another time , when a little girl was absent from school for three days without explanation and school authorities could not reach her , rowan quietly told the principal there was no reason to be alarmed the girl 's grandmother had died , said rowan , and the family had gone off to the funeral in another state , completely forgetting to call the school this turned out to be true again rowan could not explain how she had known except to say 'it just came into my head ' we have some two dozen stories similar to this one , and what characterizes almost all of them is that they involve not only telepathy , but empathy and sympathy on the part of rowan - a clear desire to comfort or minister to a suffering or confused person .