Saturday morning I woke and wondered, "I wonder if my great-aunt Rose Mary's dead?"
I haven't met many of my grandmother's siblings, given that they almost all live(d) in Marion Ohio. I met Carol once, Jimmy once, Margaret lives only in photos, and Marshall was incarcerated in the Home for the Criminally Insane and Mom never even met him, given that he was a pedophile.
However, I've met Mom's favorite Aunt Rose Mary several times. She is the one who lives in the biker community and has her eyeliner and lipstick tattooed on.
I did wonder why she crossed my mind Saturday morning, and decided it was because I'd recently used the china she'd painted. So, I Googled "Rose Mary B_______ obituary."
The very first Google hit was a Marion Ohio paper, and I feared the worst. Surprisingly, Rose Mary was not dead but was the surviving sister of Great Uncle Jimmy, recently deceased, whose obit I'd found.
As I say, I met him once, but it was memorable because Jimmy was the one who let on that Marshall existed, which forced my Mom to explain why she and her sister Delores had to wait in the car while GrandCeil visited her brother at the psychiatric hospital. He also said I resembled Aunt Delores, which was magical because I've never resembled any relative I've ever known.
"Well, that's sad," I thought, "I wonder if this is recent."
The paper's date? November 15, 2014. Last Saturday. That very day.
Creeeepy. I met the man one time and I get a yen to check up on his sister the day his obit hits the paper.
Not as creepy: he'd actually died a week earlier. The Marion Ohio paper must save up its heavy news for Saturday.
Remarkably, Aunt Rose Mary lives on, and she's sixteen years older than her brother, if not twenty.
November 18, 2014 column:
DEAR ABBY: Have you ever -- out of the blue -- thought of someone you hadn't seen, heard from or thought of in a long time, and later discovered they died around that time? This has happened to me more times than I can count. No one I have spoken with -- friends or family -- has experienced this. Have you ever heard of this phenomenon, and is there a name for it? -- MISS J. IN OKLAHOMA
DEAR MISS J.: I have never had that experience, but I have heard of the phenomenon. It's called either ESP or coincidence, depending upon which psychic plane you dwell. However, I have had friends "pop into my head" and thought I should give them a call, only to hear from them a few days later.
Posted by: ~~Silk | November 19, 2014 at 07:00 PM
One night I was feeling nostalgic for my high school boyfriend, my first love. I googled him (as I'd done several times in the past, but it had been awhile). The first thing that came up was his obituary, from just a few days prior. I cried buckets of tears. And later was mystified at how near his death I had the urge to google him. So not the SAME day, but still...
Posted by: Kristie | November 23, 2014 at 12:28 AM
~~Silk - I like the subliminal trigger explanation. You think you spontaneously call a friend. but it's because some cruise line is using the Pina Colada song in their commercials and that song played incessantly your senior year when you were inseparable from your friend. Not quite coincidence, not esp. Having that be the date of the Dear Abby column, I have no answer for that.
Kristie - Well, I imagine I've googled Aunt Rose Mary a few times before, and it didn't come up with the death card, so of course I don't remember it. Plus, she's almost 100, so that raises the odds.
Posted by: Thequeen | November 25, 2014 at 04:59 PM