The following is a former winner of the Amazing but Incredibly True Story Contest.
Copyright Michael Desimone, 1997
Last summer my wife and I were pregnant with our second child. Our first child, Johanna, was a little over two and a half years old. One day she started talking about her friend Emily. My wife and I questioned her about her friend whenever she talked about her. Most of her responses were typical from a child of her age. She said they played together, danced and sang together, things like that. My wife and I wrote it off to our child's first imaginary friend and figured it was related to dealing with the upcoming addition to the family.
Some of Johanna's responses to our questions had become puzzling to us. She started mentioning "the light" more frequently in relation to her friend Emily. My wife and I began to wonder where our two year old was coming up with all of this and tried to question her more deeply without putting any thoughts or words into her mouth. In response to our questioning, our daughter told us "Emily and I were together before" and "Emily showed me the light."
Now as interesting as this seemed to us at the time we still sort of just blew it off to the imaginary friend thing until one day while we were shopping in a Wal-Mart of all places. Johanna tried to stand up in the grocery cart, got very excited and started to point across the store. She was saying, "Over there, there she is, that is Emily!" My wife and I looked to see who she was pointing at. About 100 feet away was this family with about four or five kids. My wife and I looked at each other and shrugged and headed straight for them. We reached the family, who we had never seen before in our lives, and asked if any of their children were named Emily.
Surprised, they said yes and pointed at their smallest child who was already deep in conversation with our Johanna. The family was obviously startled by two strangers asking about one of their children and wanted to know why we wanted to know. We told them and they immediately thought we were crazy, totally ignoring the two small children who were in deep serious conversation. Before the parents took their children and fled we managed to get the date of Emily's birth. It was just about one and a half months prior to Johanna's.
To contact the author, write to Michael DeSimone.
E-mail me your comments/questions/suggestions!
MuseNet Home Page/Psychic Readings/SpiritLinks/Amazing Story Contest