There's Something About Catholicism #5

Return of Faith

Part 2

Samantha died two-weeks after the accident, I sustained a back injury requiring two separate operations. I had to learn to walk and do a range of different things, it was a very testing time for me physically and mentally. To make things harder, Samantha was across the other side of the city in a different hospital to me, and because I wasn't in the best condition, I couldn't see her, nor even attend her funeral.

One forever changing moment occurred within the walls of the Royal Melbourne Hospital, however, and several others would come to be known to me later on down the track. The scene was in my hospital room, with everything as it was in reality, from the drawings my nieces had made for me to the bright yellow fellow-boa, bright pink dolphin birthday ballon and several other things, right down to my hospital bed and the one chair next to my bed for a visitor. The only thing out of place was Samantha sitting on that chair, yet we seemed to talk endlessly, knowing what had happened, yet neither of us being phased that Samantha was seemingly unaffected and sitting with me!

The next day when our best friend came in to visit, I told her about my dream and how great it was, how great I felt afterwards. She just smiled kindly, tears forming in the corner of her eyes. A couple of days later, she told me that Samantha had passed away that night, probably about the same time I had this dream! WOW - Samantha's spirit came across the city and visited me!

Certain other small happenings occurred whilst I was in that hospital room that I couldn't just dismiss as mere coincidences. Coincidences in my experience are generally quite rare, not quite frequent and pronounced. Whichever way I looked at it, things just didn't seem the same to me anymore, and I made an unconscious decision to follow God, though I would not know this until several months later.