Florence said:
I often wonder if he came back just to teach ME something. Every once in a while he will say "Jan , says to tell you she loves you" Jan, my eldest daughter, died in 2005.....
Hi Florence! That was a wonderful validation for you. It is so very hard to understand how that kind of illness works within the context of reincarnation.
I was, somehow, reminded of something regarding names, which has been right under my nose -- literally! That's because my son, Ethan Allen lives downstairs. Anyone aware of early American history would be at least slightly aware of that name, because Ethan Allen was one of the more wiley heroes of the American War for Independence. There is a story about him that may or may not have happened, but accurately describes his personality. Once, while walking in the woods with a friend near his home, a bobcat leapt onto his shoulders and attempted to bite him in the back of the neck. Without skipping a beat in his conversation, he reached up, grabbed a front and rear leg of the beast, and threw it down to the ground with such force that it killed the bobcat outright. His primary fame, however, was that he, with a force of his "Green Mountain Boys", took Fort Ticonderoga without a shot, and only because of his threatening manner. Months later the artillery taken from that fort was moved to the heights overlooking Boston and forced the British to evacuate themselves from the city.
We didn't intend to name our son after Ethan Allen; but, when we first saw him, the name "Ethan" just jumped into both of our minds at the same time. Now, it had been agreed upon between the two of us before our first son, that we would give our future children my wife's maiden surname, which happened to be Allen. We didn't realize that our second son bore the name of Ethan Allen, the patriot, until a nurse mentioned it. From the very beginning Ethan was a blustery and tough little redhead, just as people described the Revolutionary War hero. Not only that, we ended up living on Ethan Allen Highway for ten years without having planned to do so. There are other uncanny things about Ethan that make us very curious. Although he loves his name, although he hides it from people by calling himself E-dawg.
So, as Jody and Firebird indicated, there may, in fact, be a synchronistic component at work here. But, the only way to find further validation would be to have him visit a professional past life regressionist. The only thing that seems uncharacteristic about his connection is that he doesn't share the same intense interest in that period of history as the rest of our family.