Chapter 3: Musings on the Playground

Over dessert, Cathy and I recalled several children we knew who had phobias. We thought of one small child we both knew who was terrified of water, whose mother could not coax him into a swimming pool. Could he have drowned in another lifetime? Would his fear go away simply by remembering his past life?

I felt excitement rising in me as we followed this line of thinking. Not just fears, but any traits could be the result of past lives. We talked of children we knew who had unusual talents, odd interests, or quirky behavior that puzzled their parents. She told me the story of a three-year-old girl in her class who sat crying in front of a small hole she had dug in the playground and covered with leaves. When Cathy asked her what was wrong she said, "I'm crying for my children who died in the flood." Cathy questioned her parents about this, but they couldn't explain it either.

Running with the possibilities, we jumped to another idea. How often do we find children in families who seem to be totally different from each other and from their parents? We agreed that each of us had felt the uniqueness of our own babies when we held them for the first time; the seeds of personality were already there at birth. We could feel it. Maybe this uniqueness is not solely the result of random combinations of the parents' genes. Maybe it's also due to traces of past life personality and experience they bring with them to this life. And maybe our children are much more than the blank slates to be written upon by experience, as science has led us to believe for so long.

In the middle of one of these grand speculations, Cathy suddenly realized that she was late and dashed off. She left me alone at the table, sipping my coffee, buzzing with ideas.