Strength in numbers

JOHNSTON, R.I. -- It was 7 p.m. on Feb. 20, 2003. Joanne O'Neill called her son Nick on his cellphone. Nick's band, Shryne, was to open for the heavy metal group Great White at The Station nightclub the next night, and he was there checking things out. He told his mother everything was fine. A few hours later, Great White's tour manager ignited pyrotechnics during the concert at the West Warwick club, and it burned to the ground, killing 100 people. Nick O'Neill, 18, was the youngest.

But according to Nick's loved ones, the teenager with the long blond hair and the ready joke has not left them. He sends signals, many of them having to do with the number 41, which for reasons unknown he was obsessed with. The number 41, sometimes preceded or followed by other numerals, seemed to shadow Nick wherever he went. He'd point it out constantly -- on license plates, sales receipts, clocks, football jerseys. Now, so convinced are his parents that Nick is communicating with them from beyond that his father, Dave Kane, has written a book about the incidents.

''Consider this," Kane writes in ''41 Signs of Hope," which is published by the small Rhode Island press New River. ''Nick lived to the age of 18 years and 23 days. Those two numbers add up to 41. The Station nightclub was located at latitude 41.41. The number of the fire call box at The Station site was 4414." Then there are the windshield wipers and the alarm clocks that go off by themselves -- always at 41 minutes past the hour -- and all the times family members have been seated at table 41 in various restaurants. The song Nick wrote and recorded for his girlfriend, discovered after his death, runs 5 minutes, 41 seconds. His brother David's new phone number ends in 41.

One of the first signs, his parents believe, came from Nick's cellphone, the only item of his recovered by firefighters. Waterlogged, it did not work. How, then, did a call to his mother come in from ''Nicky" four days after the fire, as family awaited word of his survival -- somewhere, somehow -- with fading hopes? Though his name and cellphone number popped up on caller ID, there was no one on the other end.

The next day, Dave Kane went to claim the phone from the funeral home. Time and again, he tried to get it to work. ''We were told that the phone had been damaged by the water from the fire hoses," he writes. ''Then I understood. It couldn't have been some rescue worker's fumbling that rang Joanne's phone that day. It was Nick, letting us know that our torturous, four-day vigil was over."

When Great White's tour manager was sentenced last week to four years in prison, one chapter of the case closed. The club's owners, Michael and Jeffrey Derderian, face trial this summer. Relatives of the victims, including Nick's parents, testified last week about the permanent impact of the fire on their lives.

Nick O'Neill's parents are clearly still processing their grief. Therapists say people often look for signs that a deceased loved one is still with them. Rabbi Earl Grollman, a grief therapist who has written 27 books on death and mourning, says many people believe in visits through apparitions, rainbows, dreams, music, words, numbers, sunrises, and sunsets. ''They think and feel there is something beyond that is inexplicable," says Grollman, who lives in Belmont. ''They need to feel the person is still with them. It brings them a lot of comfort and a lot of hope. It's a very natural thing. This is what they feel, and as a grief counselor I accept them where they are."

When Dave and Joanne started speaking to friends about Nick's ''visits," some thought they were grief-crazed. But now many relatives -- aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents -- say they've had their own messages from Nick. As for the doubters, the couple don't care. ''I've made a career out of being crazy," says Dave, a comic locally known for his one-man show, ''Father Aloysius Misgivings."

''It's funny," he continues. ''There are people who pray to St. Anthony to find their car keys, but they don't believe in talking to their [dead] Aunt Tillie."

He's sitting in the living room of the ranch-style home he and Joanne moved into after Nick died. The couple are surrounded by photographs of their four sons: one by his previous marriage, two by hers, and Nick, their youngest.

Nick O'Neill -- he used his mother's last name -- was a paradox. Bored by school, he dropped out. But he was a talented musician, writing more than 50 songs and producing a CD. He acted in several productions of Providence's acclaimed Trinity Repertory Company as well as community gigs. At 16 he wrote a play called ''They Walk Among Us." It's about three teenagers who die and become angels, looking after a gay teen who is being harassed.

His parents, who had never seen the play until a friend of his brought it to them after his death, decided to produce it as a benefit in Woonsocket for their Nicky O Foundation, which helps struggling artists. Dave played a homophobic preacher. Nick's eldest brother, Chris, directed. Other friends and relatives also participated. During intermission, the power in the theater went out, and the 600 spectators were instructed to leave. Chris says he was looking at his watch: 8:35, 8:37, 8:38. ''I just knew it was going to happen," he says. ''At 8:41, as people were grumbling and starting to leave, the power went back on. Nick is constantly sending us signs."

His parents entered a taped version of ''They Walk Among Us" in the independent Black Point Film Festival in Wisconsin. It won best screenplay in 2005.

Shortly after he died, a plaque bearing Nick's name was installed on a seat in Woonsocket's Stadium Theater in his honor. No one at the theater knew the significance of the number 41, yet the plaque was randomly affixed to Row 4, Seat 1.

That first somber Mother's Day, Chris went to a flea market in search of a gift for Joanne. Two nights before the fire, Nick had mentioned that he wanted to sing something from the musical ''Carousel," a show he had never seen. He then laughed and told Chris: ''I have no idea why I just said that." The show is about a young man who dies and is allowed to come back and watch over his family.

At the flea market, Chris found a carousel music box and picked it up at the same time a song from ''Carousel" came on over the loudspeakers. ''How many times do you hear show tunes playing at a flea market?" Chris asks. The song was ''You'll Never Walk Alone." Chris bought the box for his mother. At 9:41 that night, it began playing by itself, without any winding. It played until 9:42.

''It's so uncanny, these circumstances," says Chris, who has a master's in theater education from Emerson College. ''Nick is constantly sending us signs just to let the family know that he's completely present. He's shed his body, but he's still part of the family." Recently Chris and his wife rented a car and popped in a CD. The track number and the clock kept changing, but the digital counter froze at 2:41.

Other family members have had similar 41 sightings. Nick's brother Bill (by his mother's first marriage) was trying to decide between two music schools, one in San Francisco, one in Connecticut. When Bill visited the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, he went to a restaurant. As he waited for a table, he noticed a bus passing by. The number on the bus was 41. He was seated at table 41. When the check came, the serial number at the top was 41.

At the school the next day, he saw the plans for the school's renovation, which called for 41 practice rooms, 41 studios, and a recording studio that would measure 411 square feet. He realized that the San Francisco area code is 415 and the zip codes begin with 941. Believing it was Nick's choice for him, he enrolled in the school.

But aren't these signs coincidental, the result of looking for something and seeing it everywhere?

Dave Kane doesn't think so. ''When you walk into a grocery store and [your loved one's] favorite song is playing, is it a coincidence or is it your loved one checking in? That's what people have to decide. I choose to believe it's the loved one. What else would it be?" He hopes his book will encourage others to be open to such signs in their own lives. ''They're afraid to tell friends because they're afraid they'll think, 'Oh, you poor sucker.' But they need to realize they are not alone." The signs they get from Nick, say his parents, help get them through the day.

Since the fire, the couple have consulted several spiritual mediums, including Cindy Gilman of East Greenwich, who had called Dave the morning after the fire, not knowing that his son had been killed. Gilman says a young man with long blond hair appeared to her and said, ''Please call my father." She opened up her address book randomly to the K's; Kane's name was the only one on the page. She had been a guest on his radio show but didn't know he had a son. That call prompted other visits to her -- and from Nick, they say.

''It validates that the soul of that person is very close to them, that there is something more, that there is life after life, and that the soul of their son is still with them," Gilman says.

After Nick died, a relative showed his parents some home video footage of a family gathering years earlier. In it, baby Nicky is wearing a baseball outfit. His mother is lifting him up in her arms, and he is smiling down upon her. His cap bears the number 41.