My
name is Cynthia DeLaLoza-Rosas, and I didn't really believe in ghosts
until my nephew Christopher was in a motorcycle accident and was killed.
Christopher was special to our family, he was the only one with bright
red hair. He was humble and quiet. Christopher was a sophomore at UCLA
and only 20 years old when he died. I wasn't close to Christopher, but
I helped him once in a while, like when he was stranded and his VW convertible
broke down. Or when he was working a summer job with me and he wanted
lunch, but his mother refused to buy it for him, I had him follow me to
Burger King and bought him lunch, he was so very happy that day. This
is a sad, but strange Ghost Story:
Thursday evening April 12, 1990, I was retiring to bed and knew that I
didn't have to go to work on Friday, the 13th, I was taking the day off
my daughters were going to be in a little parade at school and I wanted
to attend. In the back of my mind I was remembering that my father passed
away on April 13, 1984, and reflecting on those moments of sadness also
on the fact that it was a bad luck day for many people. I was superstitious
and I always tried to be careful. But I tucked it back in my mind and
wanted the day to go smoothly.
In the early morning hours of Friday, April 13, 1990, the phone rang!
I woke up from a sound sleep and answered the phone on the 3rd ring. No
one was there! I kept saying "hello," "hello," and
still no one. I was feeling strange and I immediately looked at my clock
radio with it's big red digital numbers blaring at me, 4:13 a.m.!! I couldn't
believe it. I immediately thought this is my father calling me from the
grave! I woke up my husband and told him about it and showed him the clock,
but by then it was about 4:18 a.m. He was superstitious too and he believed
it was my dad also.
I couldn't wait to call my sisters and brothers to tell them that I think
I was contacted by my dad's spirit. It was disappointing and sad that
I didn't get to hear my dad's voice, I had mixed emotions, first I was
downright scared, then I felt privileged that he would try to contact
me. Anyway it didn't happen. So after about an hour of restlessness and
waiting for another call, I decided to go back to sleep.
We all woke up about 7:00 a.m. and I got the girls to school, and proceeded
to do some chores until the school parade which wasn't scheduled until
around 1:00 p.m. Then the dreadful call came in, it was my brother Mario
calling to tell me that Christopher had been in a terrible accident. I
was asking all sorts of questions, like when, where, what time? He had
told me he didn't know the details, but I needed to get to UCLA medical
center. He didn't tell me the severity of Chris's condition. We picked
up the children and had someone look after them as we felt it wouldn't
be appropriate to take them.
On our way to the hospital I was discussing the phone call with my husband
and told him, "Oh no the call I got last night must have been from
Christopher!" He said it would be impossible since my brother talked
to him on the phone and said Chris was admitted around 7:30 a.m. Friday
morning. We arrived at the hospital, my sisters and brothers were there,
and my sister Natalie, Chris's mother told me what happened. It seems
Chris was at a frat party and for some odd reason, as his friends told
it, he decided to take a ride on his friend's motorcycle, and left the
party at around 3:30 a.m. When Chris didn't arrive by early morning at
around 6:30 his friends decided to call around and look for him. As Chris's
friends were looking, a patrol car spotted Chris lying on shoulder off
Mulholland drive with a deep head wound. It seems he had hit a bump, flew
off the bike and hit his head on a chain link fence post.
We were told that evening, while we were still at the hospital, the bad
news, Chris was pronounced brain dead. They kept his vital organs alive
for donor purposes until April 17th. My sister and her husband were beyond
themselves. We were all so sad and devastated, but I still had the phone
call in the back of my mind, I didn't have the heart to tell my sister.
On our way back from the hospital, my husband at that time, who is Chinese
was telling me about his superstitions, stemming from his culture. "First
of all, he said, your sister built a red brick walkway to her house, which
is bad luck, there's a red walkway to the house of death in China,"
" Second, she bought a black Cadillac, limousine car which resembles
as funeral car." "Before all of this, several of her neighbors
had contracted diseases and a few died, also her best friend's son died
at the age of 23 from a rare blood disease, and she lives directly across
from your sister!" The next day, he took a look at the area and did
some researching and found that there had been a sacred burial ground
where my sister's home was built, in fact that very tract of homes was
sacred many years before. He felt that a curse had been placed on that
area!
The last time I saw Christopher alive was a week before, on Sunday, he
was helping his brother unload some things from his pickup truck, and
it was a sunny day, but I remember there was a distinct shadow over Christopher,
so much that I couldn't really see his face clearly. After Chris's accident,
I thought to myself could it be the shadow of death I had heard about
before? About a year after Christopher's death, my sister was able to
talk of Christopher and told me the special things about him, she said,
" You know Cindy, Chris had red hair, and did you know Christopher
Columbus had red hair?" I didn't know that, and when she said this
I almost fainted, "I went to visit Chris's grave and noticed the
number of his grave is 1492!" That was supposedly the year Christopher
Columbus discovered America! Then I finally told her about that phone
call! She started crying and she believed he called because, he had been
lying there for a few hours, the doctors and coroner confirmed he had
hit the pole at approximately 4:00 a.m. and that phone call must have
come from poor Christopher.
I know Chris is here with us, for example, his watch was still running
up until 2 years ago, that's 8 years! My sister gave my daughter Stephanie
Chris's Ray Ban sunglasses and she wore them once, then came home and
was really quiet, like Chris was, my daughter normally talks a mile a
minute. I believe his spirit is lingering in our lives. I think there
was a premonition about Chris's death, when he was a little boy, I was
sitting for my sister, and Chris was playing with a toy motorcycle and
pushed it across the room, then suddenly fell and hit his forehead really
hard! There was a bump on it. It happened on September 25 when he was
8 years old. We didn't think anything of it until my sister researched
Christopher Columbus and found that his Second voyage from Cadiz was on
September 25, 1493. If you add 1493 together you get 8! It gives me chills
each time I think about it. My sister believes that for whatever reason,
Chris is Christopher Columbus reincarnated, but was only here for 20 years,
why?
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