“…Because I was his sweetheart, he had more visions about me than anyone else.”

My husband and I eloped when I was seventeen.

Mark and I were in love, and when my father refused to give his permission to marry, we decided we couldn’t wait any longer.  Mark picked me up late in the evening after everyone was asleep, and we drove off.  We thought we were the coolest people ever.

That night we slept in a cheap hotel, but we didn’t mind.  We were together, and we were in love.

The next couple of years were tough.  Mark was a high school dropout and a hard time getting full time work.  He’d hire on for part time, but that never paid too much.  And I was doing mostly receptionist work.

My folks refused to talk to me, and I felt hurt, lonely, and was pretty much down on myself.

Then one evening my little brother called to tell me that my dad had a heart attack.  I immediately got in the car and drove straight through the night.  By morning I had driven three hundred miles, and I was exhausted.  I had been up for over twenty-four hours.  But I had to see my dad.  What if he died still angry with me?

When I walked into his hospital room, because of all the tubes, he couldn’t talk.  But he motioned for me to hand him a pencil and pad.  Here’s what he wrote:

“I love you and miss you.  And I always know where you are because I can see you in my mind.”  I really didn’t completely understand what he was saying, but the important thing is he got better over the next several days.

When he was able to talk and we had some privacy, he elaborated on his “visions.”

He said that he could see our apartment, and he pretty much described it in an accurate manner.  He also described the desk where I sat at work, and the coffee shop where I always had lunch.

To me it seemed impossible because we had not been in touch and there was no one else who had visited us from back home.  But my dad said he’s had visions throughout his lifetime, and because I was his sweetheart, he had more visions about me than anyone else.

He died the next year and I will miss him so deeply for the rest of my life.

G. Sanders
Atlanta, GA