Can a person be in two places at one time? It sounds impossible, and yet there are many well-documented cases of this happening. They seem to occur at a critical point in time, such as when a person is threatened or faces death. These reports indicate that a person can actually project himself to another place. Such appearances are known as “crisis phantoms” or “crisis apparitions.” They occur most often when a person is separated from his family and loved ones. When the crisis or disaster occurs, he is somehow able to “wish himself” away to join the ones he loves.

Such was the case with a young man named Dylan Matthews. His love for his mother and his family must have been strong-strong enough to transport him over one thousand miles.

Anne Mathews was a worry wart. She worried about everything from her health to the weather. But mostly she worried about her family. Anne constantly worried about her five children-where they were, what they were doing and whether they were safe.

When her son Dylan told her that he was leaving home, Anne’s heart froze. Of course, she realized, that he was more than old enough to live elsewhere, but she hated to let him out of her sight. She was sure that something terrible would happen to him if he left the safe have of his family’s house.

When Dylan told her where he was going and what he planned to do, Anne worried even more. He said he was leaving to take command of a riverboat on the Mississippi. In the mid-1800s, the Mississippi River promised two things to those who were willing to navigate its muddy waters: easy passage to the Gulf of Mexico and untold adventure. Dreams of navigating the mighty river sent many young men’s hearts racing.

Anne tried and tried to talk Dylan into staying in New Jersey and finding a local job, but he was determined to head west. He wanted to be a riverboat captain and that was that. On the day Dylan left his mother, his father and his four sisters, Anne felt as if she were being ripped in two.

He regularly wrote home, but it often took months for his letters to travel the one thousand miles to reach his family. Anne loved his letters, but they only made her worry even more about him. It was rough country out there and seemed to her to be very dangerous.

Soon Anne’s worrying grew until she was terrified, and she knew she would remain that way until she saw her son again. And Anne was going to see him sooner than she realized.

January 12^th was a bitterly cold day. All day long, the wind howled outside their house, flinging icy snow against the windows. The storm made it difficult to get the girls to sleep that night. After settling them in, Anne herself went to bed early, saying a prayer for her son as she got ready. Her husband stayed downstairs, tending the fire.

Just as Anne bent over to snuff out the candle, she saw an incredible sight-right there in her room. Dylan! He was home! But he was hurt-hurt badly. Dylan’s head was covered with bloody bandages. A stream of blood trickled from his hairline to his chin. Large purplish bruises covered his face and neck. One eye was swollen completely shut. His arm hung limply in a sling.

How did he get home? What happened to him? Whatever it was, Anne knew he had to be in horrible pain. But, strangely enough, he didn’t look as if he was suffering. He didn’t speak, but only smiled a slow, peaceful smile. His eyes shone in the darkness, and they held a gentle, kind expression.

“Dylan!” she cried, stretching out her arms to embrace him. Her son looked at her with a deep, serene stare. Then, slowly and deliberately, he turned and walked away. As he reached her bedroom door, his image faded. Then, without a word, Dylan disappeared.

Anne ran down the stairs, her heart pounding. She didn’t know what the image of Dylan meant, but she knew that he was in trouble of some kind-terrible trouble. She had to tell her husband. Anne’s husband was a reasonable man and he knew his wife well. She always expected the worst when it came to her children, and he was sure that tonight her worries about Dylan had simply turned into a nightmare.

“A dream, “he said from his armchair by the fire. “It was only a dream.” He took his wife in his arms and stroked her hair. “You worry too much about Dylan. It’s no wonder that you had a nightmare about him being hurt.”

But the words did little to comfort her. She was overcome with a feeling of dread. She wept most of the night, thinking about her son in bandages, bleeding from an open wound. She knew that she would not rest again until she received some word about him, some sign that he was all right.

Two weeks later, Anne got the news. An official-looking letter arrived from the steamship line her son worked for. Her hands trembled as she opened it.

The letter expressed condolences to the Matthews family on behalf of the steamship company. It explained that her son had been killed in a horrible accident. His steamship had collided with another. Part of the ship’s mast had fallen on Dylan’s face and neck. He had tried to cushion his fall with his arm and broke it in the process.

The note said that he had lived for three days following the accident. The letter went on to report that just before his death, Dylan seemed to be completely free of pain. He died peacefully that late January night.  

Anne’s blood ran cold as she finished the rest of the letter. Dylan had dies at exactly 10:30 on the night of January 12^th-the precise time and day she had seen her son in her bedroom, his head wrapped in bandages, his face bruised, and his arm broken.

But then Anne remembered the look she had seen on Dylan’s face. It was the peaceful look of acceptance. This memory comforted Anne most as she grieved the loss of her son.

Dylan’s love for his mother had been so strong that he crossed many barriers to tell her goodbye. He crossed miles and even time. But most of all, he crossed the barrier between this world and the next in order to leave his mother with one parting gift-the peace of knowing he was at rest.

Anne loved Dylan with all her heart and then some, but if this was truly his destiny already laid before him then she cannot be the one to change it. Only he could have changed his fate. However, he was determined nonetheless to prove himself and to be a steamship captain.