h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This morning something reminded me about a thing that happened several years ago - one of those things that there is no rational explanation for.

I was a member of a dance group performing folk dances from Balkan (former Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece etc.). The leader (one of my best friends at the time) was pregnant with her first child and had transferred leadership to me.

It was summer, and a few of us got together to practise on the dancing now and then. There was this girl who'd always show up, even when no one else did, and sometimes we'd spent the time just talking about this and that.

I think she appreciated having an adult apart from her mother (single parent) to talk to - she was just 17, about to start studying at a university, moving away from home and was seeing a man several years older. We talked a lot that summer.

One day she got hit by a speeding car coming over the top of a hill (not seeing her in time) while she was crossing the road. She died instantly, or so they say.

At the end of summer, my friend (the former leader of the dance group) called me.

'Let's go visit her grave this weekend. I'll call her mother and get the location.'

Said and done, we took the bus to the graveyard (neither of us owned a car) and on the bus my friend says: 'Ooops - I left the note with the location at home! But the mother said it was near chapel X.'

So we decided to make an attempt to find it, since the graveyard was situated outside the city and took some time getting to by bus. We wandered in bigger and bigger circles around the chapel, but didn't find the grave.

The graveyard is a very big one, and this section was for those who had been cremated, so the graves were not very big, close together, row after row after row.

We finally gave up. Just as we were about to leave, I got a very strong hunch. 'Wait a little - I think I know where it is' I said to my friend.

I started walking, taking this path here, that path there, then a shortcut through a narrow opening in a hedge where others had been shortcutting before me, around a low wall - and there, on the other sid of the wall, it was!

I had not talked to my friend after she had received the location, not until meeting her at the bus stop. My friend couldn't recall any details at all, since the description was something along the lines of 'Section XV, row LXIII, grave no.CCVI'.

It was my first visit ever to that graveyard, so I didn't know my way around.

There were no other new graves in that speficic area as far as I could see.

It was some time after the funeral had taken place, so there were no big fancy flowers.

I figure there is no rational explanation for how I knew where to find her grave, but I can think of some irrational ones...

Me too! What an interesting story.

You are definately in tune with the other side, T

for your friend

Strange indeed. I am sure that not too long ago I also had one of these "now how did I know that???" experiences - but I cannot for the life of me think what it was.

I'm sure I didn't get any clear spiritual, or non-rational to put it in a better way for my thinking, reasonings out of it - but that's probably just because I'm way too natural science oriented...

As usual, your writing it up is - I got a quite visual feeling of the turning a corner and ?????? why, but it's really there thing!

That's a great story. The only 'logical' explanation is that your young friend led you to the grave. (I suppose it wouldn't be logical to some folks.)

That inner voice is rarely wrong. It's always helped me

Its the thread that runs through life - Love! Its the most important feeling, emoction one could ever have!

Santra, you're right about the 'and there it was!' feeling - I was just as astonished as my friend!

What's interesting is that some years later, while visiting my home town during All Hallow's Eve, I decided to pay a visit to her grave.

I spent some time searching for it before finding it, only having a vague memory picture of the location.

My theory is that since her death was so abrupt and unexpected, that some part of her was still lingering behind the first time. You know, like when you have a shock and don't quite realize what's happened at first.

It might also have something to do with the fact that I was feeling a bit of 'if only' guilt after her death. You see, she had left a message on my answering machine that day.

Instead of going straight home after work, I did some shopping. For a long time I used to think 'if only I had gone straight home so that I had been there to answer the phone when she called, then maybe she hadn't been on her way to the beach but instead having a long chat over the phone with me'. Maybe she tried to comfort me?

Here's to you Snowflake, where ever you are!

(She always had trouble with people misspelling her last name - Flakey, so she used to say 'like in Snowflake-y - only in Swedish.)

Wow! It must have been love that guided you?



Milla