I don't know if I saw them because I had finally returned to the region of my childhood, or something else? Is it age? Is it chronic illness gives us the ability to look through veils briefly? This is a story from 2018, All Saints' Day.
"I saw a ghost today. She was a staple of my childhood, the co-owner of the local family Italian grocery, and welcomed me when no one else on staff was at the front of the store. It was a good way to spend time on All Saint's Day. She didn't move. It was like seeing a full-sized lifelike image of her, behind the register, smiling her greeting, just an intense moment. And then no one was there.
"The owner, when I told her I'd seen her mother-in-law, was delighted, and told me Uncle Lou showed up often.
"The weird thing is, I don't remember Uncle Lou--he usually was behind the deli case, and Mom didn't send me for deli items. But I have recently seen a short, intensely dapper man in a shop apron occasionally in the aisles who looked like he should be part of a family-owned Italian grocery. He was a bit old-fashioned, but some men stick with the style of their hayday.
"Later, I was going to talk to the now-owner, the youngest son (I think?) of the couple I knew as a child, and saw a family photo from the early days.
"Turned out I'd seen Uncle Lou, too, but I don't remember him from real life. 👻
"But they don't currently have a white-haired, white handlebar moustached, dapper-dressed in a butcher's apron man stocking shelves.
"I've seen him down an aisle a couple times." :)
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Had a ghostly experience when I went to New Orleans for a convention, before the century turned. Though I didn't see anything then. But more than one of us felt it.
Ru Emerson and I went to see a small museum and store in New Orleans. Ru stopped abruptly at the stairs, looked at me in bewilderment and said, "I can't go in there." I was young and foolish, and said something like, let me take a look. I got maybe five steps in, smiled and nodded at the neutral women behind a counter, and turned around and left.
I had a distinct feeling of not being welcome. Wasn't as sure of my own protections at that point, and knew that whatever preferred to gather at that spot didn't welcome us. It was disturbing enough that we only talked briefly about it, and didn't return to the subject. We were in New Orleans, and other religions battled there.
Much later on, another writer told me that a Pre-Reformation church near her childhood home had Something. She could not get past the porch, she tried several times. Deeply disturbing.
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Oh, and cat ghosts. I know many with cat ghost stories. Or ghosts in old family homes.
Another time!
(Okay, maybe one or two.)
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My first visual ghost appeared to my now-Ex and to friends, as an image, but for me was when I was sitting writing and bent over to pick up a paper off the floor. As I bent from my writing chair, I put my hand onto my lap to hold Brae in place.
But she was gone, over a year ago.
It was over a year after she'd passed, as if it took her that long to find us again, or to recharge her batteries. The moment I realized there was actual weight in my lap, it disappeared. I just figured it was grief surfacing and didn't say anything. . . until J came downstairs a few days later with an odd look on his face, and said he thought he'd just seen Brae. He saw her in a mirror, and when he turned, there was nothing in that spot that could have been mistaken for a little brown cat. He could not figure out the angle that would have produced the effect he saw.
I saw her later, after we'd divorced and I found an apartment with an interior staircase. I would have thought it was part of my Life, Interrupted illness, except that the current cats arched in surprise when a little brown cat was rubbing against them. And the brother cat was sacked out inside, not on the landing.
She follows me, and perhaps the boys do, too, but doesn't always give me visual or physical signs. But there's no cat right now, so they may be keeping an eye on me until another cat takes over, she or one of the boys. But I will see draperies peaked from the floor. . . little things like that.
Ghosts are interesting. No idea what they are, but our minds interact in interesting ways with the environment. And some things are hard to explain.
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