Joey and His Grandfather

This multi-layered synchronicity comes from Janice Cutbush. We’ve posted a couple of her synchros –  The Loon of Fourth Lake and Sky Bars, Joy and Mom and Dad, which actually has a synchronous connection to this some story. There are synchronicities with birthdays, names, dates…well, you’ll see.

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In 2007, my nephew Joey, a 29 year old construction worker, sustained a traumatic brain injury when he fell off a 35′ high flat roof he was working on in Albany, NY.

He life hung in the limbo of a coma for 5 weeks. Doctors were predicting the worst. He had only a 10% chance of surviving and if he did, he most likely would be a vegetable.  After 4 weeks he began to show signs of recovering- blinking, squeezing hands, opening his eyes. Week five he began to revive and in fact did survive.

However, he was left with a crippling cognitive impairment that would make it difficult for him to work-visual agnosia. He is face blind and does not recognize much of what he sees. When he was doing physical rehab, his therapist took him to the hospital store, to get him familiar with the store and items in it. She started with chocolate candy. She held up a Sky Bar and Joe started singing the advertising jingle from the 1950s-“One two three four Sky Bar; it’s a four in one bar.” The therapist was amazed and asked him how he knew that old song. He said, “My grandpa used to sing old jingles to me when I was little.”

We all thought it was incredible that he remembered this since it was so long ago.  Joey was my father’s namesake and in a weird coincidence, my father (Joey’s grandfather) died on March 10, 2000, which was Joey’s birthday. We all remember thinking at the time how awful it was that my dad died on Joey’s  birthday. Joey was in the Marine’s in California when his grandfather died and did not come home for the funeral, but had been very close to my father growing up as my parents took care of Joey when his mom went back to work.

After the accident, a lawsuit was initiated by Joey’s parents against the numerous contractors that were involved in the building he was working on when he fell. The lawsuit dragged on for 3 years and finally in late 2010 it was settled.  Joey’s lawyers won a substantial settlement that will provide him with an income for life, since his disabiliity will prevent him from working. There was synchronicity again connecting my Dad and Joey even in the settlement. The case was settled out of court by the lawyers on a holiday, Veteran’s Day, which happens to be my father’s birthday.  Again, a final synchronicity after the lawsuit.  It was necessary for Joey’s parents to hire a trust lawyer. As it turns out, the trust lawyer’s father was the obstetrician who delivered Joey in 1979.

In a final connection, Joey and his grandmother have become very close since his accident. She is 92 and lives alone. Joey visits her almost every day and sometimes spends evenings watching TV with her.  It is touching and poignant to see him doting on her.  We all wonder what messages from beyond Joey received when he was hovering between life and death. Maybe this was my dad’s way of saving Joey and ensuring that his wife would be cared for in her old age.