Quite literally. I mean... Think of basic things such as interactions with animals. God's creation. I've had times where wild deer, while I was hunting, walk up to me and just stand there within arm's reach. I could move around a bit, stretch out my hand, I even pet one. Surreal experience. Dogs... They love me. I don't get it. I'll scratch their head a bit if they come up to me or whatever, but I mean I can just be sitting down and this supposedly mean dog will just plant itself right next to me, fold it's ears back, and either "smile" or give the puppy eyes because they want some attention damn it! 😂 I say that because it's happened at family and friends' places with their guard dogs. Then there's the stuff they say about the red birds being loved ones that passed... The deer thing I was talking about? Here's a fun story I swear is real. I'm hunting and leaned up against a tree. To my front there's a dip a good 30 yards away where a creek runs, then it comes back up and turns into a hill that plateaus a little bit and dips back off. Total distance is about a football field. To my left is woods and a fence. To my right is a pathway carved out with a brushhog that leads all the way to the other side of the hill I mentioned. It's a good five or so yards wide. from me to this line of bushes on the opposite edge of the trail. It's a usual hunting trip, and I have my little 30-30 resting on my lap... I'm just sitting there enjoying myself thinking about life and imagining random bullshit in-between the "holy shit those leaves are rustling... It's a de- Oh... Squirrel." moments. About 10 minutes in out of the 2 hours I was there total, lo and behold a redflappyboi comes in and perches himself on a branch of that bush line across from me to my right. I remembered the whole myth about them being loved ones, kinda laughed under my breath and said "hey grampa", then got back to watching and thinking. Well, time passes, and this redboi has not left. It knows I'm there because I had stretched my legs a bit and I saw it watching me wondering why the fuck that tree just moved. Then what happens? Another red comes in. They were both male, but at this point I'm starting to feel a bit odd about that. Both of my grandpas are dead and were at the time of this story. These two stick around. I swear it was almost like they were hunting with me, like they wanted to see what I was doing. Neither grandpa went hunting with me when they were alive (we fished plenty however), so... I was just getting a weird feeling man. As it starts to get dark, and these two reds are still there, I see movement across the way at the plateaued area of the hill. I raise my rifle slowly and can just barely make out antlers in my scope, just a young six point. Not worth shooting. So I lower my gun and watch him. He moves down the hill toward me, I lose him at the creek because of that dip, but then he comes up and keeps walking toward me. I looked over at the bush where those redbirds were, and they were still there. This deer keeps walking and gets within about six feet of me then stops and locks eyes with me. ohshit.jpg Poor dude probably had the same feeling wondering why the Hell that tree had eyeballs. This deer lowered its head a bit in a "I'm curious" manner and got within about arms reach. If I would have leaned forward and stretched a bit, I could have probably given it a boop on the nose. Everything was very quiet, damn-near *still*, and I could hear this buck's breathing. It was such an odd feeling though, I wasn't picking up any fear or anything other than curiosity. During this interaction I was ready to shoot, just in case he decided to make a poor attempt at mauling me, but I never once felt in danger, strangely. We were both just staring at each other for what felt like 30 minutes, and I stretched my legs out a bit since they were falling asleep. Buck just kinda looked, lowered its head almost as if it was a nod, and walked on. It stopped for a moment and turned it's head to see if I was still there, at this point I was just having fun so I waved at him. It turned back around and disappeared after a minute. It was too dark anyway, so I began to get up. As I was getting up to leave, those two reds flew off. I couldn't make this up if I tried... Definitely an odd experience. One I won't forget. Anyway, yeah. God's chosen and all that. We're it.