Did you ever see a ghost?

Yeah…maybe.

I went a long time saying I’d never seen a ghost. That’s not to say I don’t believe in things like that…I was just apparently not attuned to such things. Thankfully.

I know my grandma saw something when she was a young woman. She was living with my mom in a house (or duplex, maybe) in Alva, and she saw a lady come up through the floor and on through the ceiling.

I think they moved rather quickly after that.

My mother also saw something once. She was in bed and woke. My dad was asleep next to her. He had cancer at that point, and I think I was in college. So Mom saw two women up high in the corner of her room, sitting and talking. She couldn’t really hear or understand what they were talking about, but she felt calm about it – like maybe they were watching over my dad when he was sick. Then one woman looked and saw that Mom could see her, and then the other looked, and then they disappeared.

I think seeing either of those things would have made me lose my mind. I have always had a terrible, vivid imagination that makes me see things that aren’t there. I’m still afraid of the dark. I still imagine horrible claws and evil beings just out of my line of vision. I should probably write horror. Speaking of which, when I read It by Stephen King, I was in junior high. At night, I would put it on the front porch so I could sleep. That way it was locked outside.

But. Did I ever see a ghost. All I got is this:

I was upstairs in my room, reading or something, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Ben walk by out in the hall, toward the kids’ rooms. He was wearing a green shirt. I looked up and waited for him to come back, but he didn’t. I thought it was odd that he would be hanging out in one of their rooms, so I got up and looked for him. He wasn’t in there. He was downstairs watching TV. He wasn’t wearing green. None of the kids were wearing green. I know I saw somebody.

And:

Another time I heard Ben calling me, clear as a bell, but when I got up to see what he was hollering about, he wasn’t anywhere near and hadn’t been calling me. I would swear I heard him calling my name.

So those were weird.