Not everyone believes in ghosts and not everyone who has seen a ghost is lying or crazy.
Stories about these phantoms of the dead have been told for thousands of years. It is perfectly normal to fear something we cannot understand or what we have been told is bad, but who is to say all ghosts are scary and evil, might some actually bring comfort?
I must admit that I think about ghosts a lot. I have often wondered what it would feel like to be a ghost. Would I be sad to be dead? Would I be frightened of the darkness and the unknown? Perhaps I would be naughty and scare people.
How does one go about defining something that is in a perpetual state of nothingness? Does it have emotions? Why is it here? Is it even real?
In the light of day I tend to think ghosts are not real, but having said that I am always cautious in a cemetery and I pull my feet under the covers at night and it is not unusual for me to jump at the least little sound in the basement.
I was ten years old when I thought I saw a ghost. It was barely a glimpse though, it was more of an inkling of light and shadows forming together to reveal someone that I once knew.
Auntie Lou was 42 when she died. She was feisty and full of life until that night she fell down the back staircase and broke her neck.
All of our family and friends gathered after the funeral to pay their last respects. They brought casseroles, white cakes on pretty stands and glazed donuts in boxes.
The day after the funeral my mother and I began the difficult task of going through my aunt’s belongings. My mother was in the kitchen cleaning out the refrigerator and she asked me to go find her purse because she needed her glasses. Why I asked? In my ten year old mind we had but one simple task at hand – empty the contents. Why look at dates on jars? Were we going to cart all the opened stuff back to our own refrigerator? Were we that hard up for food?
As I wandered through each room looking for my mother’s purse I came to the back staircase. The atmosphere was a bit unsettling. The stairs were steep and narrow and I began to picture Auntie Lou’s body rolling and tumbling to the bottom. I wondered if she screamed out. Did she die instantly or was it a painful, lingering death? A shadow passed over my head and sent a shiver up my spine.
It may seem improbable to some people, but when I looked up I saw Auntie Lou standing at the top of the stairs in her favorite blue terry cloth bath robe. She gazed down at me with a sad expression on her face. It hurt. Those were the words that drifted through my head.
I rubbed my eyes and when I opened them she was gone. I stood there a few moments longer waiting for my aunt to reappear like the beautiful assistant behind the curtain in a magician’s act, but my mother called out to me and I walked away as if nothing had happened.
The following year my grandfather died. There was nothing at all surprising about his death - he was 96 years old and in very poor health. After the funeral, family and friends gathered at the house bringing the same white cakes, casseroles and glazed donuts.
I ran my fingers across his old pocket watch. I held it in the palm of my hand and clicked it open. I knew it was old because Papa said it belonged to his father and his father before him.
I stared out the window at the gnarly branches of the old sycamore tree in the back yard. I remembered how my brother and I would play for hours in that tree while Papa delighted in our antics.
I opened the back door. It was an autumn afternoon, crisp and cool with leaves bouncing and twirling in the wind. It was not until after I stepped out onto the porch that I thought I saw him sitting in his rocking chair smiling and staring peacefully into the back yard. He gazed happily at that old sycamore and perhaps in his eyes he saw his two grandchildren dangling their legs from the thickest branch laughing and acting silly.
I tried not to disturb the look of radiance on his face as the late afternoon sun settled. I quietly went back inside the house and walked away as if nothing had happened.
The year my parents divorced my brother Nicky began wearing many different hats. He was my brother, my father and my very best friend. He made me laugh and he also made me cry. He was everything to me.
In the middle of a terribly cold winter, Nicky was in a motorcycle accident. He was traveling on a lonely, curvy road when his rear tire slipped on an icy patch. The motorcycle spun out of control and he sailed off a small cliff and into a gorge. At first the doctors thought they would have to amputate his leg but after several surgeries they saved the leg and we all rejoiced. But Nicky grew weaker and contacted a blood infection. His organs began to fail. I had this horrible sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that he would not be alive when the flowers bloomed in May.
The last thing Nicky wanted was to die in a hospital bed. If he was going to die it would be at home sitting on the sofa watching one of his favorite movies.
It will always be impossible not to remember that afternoon and the blurry blizzard of snow that we watched through the frosty windows. We were warm and cozy inside and eating bowls of popcorn and watching “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” It was a war movie and I can not speak much to the plot because both characters were insane. It was all about a bridge - build it, don’t build it, blow it up, don’t blow it up – it was sheer madness. The best scene in the movie was when the soldiers marched into the POW camp whistling a catchy little tune.
I started to whistle and softly Nicky joined in, but after a while I noticed I was the only one whistling.
He was staring straight ahead and there was no light in his eyes. His neck was bent at an odd angle and when I jostled him his lifeless body crumpled against me. I knew at that moment he was gone. It did not occur to me until later in the day that I would never hear his laughter again or his words of encouragement, nor would I feel his strong arms holding me up against the world protecting me.
Even to this day, ten years later, I will see or hear something that reminds me of Nicky and I reach for the phone to give him a call…and then I remember….
I still live with my mother in the same two story white farm house on an old country road. Hardly any traffic comes down our road except for the Johnson’s who live a few miles down and my uncle who lives a few miles up - near the crossroads.
Everyone knows a story or two about the crossroads. Quite literally it is just an intersection of two or more roads but folklore would have you believe that if you stand in the middle you will find yourself surrounded by spirits of the dead.
Not surprisingly, on the tenth anniversary of Nicky’s death I stood out on the porch bundled up in a heavy coat and gloves. I gazed out at the mountains looming in the distance. Icicles hung from the bare tree branches and any leaves left were covered in sparkling frost.
I walked down the snow covered steps carefully while heavy snow flakes fell gently on my face. As I made my way to the end of the yard I passed a bicycle leaning up against the fence. It was covered in vines of ivy, the paint was chipped and both tires were flat. It seemed sad to let Nicky’s old bike rust and merge into the landscape, but neither my mother nor I wanted to get rid of it so it just sat waiting, waiting for what… I don’t know.
As the cold bitter wind whistled around my ears I struggled down the road crunching through the icy crust until I reached the narrow intersection. My face was now practically numb and my eyelashes were heavy with snow flurries.
I stood in the middle of the crossroads and looked to my right and then to my left.
As I was not really expecting to see anything, I gasped at the sight before me. In the far distance a fine mist of snow twirled around the vague outline of a figure. At first my curiosity was peaked with a thrill of excitement and then anxiety crept up my spine and I suddenly became very afraid. I wanted to walk away, no I wanted to run away.
I wiped my face of snow flurries as the wind howled around my head. I took a step back out of fear but my boots slipped on an icy patch and I fell into a soft mound of snow. I pulled myself up and regained my footing hastily making my way back down the road, into the yard and past Nicky’s old bike. I grabbed hold of the porch railing and pulled myself up the steps by sheer will. Laying my hand on the screen door handle I practically burst into the house and locked the door behind me.
The thought of the shadowy figure out in the snow made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. There was something familiar in the walk. I could not help but think maybe my dead brother had done everything on the other side and was now coming back home to say hello.
I slowly pulled the door back open and kept a firm grip on the edge just in case I had to shut it quickly.
I unlatched the screen door and stepped outside. I crossed my arms over my chest and gazed out onto the road.
My heart skipped a beat at the sight of a blurred figure standing in the middle of the crossroads waving to me.
Instead of just waving back I fought my way out again onto the snow packed road. I slipped twice and almost fell. I heard my mother’s voice calling out to me but I ignored her because I had to get to Nicky before he vanished into a blinding blanket of whiteness.
I fought the wind as it pulled me backwards. Ice pellets stung my face. I made a lunge toward the ghostly figure and felt the weight of a body within my grasp and then it was gone; I had nothing in my arms but cold air.
My arms and legs were tingling from the cold and I began sobbing uncontrollably.
My mother came running down the road with her coat flapping in the wind. She wrapped me in her strong arms and pulled me up to my feet. I could feel her fingers digging into my arms as she helped me back home and into bed.
Hours later when I awoke I was covered in layers of bed linen and a heavy quilt. I pushed it all aside and rose up at the sound of a lone coyote howling in the night. I started to think about that coyote – was he frightened, lonely or just making his presence known.
I swung my legs off the edge of the bed and sat there pondering everything that had happened earlier that day.
I stood up and walked over to the window. I could see that it was still snowing. The flurries were falling at a gentle and steady pace. I cracked the window in order to feel the cold air. There was a pure silence to the night that gave me peace and then I heard the footsteps.
Soft steady footsteps came up the stairway and stopped right outside my door. They lingered momentarily before walking back downstairs. I wanted my mother to know that I was fine so I quickly walked to the door and opened it. I stepped out into the hallway and saw nothing but darkness. There were no lights on in the house and no one was on the stairway.
I lay back down and stared up at the ceiling until I fell back asleep.
I awoke to someone tapping on my shoulder. I turned over and saw my brother’s eyes.
Why did you not take care of my bike?
In the haze of being awakened from a sound sleep I was trying to think of an answer to Nicky’s question when he faded into the darkness. I turned over and fell back asleep and when I awoke the next morning I was certain it had all been a dream.
Soon after I began to suffer from night terrors and sleep paralysis. I could not sleep in the dark anymore and needed a night light. I began to think I was going crazy because I was seeing vague shapes out of the corner of my eye. I wanted it to stop. It frightened me and I needed answers.
I visited fortune tellers, charm readers and mediums and everyone had the same answers – how could you NOT believe in the supernatural?
Are ghosts real? Do they wander the earth checking in on loved ones? I am not familiar with the workings on the other side. Perhaps it takes certain spirits longer to adjust to their new role as they travel through time and space.
Maybe that night Nicky just wanted to make sure we never forgot about him like we forgot about his old bike. He would have been wrong to think such a thing because while life went on without him we never forgot. His memory is tucked warmly in our hearts and even if he becomes lost in the days events, he is never forgotten.
Lately sometimes in the middle of the night I feel the bed dip the tiniest bit as if someone is sitting next to me and watching over me, protecting me against the world.
Whether ghosts are real or not, I am no longer afraid.
I can think of far worse things in this world to fear.
THE END
