Samantha

I was born and raised in a close knit community in Dublin, grew up in the one terrace house and had close relationships with all the people in my street. When I was 13 a tragedy occurred late one night, when we were all woken to a loud banging on the door. With my parents out of bed and downstairs and us kids close behind, it was a surreal experience to see our young next door neighbour standing on the doorstep with her lifeless 18 month old baby in her arms screaming.

She had stopped breathing and it was my mum she came to for help, I will never forget the look of terror on her face. My mum gave cpr to the baby I had fallen in love with and played with each day, until the ambulance came. Little Samantha was kept alive by the efforts of my mum, but when after 3 days her life support was turned off, she died and left behind a hole in all our lives. Her devastated mum was never the same after that and we saw less and less of her, when Sam died not long after, her mum found she was actually pregnant again. The months passed and life moved on.

Months later, I was to find that although I no longer felt connected to sam's mum, I still was. I had a vivid dream one night. It was dark and I was in a strange lounge room sitting next to a women on a couch. I knew I was sitting with Carol Samantha's mum, but she wasn't aware I was there. She was quietly sobbing and holding her stomach in a lot of pain she was very frightened. I whispered to her that the time had come she needed to call to David (her husband), I felt she needed him now and quickly. She called out to him and he came rushing down the stairs from the bedroom to help her. He came and I drifted out of my dream.

When I woke up and got ready to go to school, the dream was still vivid in my mind. I got up and dressed and went downstairs, I told my dad all that I had seen and heard. He brushed it off as just a strange dream. "Carol hadn't had her baby, don't worry go to school".

Later however when I came home for lunch, my dad was shocked to tell me that, in the early hours of the morning Carol had went into labour and she had now had her new baby. I was very young and wasn't really believed but I know for sure what I felt and saw it was an amazing experience I'll never forget. I'm 33 now and still remember that amazing dream and still feel somehow my close connection with Carols' child Sam brought me close to her mum that night.