Several years ago I worked for a large insurance company. The Services department where I worked had an employee association, and every Christmas we would pick names for a gift exchange to be held at our company Christmas party. One particular year, we all had a good laugh when I and one of my co-workers (I’ll call her Donna) ended up with each other’s names. It was a pretty large group, so the odds of that happening were pretty slim. Everyone joked that we must have rigged it, but of course we hadn’t.

Although Donna and I often had lunch together, I really didn’t know her very well, so when it came time to shop for her, I had no idea what she would like. One evening, in desperation, I wandered up and down the shopping mall trying to come up with ideas. I didn’t want to give her a gag gift; I wanted it to be something she would like and could use. And of course I had a budget of $10, which made it more of a challenge.

I ended up at a kiosk that sold some really interesting earrings and necklaces made from seashells with gold leaf around the edges. I poked around for a bit and eventually settled on a pair of earrings that I liked and thought Donna would as well. Finally, I was done! I was happy with my purchase (and also a bit relieved)!

On the day of the Christmas party, all gifts were distributed at once so we could open them at the same time. I was apparently faster than Donna, and when I saw what she had gotten me, I gasped! I couldn’t believe it! Donna stopped what she was doing and asked me what was wrong. Didn’t I like my gift? “Yes!,” I said, “open yours!”

She opened the gift I had gotten her and burst out laughing! Not only had we chosen earrings from the same kiosk, we had also picked out the same type of shell for those earrings!

After comparing notes, we figured out that she had shopped first. Was it coincidence?…or had I picked something up from the vibration she left behind?

I have a very vivid memory from about three and a half years ago. One morning – it was a Saturday in October – I woke up, sat straight up in bed, and said to myself, “Oh, my God! I’m going to get the call. And it will be from *Daughter A*!” I was stunned for a few minutes, but then brushed it off as just a weird dream.

About a month later – two days after my birthday – I got the call. I was going to be a grandmother for the first time. My daughter was one month pregnant. No, she wasn’t going to marry the father of the baby, as a matter of fact, as soon as he got the news, he was out the door! But she had decided to keep the baby. She had been worried at first, but now felt she was up to the challenge of doing this on her own. She had not told me when she called me on my birthday because she “didn’t want to do that to me.”

Wow. Even though I had already been *given* the information, I obviously hadn’t believed it. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before.

It’s really kind of creepy when you think about it. I mean, I *knew* my daughter was pregnant right about the same time it happened! Was I there? Yuk! That’s not something I want in my head!

Regardless of the how or the why of this phenomenon, I remained plugged in to my daughter’s vibration throughout her pregnancy.

When she was about five months along I was planning a trip to New Orleans with a bunch of friends. Even though I was determined to go, there was something in the back of my mind telling me that something wasn’t right. Though the pregnancy hadn’t gone smoothly so far, my daughter had been holding her own. But something was still worrying me. Still not believing my own intuition, I wrote it off to pre-travel nerves and went ahead with my trip.

On about the second day of the trip I got a phone call from my daughter. She had been having contractions and was in the hospital. She was waiting for the doctor to return to let her know if she could go home or whether they would admit her for the night. We played phone tag for most of the night as nurses were in and out of her room, each giving her only partial details. They had to wait for the doctor. Several hours later they sent her home.

The same thing happened that July 4th weekend. I was planning a weekend getaway with friends. This time it was close enough to my daughter’s due date that I decided to pass on the trip and stay by the phone. Once again, my daughter called to let me know she had been experiencing contractions. Once again they did not admit her. They gave her medication to stop the contractions and sent her home.

So…what to make of this? The thing I find really interesting about this is that I was not plugged in at all to either my daughter’s second pregnancy, which ended in miscarriage, or her third pregnancy, which resulted in a healthy baby boy. Each pregnancy was considered high risk by her doctors, but the only one I zoned in on was the first.

I’m currently reading a mystery novel about a family whose 3-year-old twin girls are kidnapped. One twin is returned by the kidnappers, but they keep the other one, and the mother of the twins eventually figures out that the twins are communicating with each other via what they call “twin speak,” which, in this book is a combination of spoken word and telepathic messages. Unfortunatley, everyone else in the book thinks she’s crazy, so she’s got to work this out on her own…that’s all I know…I’m only about half way through the book.

Anyway, for those of you who don’t know this, I have twin daughters. They are 26 years old. They live several states away from me, so I don’t get to see them very often. One daughter – I’ll call her “Mommy Twin” – has two children; a 3-year-old girl (baby girl) and a 5-month-old boy (baby boy). Her sister, “Career Twin,” has no children; she’s married to her job. They all shared an apartment for a number of years until Career Twin’s job transferred her to a city about two hours away.

I called Mommy Twin the other night to find that Career Twin was visiting for a few days. Mommy Twin said she was cooking sloppy joe’s for Career Twin because Career Twin never cooks, so she wanted to make her something she hasn’t had in awhile. I said, that’s funny, Career Twin asked me for my Stromboli recipe last week, so I emailed it to her.

“Oh, my gosh”, Mommy Twin said, “I’ve been thinking about that, too! (stromboli) We’ve been doing that a lot lately (thinking the same thing).”

Mommy Twin went on to tell me that on a recent shopping trip she had picked out a cute shirt for Baby Girl, but Baby Girl would have nothing to do with it, so Mommy Twin put it back and let Baby Girl pick out something else. Mommy Twin also tried on a pair of shoes for herself, but in the end decided to hold off on purchasing them until she had more free cash.

So, Career Twin shows up for the weekend, and what does she present to Baby Girl? The shirt Mommy Twin had put back because Baby Girl had refused it!

Not only that, but Career Twin showed up wearing the same shoes Mommy Twin had tried on but decided not to buy! Remember, my girls now live two hours apart. And they had not spoken about their shopping adventures prior to Career Twin’s visit. These events occurred completely separately, with no discussion between them.

This is funny because, while Career Twin’s move was a good experience for her and gave both her and Mommy Twin some much needed space, Career Twin has spent almost every day off since her move visiting with Mommy Twin and the kids. She’s even started looking for a job back in the same town.

So clearly they’re plugged in to one another a little more than usual right now, but that leads me to ponder the idea that twins can someone communicate…telepathically? I do believe in that sort of thing, but I wonder…is it more common in twins than in other types of siblings? What about between mother and child? (I had some very distinct “knowings” around my Mommy Twin’s first pregnancy that I’ll reveal in another posting.)

And what about friends and acquaintances? I had an experience similar to the one I just described about 20 years ago with a co-worker. (Also another post.)

Some would say this kind of stuff is creepy…or even evil. I say it’s way cool! What do you think?