Picture on my refrigerator....

The story I am about to tell you is a true and mystical one:

I recently put a new snapshot on my refrigerator: my dad (Lloyd); his two brothers, a brother-in-law, and my granddaddy, Papa--Carlene's dad.

For years we have commented on how much Tom (my son-in-law) looks like and reminds us of Lloyd at Tom's age--it's just uncanny, since these two men are not biologically related!

Elena always notices anything new in my house.  When she saw the picture, she pointed to Granddaddy Lloyd (whom she never got to meet in her lifetime) and said, "Uncle Tom!"

"No, that's not Uncle Tom; that's your great-granddaddy," I said.  "But he does look like Uncle Tom, doesn't he?"

Then she wanted to know the names of all the men in the picture, but kept going back to Granddaddy Lloyd, as if she knew him.

When she "had pee pee,"  she insisted that I change her diaper, and I did.

Lying on my bed, she said something to me in words that no one has ever said to me exactly like that before but Lloyd:

"You're so pretty," she said.  (He told me that often, in exactly those words)

She didn't say it in her usual loud and confident voice; she said it almost as if she said it by mistake, quietly, and covered her mouth when she said it.  I wasn't quite sure she said what I thought I heard.

"I'm so what?" I asked.  "Big?"

"No!" she said.

"I'm so mean?" I asked, teasingly.

"No! she said.  "You so pretty, Yenna!"

I told this story to Kate and Carlene this morning.  They both said the same thing in different ways.  Kate said, "She's channeling Lloyd!"

Carlene said that wherever Heaven is, maybe they'd met there before she was born.  Maybe they know each other after all!