CHAPEL HILL — She believes they are signs. Maybe she has to, because otherwise there’s nothing, just a reality that’s still so hard to bear. She knows what some will think, that she’s merely a grief-stricken mother desperate to cling to something of a son taken too soon. But Myra McVicker believes, believes in her gut and her heart and her soul, that all of these random occurrences are not random at all. They are Rob’s way of telling her he’s still with her and that he is O.K.

There have been several such signs since Rob died in February, a 28-year-old golf pro killed after his car skidded on a patch of black ice. His lucky number was 22, adopted when he was 9 because of a childhood devotion to Steve Logan, who wore that number when he played for the Cincinnati Bearcats. On three consecutive days Myra found three golf balls from three manufacturers on one course, each stamped with the number 22. Her middle son, Drew, casually picked up a toy golf cart while out shopping on a summer vacation. Painted on the side — 22. Her sister, Gigi, placed a Chinese takeout order at lunch with friends. Their orders were all numbered in the 30s; hers was 22. Myra and her youngest, son, Brad, rented kayaks on her birthday. The guide manning the rentals handed Myra a life vest before she got in. Number 22 was written on the front.

But nothing took Myra’s breath away quite like a breakfast outing with her friend Carol Freedman at the Egg and I in Chapel Hill this summer. Carol’s son, Kyle, first met Rob when the McVickers relocated from Cincinnati to Chapel Hill. Myra remembers the first time she laid eyes on Kyle — at a meet-the-teacher picnic in the fifth grade. There was Rob and there was Kyle, and that’s the way it remained, the two bonding over proximity and sports and especially their love for the Tar Heels and their hatred of Duke. At the 2012 NCAA Tournament in Greensboro, the two even made the newspaper, Kyle hoisting a sign over his head that referenced the Blue Devils’ shocking loss to Lehigh on the same day Missouri was upended by Norfolk State — Hey Duke, Missouri loves company, it read. Rob stood at Kyle’s elbow.

Myra was nervous about the breakfast. She had cried so easily since Rob’s death, and she fretted about making a scene at the restaurant. On the drive over, she prayed for calm. She was so touched that Carol kept reaching out, grateful that the two who considered themselves second moms to each other’s boys, remained close. They had just finished ordering when the door swung open and another customer walked in. Myra had her back to the entrance so she couldn’t see who had come in, but Carol, with a clear view, suddenly stopped speaking. Tears already puddling in her eyes, Carol leaned over and whispered to Myra, “It’s Joel Berry.’’

Myra broke into tears as the North Carolina guard took a seat at a nearby table with his girlfriend. Berry was Rob’s favorite Tar Heel.

“I just knew,’’ Myra says. “I knew that was Rob sending Joel to me. He was heaven sent.’’

Amazingly, Berry believes he was as well.

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Joel was in the 10th grade when his father, recognizing an opportunity and a captive audience, started using the commutes to and from school to hammer home the big lessons he wanted his son to learn. Joel Sr. grew up in the Pentecostal religion, and in his mid-20s he started practicing martial arts. He was gifted, talented enough to earn a second-degree black belt and become an in-demand instructor, but it was the spiritual lessons he appreciated as much as the physical challenges. Joel Sr. would work himself to near exhaustion, and afterward he’d meditate, his depleted body finally allowing his overactive mind to reset and relax.

He learned to separate spiritual from religion, recognizing that God’s presence was about faith more than church. “We’re all spiritual human beings,’’ Joel Sr. says. “We’re all connected.’’ He and his wife, Kathie, taught their five kids simple truths when they were younger — that they needed to love themselves in order for others to love them, that the very definition of love wasn’t simply how others made you feel or how you felt about others, but what you believed of yourself. For Joel, the third oldest of the five siblings, that meant believing in himself, quieting the doubters who laughed when he said he dreamed of playing for North Carolina, and ignoring people who thought he’d never be big enough to play for a power-conference school.

As Joel matured, so did the lessons his father offered. They’d leave early in the morning, and Joel Sr. would start talking. Sometimes Joel nodded off, but Joel Sr. understood his son well enough to know he was listening. Joel idolized his father, amazed at the sacrifices he made for his family and the conviction he had in his own abilities. Joel Sr. played football at Central Florida but dropped out of college to marry Kathie. Together they raised their children — Kourtnie, Kasie, Joel and twins Kellie and Jared — while he worked for the city of Orlando. Joel Sr. always vowed to graduate, and in 2012 he fulfilled that promise, earning a degree in construction management from Everglades University. “I know when people ask kids who are their role models, they say their parents but I truly mean it,’’ Joel says. “I’m blessed and honored to be named after him.’’

So when Joel Sr. started explaining the law of attraction to Joel, started to encourage his son to meditate, the 16-year-old didn’t roll his eyes like most teenagers might. He liked the very idea of the law of attraction — that he would get out of the universe what he put into it, that good energy would result in good things, and positive thinking could trump negativity. And although he was still somewhat skeptical, he decided to give meditation a try.

When good things started happening — two state titles and three Florida Mr. Basketball Awards — he didn’t think it was a coincidence. He believed that by thinking positively, he was creating positive results.

Joel carried his routine with him to North Carolina. He begins each morning on his sofa, tilts back his head, closes his eyes and hits the Breathe app on his phone, the only sound emanating from the app’s soothing guide. He imagines all the good that can come out of the day ahead. At night he repeats the process, using the time to reaffirm the blessed things that happened that day and heeding his father’s advice to “always go to bed with a pure heart.’’ He has seen the same results at Carolina as he did in high school. A three-year starter, he has been named to two Final Four all-tournament teams, scored 1,000 points, been named a team captain and become, in essence, the face of the program.

Which is why, when Joel read an email from Carol Freedman, he immediately recognized the connection.

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The two women didn’t want to bother Joel over breakfast, but when Carol, who works at UNC, asked Myra if it would be O.K. to email him, she agreed.

Berry was standing when he started to read Freedman’s note. A few sentences in, he was searching for a chair. Freedman explained what had happened at breakfast the day before, and though Berry never spoke to the two women, he remembered seeing them. Myra had stood at one point to gather herself, and Berry glanced up. He could tell she had been crying.

In the email Freedman explained Rob’s death and the lifelong friendship he shared with Kyle. She noted how Berry had been Rob’s favorite player. Finally, Freedman wrote, “Your presence that Saturday, that morning when we could have met anywhere, at any other day or time, reaffirms our belief that those loved ones who leave this Earth are still with us if we look and listen. In death, Rob let his mother know that his love for her is stronger than ever.”

“It took my breath away,’’ Berry says. “I can’t really put it into words. When someone who has lost their child reacts to you like that, I mean, I don’t know how to describe it.’’

Kyle (left) and Rob shared a passion for Carolina basketball. (photo courtesy of Myra McVicker)

Joel immediately called his father and shared the email with him, struggling to stay composed as he read the message. Once his son finished, Joel Sr. calmly explained that this was the law of attraction at work. As a basketball player Joel had been given a public platform and the opportunity to affect and impact people in ways he couldn’t begin to comprehend. “In my son, God found that pure heart to express to that woman what her son was saying — I still love you. I’m with you. It was a confirmation of everything I’d been teaching him. This is not something I’m making up or something I read. This is absolutely true. It’s what inside you that connects you to the universe.’’

Overwhelmed and deeply moved, Joel went to his room and immediately crafted a reply. He reread his email multiple times to make sure he had expressed himself appropriately and included everything he wanted to say. He shared how he had called his father and how for years Joel Sr. had been explaining that if he shared positive energy he could create good. “When people say it’s about more than basketball, that’s the very definition of that,’’ Joel says. “To have this woman say I was like an angel to her blew me away, but I honestly think that’s why I was meant to be there that morning.’’

Myra was equally moved when she read Joel’s response, touched he had taken the time to write back and thrilled that he shared the same beliefs in spiritual connections. “He basically told us that as much as it meant to us, it meant just as much to him,’’ Myra says. “I couldn’t believe that.’’ She emailed him back and said she was cheering him on, and he responded again, promising to keep her family in his thoughts. He offered tickets to a game, but Myra has been reluctant to take him up on the offer and hesitant to respond again, “I don’t want him to think that’s what this is about,’’ she says. “And I know how busy he is.’’

She needn’t worry. Joel believes he was meant to walk into the Egg and I just as surely as Myra believes her son guided him there. “My dad immediately sent the email to my mom and my sisters,’’ Joel says. “It’s a testimony to what we believe in.

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They would have liked one another, Rob and Joel, two old souls who worked for everything they achieved.

Rob once dreamed of being a basketball player himself, dunking on a mini hoop in the unfinished basement of his family’s home in Cincinnati. But his own career ended when reality checked in, the shortest kid in his class cut from the middle school team. By then the McVickers had moved to Chapel Hill. With his basketball dreams dashed and high school nearing, Rob set his mind to making the golf team. His father, John, took him for lessons at the country club where the family had a membership, and a teaching pro spied some innate talent.

Rob honed that skill through high school and into college — he attended Campbell University, not UNC, because it offered a golf management major —and parlayed that into an assistant pro position at renowned Bandon Dunes in Oregon. In January he was promoted to head professional at the Old MacDonald course.

Joel came up much the same way. He hectored his parents into letting him join a league when he was 6, Joel Sr. and Kathie rewarding their boy by signing him up with 9-year-olds. But a spitfire attitude combined with a slight disregard for his own wellbeing turned Joel into the best player on his team. Not much changed as he aged, his feistiness and talents turning him into a top player in Florida. But like Rob, Joel wasn’t content with just getting by. His father drove him to school each day, but classes at Lake Highland Prep didn’t begin until 7:30 and Joel Sr. had to be at work by 6:30. Factoring in the turnaround time his father needed to get to work, Joel would arrive at school each morning at 6. With time to kill and his coach’s blessing, Joel spent the extra 90 minutes working out alone.

Unlike Rob, Joel’s affinity for the Tar Heels was more maternal than geographic. Kathie’s passion for North Carolina blended with her son’s, but his love for the school was equally strong. Joel didn’t want to go anywhere but Carolina, and when naysayers argued that a point guard who barely grazed 6-feet would never amount to much there, he took it personally.

Rob loved that about Joel, loved that he found a player on his beloved UNC team who embodied the same attitude he did. He religiously watched the Tar Heels play, taping the games he couldn’t catch live. Last Feb. 25, Rob was heading home from his girlfriend’s house to watch Carolina’s game against Pittsburgh. The Tar Heels would win and clinch at least a share of the ACC regular-season crown. Rob never saw it, the ice patch sending his Nissan skidding across Oregon Highway 101 and into the path of another car. Friends placed a cross at the spot where Rob died. They painted it Carolina blue.

Six week later, North Carolina beat Gonzaga for its seventh national title, avenging a crushing loss to Villanova in the championship game the year before. Berry, though hobbled by two badly sprained ankles, was named the most outstanding player of the Final Four.

He scored 22 points.

(Top photo: Grant Halverson/Getty Images)