Last week I blogged about the legend of the Grey Man, ab...

 Last week I blogged about the legend of the Grey Man, abenevolent ghost that is said to haunt the lowcountry of South Carolina andwarn the inhabitants of the sea islands about approaching hurricanes. Today Iwant to tell you about an experience that hit much closer to home for me; anexperience that still gives me goosebumps everytime I think about it.
Theyear was 1993 and my wife was pregnant with our third daughter. Like most expectantparents, we spent a great deal of time trying to decide on a name for or newaddition to the family. After giving it much thought, we came to the conclusionthat she would enter the world as Ashley Olsen.
Okay,think about it. The poor child would have gone through school with the same nameas a rising celebrity twin (we knew nothing of the Olsen twins at the time).Can you imagine the teasing she would have had to endure? Not only that, buteveryone said she looked just like thefamous Ashley Olsen in her early childhood, which would have only caused hermore grief.
Well,I guess my daughter wasn’t about to go through all that, so she decided to payme a prenatal visit. It began when I woke from a deep slumber and saw the mistyimage of a little girl who appeared to be about six years old standing at thefoot of the bed. I couldn’t move nor could I speak as she wagged her finger atme and let me know in no uncertain terms that her name was to be Shannon, notAshley. 
Icame out of the experience in a cold sweat, and when my wife asked me what waswrong, I told her I wasn’t sure what had just happened, but we better thinkseriously about naming our future child Shannon.
Mywife liked the name, and when our daughter made her grand entrance into the worldon July 15th 1993, her birth certificate announced her as ShannonElizabeth Olsen.
Here’sthe real kicker: when Shannon turned six years old, she was the spitting imageof the little girl I had seen at the foot of the bed (believe me, I remember everydetail of that experience). 
So,did I really see my daughter before she was born or was it some sort of dreamwarning me not to inflict countless days of teasing on my daughter by namingher Ashley Olsen? Think what you will, but I firmly believe it was the spiritof my daughter. And that’s what influenced me to write a similar scene in myfirst novel, A Lone Palm Stands. For those of you who have read the book, youknow what I’m referring to. For those of you who haven’t read it … well, what areyou waiting for? :)
Comingin next week’s blog: “Who dat Boo-Hag is?”
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