Since it is Halloween - I actually started this Halloween morning, but then the nightmare that constitutes my real life intervened, and I simply couldn't find the energy to finish, so I'm finishing it a day late, sorry - it seems like a ghoul time to tell ghost stories. I am not much of a believer in ghosts and goblins, but there are times when the unexplained meets the unexplainable, and the result is a story worth telling. This is such a story, so I'll tell it in the midst of the spookiness that is all around us this evening.
Some years ago, when my daughter was a very small child, my mother-in-law briefly lived with us. My MIL, whom we called Ba Noi, grandmother in her native language, was a bit of an enigma, to put it mildly, because she didn't speak English, and she had some pretty interesting habits. One of her oddest habits was her fear of being alone, especially at night. She was genuinely afraid of ghosts, and she would turn on every single light in the house in her effort to keep them at bay while she was holding down the fort by her own self.
One night, the whole family was sitting at the kitchen table together having dinner. The table sat in between the kitchen and the family room, so it was sort of centrally located in the major family living area. The table overlooked the entryway, as well, where the stairs went to the upper floor. Although it was dark in the entryway, unless we intentionally had it lighted up, the light which hung over the table would throw a dim shadow in that direction, casting a faint glow in the evening.
On this particular evening, we were discussing with my MIL her long deceased husband. My ex-husband's father, who died when my ex- was only ten years old, succumbed from some form of cancer, I believe, although I was never too sure.
One thing you learned early in that family was that they never broach any topic that is actually important. He never really knew what his father did for a living - he had a "government job" of some kind - and he didn't know what his father died from, either. Ba Noi started to weep, as always when his name came up, which was a fairly incongruous thing, since my FIL's name was Song.
So it was a fairly unusual situation for them to be discussing Song at all. They were fairly intent on their conversation, with my ex- asking some questions which he had long harbored way back in his mind about his father, and his mother giving us her usual vague answers. My ex- also offered, rather unusually, some memories of his own, and for the first time, it seemed my FIL was taking shape in my mind as a real person.
While they discussed their stories, Adam listened with a vague inattention, as he usually did, there, but not really present. Erin was busy, off playing with her toys, and not listening to us at all, going in and out as she went back and forth getting her dolls and her toys and whatever else she was interested in.
My MIL, of course, told stories of Song as a ghost. Like many Catholic Asians, she was an extremely devout and religious woman, attending mass each morning, and spending hours in prayer every evening. But at the same time, she continued to observe some of the cultural traditions that seem to be imbued in everyone who spends their lifetime in Southeast Asia. In particular, she engaged in a sort of veneration of the deceased, most particularly, her long lamented spouse.
Among the many qualities she attributed to him, she felt he had posthumously accomplished various things for her during the course of the time since his passing. I listened with a rather skeptical ear, since, as I said, I have never believed in ghosts, and I certainly wasn't prepared to believe in a benevolent spirit that actually appeared on earth and helped her out. Guardian angels, okay, but definitely not dead spirits of long gone relatives.
As we sat talking, suddenly my little girl ran back into the room from the entryway and told us a man was on the stairs. We didn't exactly take her seriously, because she wasn't afraid, as she surely would have been if a man had actually broken into the house and headed for the stairs. More curiously, she didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with a man being there, either, which was certainly odd, if freakishly scary. We didn't go into panic mode, but we did go running out there to see what she had seen. But there was nothing there, so we just giggled at her little fancy, and went back to the kitchen to sit down.
There was to be no peace, however, because she insisted he was still right there on the stairs in front of her. In fact, she seemed to be quietly observing him, and she gave us a play by play of what he was doing. Which mostly seemed to be observing her back. She continued to be unafraid as she talked about him, but it was clear she believed what she was telling us, even if it couldn't possibly be true, since we could clearly see that there was no one there.
She was able to describe him in detail, right down to the clothing he was wearing, as though he were right there in front of her, tangible and real. We asked her what he was doing, and she told us he was just watching us and listening to our conversation. Then she informed us that he was going upstairs.
We thought it was an odd episode, to be sure, but didn't take it all that seriously. She was very little, only about two years old at that time, and had an invisible friend by the name of Funston, so another invisible person was not, in our opinion, that far out in fantasy land, at least for our imaginative little sprite.
We went back to our conversation, more or less benevolently ignoring her. She continued to play in the entryway, glancing up the stairway every now and again, obviously waiting for the mysterious stranger to return. We thought it was going to be a long wait, until she told us he was coming back down the stairs a few minutes later. Again, she was talking about him as though he were real, alive, present in the flesh. It was spooky, but in an unexplainable, non-frightening way.
Then we asked her to describe him. The description she gave was an exact depiction of her grandfather, a man who died years before she was born, and whose picture she had never seen. He looked nothing like her own father, either, so she couldn't have been listening to our conversation and just imagining. I will honestly say, at that point, it couldn't help but to get our attention, since she was describing someone to whom she had a connection, and she didn't even know it.
We were pretty incredulous, and asked her to continue telling us what he did and where he went, and he entered the room where we were all sitting, although he didn't come near to anyone. He made no attempt to touch anyone, or to come close to any of us. He didn't appear happy or sad, just serious and watchfully observant.
My MIL insisted, of course, that it was her husband, and that he was there for a reason - that he wanted to tell us something. My ex- wasn't as thrilled about it as you might imagine - I think he had a guilty conscience, and didn't want to consider the possibility that his father knew what he was up to in his life.
Ba Noi used that opportunity to remind my ex- about another occasion, during the war that had been a part of my ex-husband's formative years, when the government changed hands, and their family was at risk. There were papers long forgotten, and she felt quite strongly that Song had come back to them and reminded them in time to destroy them, so that they weren't found with anything incriminating. So she was quite certain that Erin's ghost was Song, and that he was there for a reason.
After a few minutes, Erin told us that he left the kitchen, and then went out the front door. He never returned, at least not as far I know, because Erin never talked about him again. She never saw another invisible ghost, and she never talked about anyone else that was long gone.
We will never know what was in the eyes of the child that night, but on Halloween, the eve of All Saints Day in the Christian tradition, I can't help but wonder if my daughter had a visit from the other world, and if, for some reason, Song came to her that night for a reason. If he did, I don't know what it was, and I guess I never will. But it remains in the family lore as our one and only visit with a ghost. It seems we are fortunate - our ghost is benevolent. I hope, if he ever returns, that he will still be so kind.
Happy All Saints Day! And All Hallows Eve.
