ghosts

There is a great prompt for Friday's NaBloPoMo and I'm going to jump ahead and answer it. Here's the prompt: Would you buy your dream house if the price was right BUT you also were told it was inhabited by ghosts.

Answer: No. I'd pass.

I'm not a big believer in the supernatural, mostly because the prospect of it is too frightening to imagine. Even so, I wouldn't take the chance, and if my subconscious got too wrapped up in considering ghosts in my new fancy house, I'm sure I'd see things that were not there and hear voices that were mostly in my own mind. Just for my own sanity, I'd have to pass on the dream house.

I do have at least one possibly supernatural experience to share, however, even though it might make me seem crazypants. I don't think I've shared it here before. Many years ago, a family friend (Mr. G) died of a brain tumor. I had known this man since I was in third grade and he died when I was in my late 20s. I hadn't seen him much since high school, but he and my mother were very close, so I had heard a lot about his fight against the tumor over the past few years. When my mother called to say that he had died, I made plans to come home for the funeral and felt quite sad, in large part because I knew he was leaving behind two grown kids, a wife, and his best friend, my mother, all of whom loved him dearly. I loved him, too, even though I didn't really know him as an adult. He was the kind of man I knew I'd someday want to marry: kind, curious, smart, open-hearted.

The night after his death, I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night to find Mr. G sitting on the end of my bed. It felt clear as day and I did not feel at all like I was dreaming. I can even remember the sensation of the foot of my bed being pressed down by his weight, and my blanket tugged a bit where he sat on it. When I awoke, he was in the middle of a sentence, so I'm not sure how long he'd been there. He never moved around the room or addressed me directly. All he did while he visited was talk. It was like he had to get some things off his chest and I was supposed to just listen. I remember nothing of what he said. Mostly, I was annoyed by this visit. I had been happily asleep and wanted desperately to get back to it. I asked him to leave a few times, but he ignored me and kept rambling on. He wasn't upset or angry or sad. He never even looked my way, in fact, but stared off in space or at the floor while he talked. I remember drifting off to sleep a few times, and each time when I awoke and saw him still chatting away, I felt annoyed and hoped to fall back asleep again soon. At some point when I woke up again from one of these little naps, he was gone and it was almost morning. He had been there for hours.

I've had many dreams in my life, some of which felt quite real at the time. But I've never had another situation quite like this one. I don't know how to explain it, but I would swear to you that he was there. He sat on my bed and talked. And then he went away. I've never been visited by him again and have no feeling that his ghost exists or is haunting me or anyone else.

I called my mother the next morning and when I told her what happened and how it felt, she burst into tears. She said she had a strong feeling that it wasn't a dream and it was him. Earlier that night, in fact, she felt like he came to her but left quickly before they had a chance to talk. Her theory was that perhaps he felt like he could talk to me, and that because we weren't close, I was a safe person to process some things with before heading away for wherever (or whatever) the next world might be.

If someone else told me this story, I'd be certain it was just a vivid dream brought on by the intensity of his death and my feelings about it. But I was there. I don't know how to make sense of it. I don't actually believe in ghosts, I swear. I just believe that Mr. G visited me before he was fully dead and after his body had expired.

Other ghosts? They're almost certainly fictional. But I'm not buying a dream house with ghosts in it, just in case.