Remembering Alicia

Alicia Gomez is one of those people that I will never forget. Oh, if I could just see her now...I’d give her a huge hug and then spend the next four hours listening to her. And then I would listen some more, because boy can she talk! I can still see her brown and gray hair curled tightly to her head, and especially those eyes. She had eyes as bright and curious as a child's. She was always excited, and always on to something new.
As we had been getting to know Alicia we began to notice an odd arrangement of baby pictures hanging on the mirror in her living room. What made the situation strange was that these pictures had obviously been cut out of magazines and ads. “Alicia,” we finally asked her, “what are all of the pictures of babies for?” We were not expecting the answer she gave us, let me tell you.
She smiled lovingly at the pictures. “Promise not to laugh at me? Or think I’m strange?” She asked this a lot, and we always answered, “Of course not, Alicia!” She then proceeded to tell us that she had an amazing magical gift (we found out that she actually had several), that when someone she knew was expecting a baby, she would find pictures in magazines, hang them up, and then the baby would end up looking exactly like the baby from the picture. We smiled and nodded politely… “sure, sure Alicia. That is just wonderful!” But then she showed us evidence, and we were made believers. She showed us one of her magazine clippings alongside a picture of a recent grandbaby…they were spookily identical. And the proof didn’t end there either. She began to pull several pictures from cupboards and off of the fridge, each with a magazine picture of a baby…all of them a perfect match!
After sorting through dozens of photos Alicia finally said, “and this is my grandson who will be born in a month or so”, and flipped us a magazine clipping of one of the most homely looking babies ever. With all of my heart I hoped that Alicia was wrong about that particular baby…but with her odds, I knew he didn’t have a chance!