Once Upon a Premonition, Or Two...

To my two little pumpkins during this Halloween season,

I have a few spooky stories that do not begin with "it's a dark and dreary night," nor do they end with some crazed headless demon roaming the streets in pursuit of innocent townspeople. I can promise however that they will make the hair on your arms stand at attention. These stories are the reasons why I do not completely denounce psychic mediums because sure as I am alive these things have happened to me.

For Volume 1, let's dive back to 2006 when I was a young, impressionable twenty-five-year-old taking on the world of publishing one pharmaceutical trade show at a time.  I'd stand proudly at our booth and hand out our most recently published magazines, feeling as though I was contributing to the common good.  I hoped that the health care professional receiving it would reap the benefits of our cutting- edge advice and breaking news on the latest pharma technologies. We would save lives, I was sure of it. My little over eager rear end was thrown into that crazy world quite literally as on my first day on the job I was flown to Vegas to one of those trade shows. I would fly out to different cities in the United States with the account and editorial teams on a quarterly basis to showcase our latest issue and help drum up more advertiser business.

We were a young, tight-knit group who really looked out for each other. When in flight to another trade show in Las Vegas I started to get a really bad feelings about my boss Mitch. There was an unmistakable feeling of dread that I couldn't shake and despite my attempts to think of something funny, flip through my book and chug my bottle of water, I was unable to redirect my attention. I turned up my music, Mitch. I tried to hone in on the Fray's lyrics, "Everyone knows I'm in over my head, Mitch, Over my head. With eight seconds left in overtime, Mitch, Mitch, Mitch. I was sitting just a few rows over from my co-worker who was sound asleep. Even if she had been awake I doubted I would have disclosed what I was feeling. I mean she would think I was a basket case. And then it happened...

"Someone help!" It was Deanne's voice who was our editorial director... and Mitch's wife.

They were seated a good 10 rows in front of me and because people stood up right away, my view was obstructed. Ericka, the main editor, who was seated just a few rows behind Mitch and Deanne stood up and turned around to look at me in fright. What was she seeing? Every inch of my body was frozen because I could not believe what was happening. It felt like everything was moving in slow motion. By now my co-worker Kate had woken up and was yelling towards me and Ericka, asking what was going on.

I was able to catch a glance of our Editorial Director, Deanne who was hovering over her husband and repeating his name just as I had in my head, "Mitch, Mitch, Mitch!" The amount of chills running down my back felt like enough to cause a mini seizure I had thought to myself.         

As if on queue someone from the crowd retorted, "He's having a seizure!"

I felt like Ray Stantz from the Ghostbusters who was told to empty his head, but somehow innocently conjured up the Marshmallow man to destroy New York City.

Mitch had been running a fever when he boarded the plane so the higher altitude mixed with his cold medication and fever caused him to have a mini seizure.  There was no shortage of healthcare professionals on our plane being we were heading to one of the biggest conventions for big pharma so he was thankfully in good hands. There would be no long term effects. It was just one of those strange occurrences. Seeing Mitch and Deanne walk to the baggage claim together hand-in-hand is one of the best things I have seen in my entire life. It was more than love. It was love relieved.  It didn't however resolve why I had those premonitions and believe me, those did not stop.

Let's skip ahead four years to New York City where your father and I resided during our late twenties to early thirties. We had everything at our fingertips. Our friends lived close by. My job was a walk away. Pizza places, bars and convenient stores were at my disposal into the wee hours of the morning. And trust me, Daddy and I took advantage of it all and relished in that special time in our favorite city when wild late nights out with friends and extravagant evenings eating at any restaurant our hearts so desired were the norm. You know, before we had you two. Wink, wink.

On one such late summer night, I met my friends Helen and Ken for dinner at a cozy little dinner place in Gramercy. As usual, the night went very quickly like it always does when you are in good company. Before we knew it, Helen and I were saying our goodbyes to our guy pal and walking towards midtown. The city had a low hum to it that evening. It had rained earlier in the day so the streets were still a bit damp and the air still a bit heavy with late August temperatures lingering. It was the perfect evening, but that feeling of dread made its way into the pit of my stomach once more.        

We needed to move away from the street. I had visions of a car hitting us. The premonition was blurry, but the gut feeling was real. It felt urgent enough that I linked arms with Helen and slyly began to move closer to the store fronts as we walked and away from the street. I didn't want to alarm her so I felt it better to keep my "crazy" to myself. Moments later a car turned sharply and knocked a pedestrian straight on his backside.  People screamed at the cab driver while helping the man to his feet. I froze. Was this really happening? The cab couldn’t have been going more than 10 miles per hour, thankfully, so the man was perfectly fine. Helen and I would more than likely not have stepped off the curb even if we had been closer to the street, but that doesn’t change the fact that I knew a car was hitting someone close to that spot. I still get the chills thinking of it.

So, to my two munchkins, don’t be surprised if you get these premonitions, you aren’t always going to be able to chock it up to superstitions.

Love,

MomWitch