As the anniversary of this date approaches, I feel compelled to share this experience. I’ve never told this to the people close to me, as the few times I’ve shared it people get weirded out and don’t know how to reply.
In 2018 I was living in Toronto (Canada), a relatively safe city considering the large population. However, on the evening of July 22nd, a warm and muggy Sunday evening, I went out for patio drinks on a first date.
We went to a patio in a popular area of town known as the Danforth, a predominantly Greek area of town that was filled with restaurants and families that evening after the rain had stopped earlier.
The date wasn’t exactly as I had hoped for, which happens, and the vibe was super off in general. I had arrived around 9pm, and at 10pm was looking for the waiter’s attention to grab my bill and start wrapping up. At that moment, a gunman opened fire just down the road in a busy parkette area, shooting several people before continuing down the road.
It wasn’t long before he came to our patio area and people were starting to frantically realize what was happening. The person I was with and I managed to duck down behind the metal patio frame as bullets ricocheted that were targeted at us.
I looked through an opening and watched as several more people in my eye sight were shot, including a 10 year old girl who succumbed to her wound injuries. She had been across the road from me eating ice cream with her family. There were 2 children killed and 13 adults severely injured in this mass shooting.
There is more to the event, with on scene attendance to the victims prior to medics arriving, but I relive that enough in my head daily.
What still bothers me to this day is a warning a psychic gave me about a month prior to the event. I work in a profession where I treat patients, many on an ongoing basis.
Some people will see whichever practitioner is available if they need an appointment, and I had seen this lady on and off if she made an appointment with me. She was a lovely lady, and when I treated her prior she had confided in me that she was a psychic.
So in early June 2018 when I went into an appointment with her, she began talking to me about how spirits had woken her up all morning by setting off her alarm clock and that she was extremely tired. I kind of laughed and said you would think they paid rent or something.
She became rigid and stern, and said the spirits weren’t there for her, and they were waking her up to get her attention to give ME a message! I remember feeling in shock, because that had never happened to me before.
She said the alarm kept going off at 7:22, and even when she went back to bed and tried to sleep, it would keep going off and reading 7:22 even though it was later morning. She said she couldn’t give me the exact details of 7:22 but that it filled her sadness and she didn’t understand the meaning.
Flash forward to 7:22pm that evening, I was still at work and hyper aware of the time thinking it meant something that exact day. Nothing happened. I watched as that time came and went 7:22am and 7:22pm for several days, and nothing happened and I forgot about it. I had written 7:22 down on a piece of paper and shoved in my work locker.
Then came the day of the shooting. I had to work before the date that evening, so when I got home from work to get ready - nothing went as planned. The hot water was apparently not working in the condo building that day, so I had to shower in cold water which I hate.
I went to go dry my hair with the dryer, and sparks flew out of it to the point I had to put it outside because it was smoking and I was afraid it would catch fire. So after braiding my wet hair, I ordered an Uber. 4 Ubers in a row cancelled on me, which had never happened before.
I had to switch over to Lyft and was finally about to get a driver. The driver was very sweet, an older man that told me I reminded him of his daughter and to stay safe as he dropped me off outside the brew pup for my date.
I didn’t think of all of these things, one because I was in complete shock for weeks afterwards. But about a month after I was tidying up my locker at work and found the paper the read 7:22.
It was like a wave of heat passed over me and I thought I was going to be sick. July is the 7th month and 22 was the date of the shooting. I don’t know whom was sending messages from the other side, although I have my ideas.
Since then I have become far more receptive and responsive to ‘signs’ patients provide me. Even within the past month, struggling with a big life change, my grandpa (my favourite person) appeared through something a patient said. I guess this is all to say, they are always watching us and we can hear if we listen.