1492 (Halloween Story)

1492 by Cynthia eLaLoza-Rosas

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?