Monday Mailbox #6
This weeks’ Monday Mailbox question:
Dear Tony,
Have you ever had an encounter with a ghost?
I believe in ghosts. Truly. I don’t think they are ghosts like you see in movies, all green and see-through and shit. I don’t think they hover around the room and spew slime. But I do think that there are spirits of dead people that for some reason try to stay connected to the “living.” I’m not even sure you can see them. But you can definitely feel their presence.
My earliest memory of dealing with a spirit was my own mother. The morning of her funeral, I heard her calling my name repeatedly, like she was trying to wake me up. I was not dreaming about her, but her “voice” did wake me. As I became more awake, I realized what I was hearing was a barking dog. But the thing was, neither we, nor any of our neighbors, had a dog. Where did it come from? I don’t know. But I’m convinced that it let my mother borrow it’s voice to say goodbye, something she was not able to do before she died.
When my grandfather died, both Granny and I felt him walking around the house for several days. Things would get moved from one room to another without our knowledge. I even saw his shadow come out of the bathroom one morning. Then one night, Granny sensed him at the foot of her bed. She talked to him and told him that he was gone and it was time to rest. I had heard that spirits walk because they don’t realize they are dead. There must be something to that because we never heard from from Grandaddy again.
I guess you could say that I projected all this because these were people that I knew and loved and that I would try to explain any unusual situation as being the spirit of someone close to me. But there was also a brief period right after high school where I had moved into a little house that my brother and I rented for a few months. There was something in that house…or maybe I should say someone.
There were several times that something would come to me at night and sit on my chest and pin me down. I couldn’t see it or hear it, but I could feel it. Even when I was skinny, I was still a fairly sturdy boy and fairly strong, but on these nights for sometimes 25-20 minutes I was completely unable to sit up and I was unable to make a sound. I would try to call for my brother, but nothing. Anytime I asked him if he experienced it, all he would say was “I don’t like talking about that shit.”
I don’t know whether that meant he had encounters, too. But it defintely meant he believed as much as I do.
February 6th, 2007 at 1:44 am
Interesting post LT….I don’t believe in ghosts per se either. I do think that ocassionally the Power -at-Be allows some of our deceased to visit with us. It often seems like it is in the short duration after death. My dad passed away about 4 days before Thanksgiving in 2002. I remember being at Mass Christmas Eve that year, listening to the Serman, my mind kinda wondering, when I smelled this scent that had always permeated, if you will, from my dad.I felt my throat in my stomach and overcome with emotion. To this day I still think it was my father trying to tell me not to worry, that he was all right.
Hope you have been doing ok…haven’t heard much from you. Then again I haven’t had much opportunity to blog read and post like before either. Cheers.
February 6th, 2007 at 5:59 am
Interesting. I have no such experiences, so it’s hard for me to appreciate where you’re coming from. But I am open-minded enough to know that I have few, if any, of life’s answers. Nice post and thanks for your honesty.
February 6th, 2007 at 6:43 am
My sister heard my (then tiny), nephew chatting to someone in an empty room. She asked him who, he said he was “talking to Grandma, she’s alright you know.”
I’ve heard my Mum saying “I love you’, I’ve heard her call my name but I think that’s just the synapses flashing at random when I’m tired, the brain firing on a long-unused circuit in a benign way; mellowed grief.
But I’ve never ever met a ghost.
I’d love to.
February 6th, 2007 at 8:23 am
The devil’s on your back/chest. It’s what people used to say when you couldn’t wake up from a dream and felt pressure on your back or chest and couldn’t scream out for help but you could hear everything going on in the house. It’s like you’re awake but still dreaming.
February 6th, 2007 at 8:42 am
Well, it makes sense if you think about it. Our bodies are not who we are but only contain the spirit for a while. After my Gran died, I would suddenly get a whiff of her perfume at the strangest times. Others too have made some kind of contact in various ways. Sometimes, however, the ghosts are memories of our own minds that we allow to haunt us. Things we said goodbye to, but never left behind.
February 6th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Spirits who have left this earth will sometimes take the form of animals in order to reassure or say goodbye. I’ve had several experiences myself. My Nana has twice come to me in the form of the birds which were her totem spirit. This belief is central to First Nation Peoples spirituality, and comforts me immensely. There is a whole realm out there which is essentially untapped by our human minds. Very interesting post. You’ve inspired me. I think I may write something about this, myself.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:11 am
i have a ghost in my house. ive been living in the same house now for 9 years and ever since i moved in ive felt a presence. its definitely female and stays on the 1st floor of the house. its never harmed anyone but it has given me the willies every once in a while. i talk to her when im in the kitchen…my roommates think im nuts but im not taking any chances!
February 6th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
I totally believe in ghosts.
In an apartment building I once lived in I saw one in the unit next to mine. Two visitors to my apartment saw it too - on separate occasions. “It” being a man.
I had heard afterwards that someone had commmitted suicide in my apartment, but I never did get that verified.
February 6th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
My grandfather was a cigar smoker. Years after he died, and after the interior of his house had had been repainted, we would sometimes experience a odor as if someone had been smoking a cigar in the house. Several members of my family also reported hearing someone walking on the closed-in back porch, when no one was there. A neighbor once asked my sister if she wasn’t scared by the idea of a ghost in the house, to which my sister replied, if anything, she felt safer knowing our grandfather might be watching over her.
February 6th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
i was once haunted by this ghost. he(it, whatever) was full of attitude and he just ignored me.
February 6th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
I don’t know if I believe in ghosts or not. I haven’t seen evidence one way or the other yet so I keep an open mind. There are some really great stories written by Anne Rice that begin with the book, “The Witching Hour”. If you love old families and houses in New Orleans, you will love this book.
February 6th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Oh goodness Yes…ghosts Do exist. I grew up with two of them!
My parents lived in a huge, old house that had previously been the ghosts’ home place.
Other than scaring the bejesus out of my dad (he was devoutly superstitious), our ghosts were quite helpful, i.e. turning off lights, shutting doors, and even picking up clothes.
My mom usually sat a spell in the living room after lunch. We had a sofa on the far west end of the room, and she would watch the cushions depress when they came and sat with her. My mom and sister nor I were afraid of them, but Dad was a different story.
They never harmed any of us, and we always knew when they were with us. You felt their presence. Like Chris, my mom would talk to them. What was freaky was the way they found a means to answer her!
I suspect Granny knows a lot about haints.
This was a terrific post.