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Deja Vu

My mom was a nurse who worked at the infant ward within the Royal Children’s Hospital. I can’t precisely recall how old I was but can tell you I was under the age of ten. I have an inkling that I would have been around eight years old. There was an elderly lady whom my mom had come to know, her name was Elizabeth. If memory serves me correctly, she too worked at the hospital and held the role of a serving lady executing the making of hot beverages post patient meal times.

One day my mom took me to Elizabeth’s home. When we stood outside the double story old Victorian brick terrace, I told my mom that I had been to this house before. She shook her head as she pressed the door bell and told me I must be confused. It was just up the road from the hospital, so my mom assumed I might have felt this way because I would have passed it many times. This was one in a row of eight and most of the same stretch of road featured banks of these houses in a similar design.

When the door opened I looked up at Elizabeth and smiled. She had very pale wrinkled skin, white wispy hair and the loveliest smile. I once again turned to my mom and said I had been to this house before. Elizabeth touched my face as she bent down to explain we have never met. I looked into her eyes, then in a confident voice assured her I had. My mom tugged at me and asked me to stop the nonsense. I defiantly proceeded to describe the inside of her house, including the way it was furnished downstairs and upstairs. I told her that I had met her son, that I knew he had passed from this life and that she kept his photo on the fridge.

I recall the expression on her face change as she looked at my mom.

Elizabeth said, “She is right.”

We entered the house, walked down the length of the corridor passed the lounge straight to the kitchen area. There on the fridge was the photo of her son. He was just as I had described. It made me happy to know I was right. I was completely oblivious at the time about what I had demonstrated or done. All I knew was that I had been there before.

RETROSPECTIVE

Elizabeth had never spoken to my mom about her son, nor had my mom ever been to the house. I just recall my mom talking about Elizabeth as a lonely old woman who would appreciate some company. My mom worked various shifts as a nurse so she possibly had the hopes that she could conveniently leave me in her care. It didn’t pan out this way. I’m not sure what happened to cause them to cease having contact, but I just know that they did.

Deja Vu has always been something that I have found fascinating, especially because the experience I shared above was not the first or the last that it occurred.

Its an unexplained mystery of the mind.