My great-grandma was a wonderfully kind woman. I did not know her very well except for one day I had the day off from school and my mom made me spend the day with her. We pulled weeds in the garden and played cards in her old house and had the greatest time. She was so sweet, a woman I would never forget, despite the little I knew of her. I adored her so much that I made her a hotpad in Home Ec, that I'm not sure I ever actually gave her. That was in Junior High. I am now 23.
A few years ago, oh, it had to be about 93/94, she was in the hospital. I cannot remember exactly what was wrong with her, maybe her kidneys or something, but a problem in which she needed to be operated on quickly, but the operation was very risky with her old age and all of the problems she was having.
All of her family was able to come to the hospital and say everything that needed to be said, including the hand holding and silent times, before she went in for the operation - except for one son, who was driving in from California with his wife and daughter. He would make it there for after the operation, but the drive was so long & the illness was so sudden that he would definitely not make it there before.
At about the time that she went in for surgery, the brother had stopped at a gas station for drinks and to fill up the tank. As they got back in the car, they strapped in the little girl into her carseat in back and then proceeded to get in front. When they got in, the little girl made a few noises like she was talking to someone, and then said "Dad. The lady keeps looking at me. She wants some of my ice."
The brother looked back at his daughter. "Who wants your ice, sweetie?" he asked, and his daughter replied "The woman sitting next to me." Of course, since they saw no one there and they had other pressing matters to think about, they dismissed it as their daughters active imagination.
Needless to say, my great-grandma didn't survive the surgery. The brother was able to be there for the funeral, and as they were there they began talking about the surgery and how she was before the surgery. And in that conversation, they mentioned that the doctors wouldn't allow her to eat or drink anything for hours before the surgery. the conversation with his daughter came back to him... he checked the time that she had died, and it was very close to the time he remembered leaving the gas station.
His mother would have been very thirsty as she was in surgery... and wanted some ice.
I heard a short while after that she was still around, that my great-aunt has one of those touch-lamps from great-grandma's house that occasionally will go from dim, brighter, brighter, bright, brightest, off, dim a couple times when there are others in the room, no where near the lamp. A couple of times it would scare her, and then she'd just start talking as if my great-grandma was there in the room with her - some sort of acknowledgement - and it would stop.
I don't know if it still happens, or even if it really did -- this part I'm not too sure about. But that my great-grandma saw her son and grand-daughter that couldn't make it, I somehow know that one to be true.