From Dave in Ohio:

My mother grew up in a small town outside of Erie, Pennsylvania called Wesleyville. Her best friend Betty lived directly across the street. They walked to school together, played, went to movies - all the things that best friends do - until my grandfather announced to my mother that they were moving to Ohio. My mother, who was 16 at the time, was dismayed, to say the least. What would she do without her best friend?

The moving day came and the best friends promised to stay in touch. And they did - through the remainder of the Great Depression and through World War II. After the war, each served as maid of honor in the other's wedding. When it was my mother's turn to be married, Betty gave her a beautiful crystal goblet as a wedding gift.

Things went well throughout the 1950s. Betty and my mother each had two sons. Betty's family came to Ohio to visit with us frequently and we went to Erie to visit with them.

And then, in 1958, Betty came down with a terminal illness. Her condition deteriorated rapidly and we knew the end was not far away. One night my mother lay awake thinking of her best friend. Suddenly, without warning, she heard the sound of breaking glass from the dining room. She instinctively looked at the clock and it was 3:00 am. She got up, turned on the lights and went to investigate. She looked all over and didn't see anything unusual - until she looked into the cabinet where she displayed her crystal. There, lying on its side and broken, was the goblet Betty had given her thirteen years earlier. Nothing else in the cabinet was disturbed in any way.

My mother went back to bed, trying to figure out what could possibly have caused the goblet to fall over inside a display cabinet. No one had disturbed it - my dad was sound asleep in their bedroom and my brother and I were asleep upstairs.

The next morning, at about 7:30, Betty's husband Don called to tell us that Betty had passed away during the night.

"What time?" my mother asked.

"3:00 am," replied Don.

This story is true - exactly as I described it. Did Betty cause the goblet to fall over as a sign to my mother? A sign that, although gone from this plane of existance, she lived on in another realm? My mother and I discussed this event many times over the years, trying to come up with an alternative explanation.

We know the goblet didn't fall over due to an earthquake. We have them in Ohio, but they are exceedingly rare. Had there been even a mild earthquake that night it would have been in the newspapers and we would have remembered it. Besides, the base of the goblet was wide enough that a moderate shaking of the ground would not be sufficient to knock it over.

Had it fallen over in the daytime, my brother and I would be natural suspects. But it was 3:00 am, and we were sound asleep in our upstairs bedrooms. My mother, a light sleeper, would have heard us coming down the stairs.

And why did that one goblet fall over while everything else in the cabinet was undisturbed?

My mother and I, both rational people, are convinced Betty herself knocked it over at the time of her passing. We believe it was her way of saying "farewell."