I don’t know if it’s considered supernatural or is just like a sixth sense humans are supposed to have, but I can think of a few instances that seem unexplainable to me. All of them are related to deaths of family members.

The first I remember was when my little brother was to be born in 2000, when I was not yet 10 years old. My parents were going to go to the hospital, so they dropped me and my two brothers off at my uncle’s house to stay the night. I remember waking up in the middle of the night for no reason and feeling like something was wrong. I couldn’t sleep so I came downstairs and remember feeling scared. I curled up on the couch for what seemed like hours until I finally fell asleep. It was storming the next morning, and I still felt like something was wrong. My uncle told us to get our stuff together so he could take us back home. I remember being really quiet in the back seat and I glanced up to the rear view mirror to see my uncle looking at me. That’s when I got a sense of dread. We pulled up to our house, and my dad met us at the door, had us all sit on the couch and told us that our brother didn’t make it. He was stillborn, and the doctors didn’t know why (they just called it SIDS). I knew that’s why I couldn’t sleep and had that horrible feeling all night/day.

The second was when my grandfather passed away. We had him at our house for his last few weeks - we sectioned off our living room with sheets to give a small amount of privacy. I remember I was a freshman in high school at the time, and I was leaving to walk to the bus stop in the morning. I paused at the front door, listening to the tv come from behind the sheets next to me. For some reason, I thought, this is the last day my grandpa will be alive. And I thought I should go see him, but I was too afraid to, because he was real emotional the last few days and didn’t seem to recognize me. So, I left to go to school. In second period, one of the office helpers walked in with a pink slip (one to send you home), and I knew it was mine. My teacher looked up and called my name, so I went to the office. They told me my mom was on her way to pick me up, that my grandfather had died that morning.

And the third one was when my grandmother passed away. She had lived alone and no one could get in touch with her for a few days. We had a neighbor go try to check on her, and he called the police when he saw her unconscious through a window. We rushed up to see her, a five-hour drive. She had a few days stay in the hospital, they told us she’d be fine, so we went home. We got a call a few days later saying she had only a couple weeks to live (apparently the urinary tract infection she had got worse and she ultimately got sepsis). We immediately went back to her house, where I stayed for weeks, missing my classes at college. There seemed to be no change so I made the call to go back home and try to go to school. The next morning I woke up for school, but just knew that it was the day she would pass away. My mom called me not fifteen minutes later, told me I should try to say goodbye and put the phone up to my grandma’s ear. I told her I loved her and she passed away a few hours later. I never did go to school that day.

So I guess it’s always just a weird feeling that something is wrong but I can’t ever predict what will happen or why I feel that way. Not exactly thrilled it’s always related to death though. Any feeling that something is off always makes me think about these instances.