Most people don't remember a lot from their early years of life. A lot of my earliest memories are from when I was three. Sometimes I get random memories that come through from a time that shock me. The oddest thing I can remember is a strange dream that I had when we lived on Beech Street.
In the dream, Momma was standing at the front door with me and Mia running and laughing in the living room. She was gripping the door knob because someone or something was jiggling the handle trying to enter. Momma kept hushing us until she got frustrated and she yelled, "It's come to get y'all and I'm not going to let it take you!" That's when I looked up at the small window in the door and saw a set of glowing red eyes through the dark green curtain that was always covering the window.
For a long time, I thought that it was the Mothman in my dream. The stories about the infamous West Virginian monster always mentioned a pair of red glowing eyes, so it made perfect sense to me. As I got older, I started looking into the myths and science behind dreams (I'm the type of person that likes to know how things work and I always have been). I came to find out that you can have three to ten dreams a night and you usually forget them immediately. Sometimes they act as a way for our subconscious to shine some light on things we may not notice from day to day. On a more spooky note, it can be seen as a way for the dead to deliver messages to us.
I was around 12 or 13 when I finally mentioned the dream around anyone (we always talked about spooky shit when I went to my dad's house. I remember how shook my dad was when I described the figure. Eventually, he approached me, telling me that what I thought was the Mothman was actually the Grim Reaper and at some point in my life, I had cheated death. In his teens he saw the same thing in a pack of three that chased him through Eckman bottom one night. He came across his father who happened to be sitting on the front porch. It was Paw Paw that old him that the figures following him were Reapers and he had or was about to cheat death (if an elder has knowledge about spooky shit, it's probably true and you better believe it).
He said that he didn't see them again after that night. He later lost an older brother due to health complications and then another brother and a close friend in a fatal car accident. He was incredibly torn up about it. The he started seeing the figures again and Granny's concern made her take him to the church for the pastor to pray over him. The pastor himself told them that my dad had cheated death (he was supposed to be with them when the crash happened). When he started praying, they could hear the door knob jiggling violently and he could see the same glowing red eyes that I saw in my own dream. My dad has experienced some weird shit in his life and he'll tell you all about it if you ask him.
I was in my 20s when I found my baby book and discovered that even though I was born August 3rd, Momma's due date was September 3rd. Her water broke on its own and she went into labor naturally and after 18 hours, I was born, perfect weight and no complications at all at Welch Emergency. A month later, around the day that I as originally supposed to to arrive, a cousin of mine died shortly after birth due to negligence from the hospital. It very well could have been me instead of him.
A year and 16 days later, Momma experienced a brutal labor with Mia that resulted in an emergency C-section. Out of the three of us, Mia was the runt of the litter, weighing only 5 pounds and a few ounces. It wasn't until after she was born that Momma found out that she had originally been carrying twins. Back in the 90s, ultrasounds were far and few between. Mia is the surviving twin of Vanishing Twin Syndrome. A nurse told Momma that she was carrying twins. Apart from hearing it from a medical professional back then, there is a lot of evidence to support it. Twins hit nearly every generation of the Edward's family right on point. It's incredibly absolute and I find it phenomenal.
It starts with my great-grandfather who has identical twin sons. Paw Paw's daughter, my Aunt Peaches was pregnant with twins, but she miscarried both of them. Momma's brother, my uncle David, had fraternal twins, DJ and Dazia. And then there was Mia and her vanishing womb mate (it's come to a halt right there and for the love of God, I hope it's going to skip me whenever I get pregnant again). It's unclear how they could have determined that there was another baby. They could have found a slightly smaller placenta connected to the placenta that belonged to Mia. She could very well be a fraternal twin.Vanishing Twin Syndrome is basically survival of the fittest. When one twin dies, the stronger twin absorbs it. Mia cheated Death too.
What Momma said in the dream could have a link to the domestic violence that we witnessed around that time and for years after. It could have meant that things within our family was about to get worse, but Momma would be strong enough to protect us from Death itself, so protecting us from trauma and abuse would be no problem at al.
As a believer of the supernatural, I wonder if my boys will experience the same thing. Draven wasn't in a favorable position for a long time during my pregnancy. He turned at the last minute and we lost his heart beat for a second on the monitor like his cord was compressed for a minute. It eventually dropped incredibly low but came back up again. When he was on his way out, his cord was partially wrapped around his his neck and they found that he was clutching part of it with his hand. That was probably the only reason why it didn't wrap around his neck completely. That was what caused the change on the monitor. Immediately before Devin was burn and I dilated to ten, his heart rate went from 143 bpm to 90 in literally 5 seconds. When he came out, we discovered that his cord was in a complete knot, so it was a good thing that I went into labor when I did. Both of them cheated death.
All of this probably makes it seem like I'm insane ( I'm always questioning my own sanity on a daily basis anyways). Stuff like this reminds me of the Final Destination movies when I think of how different things in life would be if you didn't dodge a bullet at the right time. With the boys, I would have lost one of them because of what happened with their umbilical cords. It's been enough to scare me away from having another baby. It's too nerve wracking for me. This dream was basically the beginning of me thinking deeply about a lot of stuff and putting pieces together all these years has been thrilling. I'm not making things up or hallucinating and I'm not off of my meds. I'm just into a lot of weird and creepy shit and this just so happens to fall into that category.
