and she opened and said “Oh, my God, it was
you, I thought I had seen
a ghost”. I asked her: “Have you ever seen
a ghost?” and she said “No, but I have never forgotten your father
had “visions” when he was a child. Did he ever tell you about it?” I
answered: “No, please tell me”.
After she made me promise
to never tell anybody, she said, “When we were small our parents
decided to buy a bigger house and we were visiting the ones they
liked that were for sale. One day we went to a very nice one that
was amazingly cheap. The salesman took us around and when we got to
the bathroom, your father suddenly stepped back and said, “Why is
that young lady vomiting blood in the washstand?” She told me the
man went very pale and asked them to please follow him to the living
room. There, he told my grandfather, “Sir, don’t buy this house, the
owner’s daughter died a few months ago from tuberculosis, vomiting
blood in the bathroom.” Obviously, he had seen her.
My aunt told me
about a couple of situations not so relevant as this one that had
also
happened, and made me promise again to never repeat what she had
told me. She added
Catholics couldn’t believe in such things and it was considered
uncultured of people to do so. All that kind of ‘talk’ belonged to
‘African religions’ and people like us were not supposed
to discuss it. My father never mentioned a single word about this
topic.
Since then, I
started praying to never have a vision though it became my worst
fear. But
I have had a lot of experiences of this kind during my life, some
sad, some happy, some terrifying, and I learnt ‘the hard way’ to pay
attention to premonitions and ‘warnings’ and now I want to tell all
about it.
When I was 15
years old one of my neighbors was pregnant, in those times they
couldn’t find out if the baby would be a boy or a girl. In my dream
I saw her lying on a bed and ‘horse riding’ on her huge belly was a
baby girl. Two days later, she gave birth to a healthy and pretty
baby girl.
Throughout many
years I got to notice that when something was going to go wrong, or
something bad was about to happen concerning my family, I would
start feeling uneasiness and anxiety, so I would pray desperately
pleading to God to help us.
It made me feel relieved and shocked but I never said a
single word about it,
because who would believe me? I still remember that day and feel as
impressed as I felt at that very moment.
Years went by
without any outstanding issue. Then one night I had a strange dream.
A small railroad car with a coffin inside, was being pulled back and
forth by two women dressed in black. They even wore black
handkerchiefs covering their hair. This didn’t make any sense
to me, but in the
morning I had this strange feeling about the dream that made me feel
there was something real concerning it. At noon a relative called to
tell us my maternal grandfather had suffered a heart stroke and he
was in the hospital.
All his life he
had been a rather unusual person, an adventurer more or less, he
traveled as a stowaway onboard a ship to the United States when he
was 14. He took part in the First World War and his life was full of
extraordinary events. But there was something I didn’t know about
him until I was 11 years old. He had taken a mistress a long time
ago and she had given him 6 children. This was a very delicate
situation and he knew if he died and his body was to be taken to my
grandmother’s house. There would be no problem because the children
of his mistress could come to the funeral, but if on the contrary,
if he was taken to his mistress´ house none of us would go. So he
had given instructions to my uncles that in case of death, his body
had to be taken to my grandmother’s, and my eldest uncle had told
all of us.
Then I knew my
dream was what my grandfather must have been worried about all night
long.
About 15 years
ago, I went through a horrible experience. I had been chosen to be
part of
a delegation to a very important event that would take place in the
capital of our province. The night before I went to bed rather early
because I had to get up at five in the morning, but my husband
stayed up watching TV. I kept awake for a while and something
strange happened. A voice inside my head said, “DON’T GO”. At first
I didn’t pay attention to it, I thought I was just nervous about the
traveling, but a few minutes later there was the voice again
repeating the same words. I got up, went to the living room and
told my husband.
He said,
“Don’t be foolish, if you don’t want to go just say so.” I tried to
make him
believe me but it was useless so I went back to bed. There I was
trying to fall asleep and there was the voice again, “DON’T GO.”
Part 2 Continued—
Summer Issue 2009
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