Death Masks I've Seen in Safeway

Girl with Death Mask - Frida Kahlo

I don't remember when I first saw one, but I was probably on BART or in Safeway. All this began to happen after I got sober in 2001. I'd look over at an older woman, a stranger in a crowd, and I'd see her face for a moment relax, the wrinkles settle, and her skin turn sort of pale green. I could tell from around her face that she was on a gurney - the kind they load into ambulances. I didn't know what to make of it. Was it just some random chemical spark through my brain from the medications I take? I probably would have brushed it off as nothing if it hadn't happened again, numerous times over the years. The marvelous Mary Shutan describes it like this: "I began to occasionally see the death masks in people, as well as the possibility of them passing. This would be like a quick flash when I would look at the face of someone. The “death mask” is essentially what a person will look like when they pass– how their face would look, basically, in a state of death."

That pretty much sums it up for me about what I am seeing. It doesn't seem to be an ability I can control. I don't know when it will happen and I also don't know if what I am seeing is really the person's death or not. I am a writer and I have a very active imagination. But I can feel something when it happens: whether this event is far away or will happen soon. I mostly see the far-away kind. It happens so fast. I don’t know what I would say to someone after I saw their death mask. They are usually going the other direction, far away from me. 

I've read that I need to learn what my own symbolic meanings of these visions are.