Many years ago Ken had given me a crystal for good luck. When we brought his ashes to the tree in 1995 I passed the crystal around for all to see and touch. Somehow the crystal never came back to me. We know none of the Deadheads would have kept it. We all searched for it, but never found it.

When were at the tree this year one of the Ken's friends known as "Disco Dave" (the reason for this name is that at Dead shows he would, as a joke, play disco music through speakers on top of his van), was standing at the tree and felt something under his foot, he reached down and picked up the crystal that had been lost three years prior!

Ironically Disco Dave's van (which was known as the Disco Van) was the van that Ken was in when he was killed. Furthermore when Ken originally discovered the "Big Tree" (now known as Ken's tree), Disco Dave was with him. Also we found out that Disco Dave has been studying under Geshe Wandu (the Buddhist monk who blessed Ken’s Tree).

I again passed the crystal around for all to see and touch. Geshe Wandu rubbed it very fast between his hands.

When we got back to the Chicago area, I told the story of the reappearing crystal to a friend, who is considered a Shaman by many Native Americans. He told me that it is not unusual for crystals to disappear and when they reappear they many times bring a message.

I didn't think much more of this until several months later when we were at our monthly Bereaved Parents meeting. I told the story of the crystal and passed it around to the other Bereaved Parents. One of the women, Cherie, was the last to get the crystal and she held onto it until the meeting was over. When she gave it back to me she asked, "did Ken carve that picture of the church on the crystal?" I said, "what church?" She replied "well look at it!" To my amazement there was a very recognizable picture of a church with a steeple on (and in) the crystal.

The story does not yet end ... Karen and I are on the Board of Advisors of the Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. We are usually at the school in middle May for their graduation services. In fact the year Ken died we were at the school. We left South Dakota on May 22nd and Ken was killed May 23rd.

Two years ago, at the school, which is a part of the Holy Rosary Mission, their beautiful 100-year-old church caught fire and burned to the ground. A new church has been under construction for the last two years. The week before we came to Boulder Creek (in 1998) we were at the school for graduation and we were able to see the new church.

We had taken pictures of the new church. When I compared the pictures of the church to the image on the crystal I found that they match exactly!

I believe the Shaman's prediction about a message to be true.