Wink, Wink, Blink!

Is it foreshadowing? Is it premonition? Is it a wink from God?

I am reminded of random moments in my life, in the lives of those close to me where something significant is said or happens that foreshadows the future. Though not always clear as to what prompts these moments, there have been many of them.

Now, before I go further, let me say that I do not believe the future is set in stone. The future, our future, my future is based on the decisions, the actions I take today and tomorrow and so on. I believe very strongly in our agency, our ability to choose shapes what is to come for us. I also believe that we can make choices that will put us in a place where the number of choices available to us lessens. Our actions, our perspective and our choices, have consequences.

I recently was reading a book When God Winks by Squire D. Rushnell (Atria Books September 2002). I was reading to a client. I began to realize that maybe these moments were not so random.

When my oldest daughter was still single, she told me that I would be a grandmother before I was 40 years old. I remember saying something along the line of hoping she would get married first. She said she was going to marry William. At this point, William was unaware of Arya’s future plans. At the time this was taken as banter back and forth between a mother and daughter, at least by me. Arya was serious and looking back, there was an earnestness about her protestations then and those that followed.

Arya and William were married in March 2000. Their first child, Aaron was born in 2001, about four months before I turned 40 years old. They have four children now and have been married more than eleven years.

Was it coincidence, premonition, a wink from God? This is not the only time she has made a statement that has come to fruition. She is not alone in this. These moments show up throughout our family.

I knew without a shadow of doubt when I was sixteen years old that I would have three children. The first would be a girl, the second a boy and the third another girl. While I let others influence me while pregnant and hormonal with the first, it did not change the outcome as I had seen it as a teenager. With my first, I announced the day of her birth when I realized I was pregnant. With my second child, I knew he would be born before Christmas even with the doctor’s due date close to that day (December 22). When I saw the doc on my due date he said it looked like I would be delivering on Christmas day after all. I let him know to be prepared before Christmas. Trenton was born at 11:10 pm December 24. And I did nothing to start my labor artificially except to finish up some things I wanted done before he was born.

When my eldest was sixteen, I was in a phone conversation with my grandmother. Berneice (Bea) McKessick had been born June 10, 1918 to Grace Harkness and D’Esting Shepard. She had three children, Arnold, Myrna and Sherry. My mother is Myrna. The phone call came toward the end of the summer of 1996. And after the usual “how are you doing” and catching up, she made a statement: Arya is my last chance to have a great great grandbaby before I die. When I pointed out that she was only 16 years old, her response was “She’s old enough.” Her final statement has always stuck with me. “I really want to see my great great grandson.”

Grandma passed away less than a year later, as foreshadowed in our conversation. Her first great great grandchild was born almost four years later and he was Arya’s son Aaron.

My mother had been a smoker since a young teen. She never inhaled deeply like many smokers do. She was so impressed by the family doctor that delivered my third child, she decided to go and see him. I am not sure what impressed her the most, his patience with her questions while explaining why he was checking this and that on her new granddaughter or if it was because she could almost look him in the eye. She was just shy of five foot tall and this doctor was just a bit over that.

She made her appointment and he gave her a good onceover, knowing she was 46 years old and had been smoking all of her life. He told her that her lungs were clear but for every cigarette she smoked took time off of her life. “If you want to see your new granddaughter graduate from high school and get married, you need to quit smoking.” So she did. Though it would be lung cancer that took her life, she was indeed there when Tanis graduated and when Tanis married Isaiah.

I will not say that if my parents had not danced in smoky country bars or bowled in smoky bowling alleys, she would be here today despite never smoking another cigarette since she quit in 1984. You cannot predict if cancer comes or not. I am going to say that Dr. King made the difference that allowed his foreshadow to become a prophecy.

I remember a conversation with my son about his alcohol consumption. I knew the path her was going down would land him in jail. His drinking was getting out of control. I told him he needed to rein it in or he would land in jail. His answer, “I can quit anytime I want. It’s not a problem. You just worry too much.” He chalked it up to my being a mom.

I reminded him of the conversation a little over a year later as we sat across the glass in the local county jail. He could not really remember what had happened because he had drunk so much. Apparently he took a swing at someone after being told to leave a party (A Class A Felony). He did not hurt anyone, he left, and then he arrived at the wrong apartment and forced his way in looking for his sister. You know apartment complexes where every building looks the same…

Does this make me a psychic? Not in my book. I really believe we all have some measure of this ability. Many people just shrug it off or do not notice the significance of the event. I did like the author’s analogy of God winking at us. He noted that the significance of coincidences help us to know we have made good choices, to validate us and build our sense of esteem.

God Winks…hmmm…I wonder if his eye ever gets tired with all that winking…