Defining Moment #10

Ghosts

I saw a ghost once. I was alone, my husband on a camping trip. The house was empty as Frank O’Hara’s bicycle. My doors were all closed, but I woke up, sat up in bed, to find my bedroom door open and a translucent man in jeans and a white broadcloth shirt tip-toeing past my bed toward the window, through which he slipped silently. When I woke up later, I was sitting up in my bed, the door still open.

My real estate agent for the house where I lived was a friend of the previous owner. I found out then that he had died in a car accident. He was wearing blue jeans and a white Oxford shirt.

For about three months, lights turned themselves on and off. A native American I worked with told me that unsettled souls, people who were not expecting to die, often return to their homes, themselves in denial of death. I believe this is what happened.

A few years later, my husband and I simultaneously saw our deceased cat walk past our garage. We later felt the heaviness of our 20-pound cat jumping up on our bed. We looked at each other. We didn’t have to say it.

There’s an old saying: you don’t have to believe in ghosts, but they believe in you. OK, I just made it up. But it’s true.