Connections

Okay, so I'll tell you right now this entry has nothing at all to do with being a disabled mom. But please, indulge me. I think you'll find what I'm about to say very interesting....

Sweetie is named after my maternal grandmother. That is, she has my grandmother's name as one of her middle names (yes, Sweetie has 2 middle names. Her first middle name was a last-minute add-on in honor of the time of year she was born).

My mom's mom passed away some time ago - before I was married. Before I ever met my husband, in fact. But yet, my mom says that she sees hints of her mom in Sweetie in her everyday actions. For instance, my grandmother hated opened kitchen cabinets and would always make sure to close them when she went in the room. Now my mom watches Sweetie as she skips through her kitchen, non-chalantly closing the opened cabinet doors as she scampers by.

So maybe Sweetie has taken on a bit of my grandmother's persona. I had never thought much about it until sometime last week when Sweetie told me something very interesting.

It was a day last week when we were all home. Sweetie was her high-energy, silly ball-of-energy self, running around our house and singing songs. All of a sudden she says to me "Mommy, I saw Nana's Chuckpa today."

Not catching exactly what she said - checkbook?, jackpot? - she repeated herself so that I could clearly hear her say that she saw Chuckpa today. Chuckpa is what my brothers, cousins and I called my maternal grandfather. (okay, if you need to know, it's because his name is Charles and they tried to get my oldest brother to say Grampa Chuck, but it came out Chuckpa. And so that's what we all called him).

Sweetie has never met Chuckpa. He passed away before she was born.

She went on to say that she saw Chuckpa sitting on a swing.

Okaaaayyy.

I called my mom to ask if she'd shown Sweetie any pictures of Chuckpa recently. She said she hadn't - not since several weeks ago. And certainly none of them showed him anywhere near a swing, let alone sitting on one.

Okaaaayyy.

We asked Sweetie if she saw a picture of him or if she actually saw him. She said she saw him.

Okaaaayyy.

So, what could I say? I told her to say hi to him for me the next time she sees him and that I miss him.

Cut to just yesterday. Sweetie is now sick with a pretty bad cough and cold. My husband picked her up from my mom's house after work and I greeted them at home when they arrived. Sweetie rested her head on her Daddy's shoulder and told me that she was sick and didn't feel good. Then she said something about Nana being sick too.

"Yeah, Nana doesn't feel very well either." I agreed.

"Nana's Chuckpa doesn't feel good, either." Were the next words out of Sweetie's mouth.

I asked my husband if she had in fact said what I thought she said. He agreed, that's definitely what she said.

Wow.

We have not spoken to her about her "sighting" last week. No one has. So, for her to bring him up again like this is just totally weird.

And cool.

And eerie.

But, really, very cool.

I definitely have no problem believing in ghosts. I've never seen one myself, but I believe that they exist. And I know that kids and animals are highly susceptible to seeing ghosts and interacting with them.

So maybe Sweetie has taken on a bit of my grandmother's persona - and my grandfather is just hanging out around her to be close to his "wife".

I'm very interested to see if this connection continues/lasts between Sweetie and Chuckpa. At any rate, I'm very happy that they are able to know each other, even if they never met here in the physical world.