A Teacher's Reflections

There is a difference between spirits and ghosts.  Spirits are the soul that has survived when a person dies.  Ghosts on the other hand are tied to a location where they died, often a tragic or sudden death.

I believe in spirits.  Often the very youngest of children see spirits.  Here are my three encounters:

#1) While visiting our son and his family nearly fifteen years ago, we were in the car headed to visit the Norfolk Zoo.  Our granddaughter was under the age of two.  She was in her carseat beside the window, Hubby and I were beside her in the backseat.  She was always a gentle child, quiet and happy.  We hit a traffic light.  On the side of the road (her carseat side) was a big cemetery.

Everything changed, as if an alert button had been pushed.

She immediately whipped her head around to look at the cemetery.  She began waving and ‘talking’ with great excitement.  She smiled and giggled.  It seemed that the traffic light was the longest one ever, as this went on without a pause for quite a while.  The traffic light turned green.  Our car moved forward, past the cemetery, and our granddaughter returned to her normal self.  No one in the car could speak.

#2) When I was away at summer camp as a child, I had ‘moved up’ to the older kids’ area- cabins, not tents..  Salt Rock, WV was rural with beautiful rolling hills.  The dirt road up to the cabins was very dark at night.  One evening I was walking the dirt road alone, headed to my cabin, and my father suddenly appeared.  He had died in a car crash when I was five, and there he was, the way I remembered him.  Blurry, but it was him.  Neither of us said anything.  I felt good and smiled, and then he was gone.

#3) Many of you remember Milly the Quilter.  Milly had been vibrant and a big part of my preschool class for ten years.  She was my mother’s age, but that didn’t matter.  We became friends.  Milly and her famous quilts are in many places of honor, and our car rides to-and-from quilt presentations were some of the best times together.  Oh, how we laughed!  I knew her health was failing.  Her daughter had called to tell me she was close to the end.

And then I got the call, “Jennie, can you come and say goodbye to Milly?  Now?  I don’t think she can hang on any longer.”

I never drove so fast in my life.  My heart was pounding as I raced to get to her bedside.  I was five minutes away, approaching an overpass.  Suddenly I was hit by an enormous wave of peace.  Milly was there with me, smiling.  It was the strongest sensation, yet only lasted for thirty seconds.  I knew Milly had died.

When I arrived at Milly’s bedside five minutes later, her daughter said, “Jennie, I’m so sorry.  Milly died five minutes ago.”  I said, “I know.  She was with me for a moment.  It was overwhelming.  She was happy and peaceful and saying goodbye.”

I’ve always believed that our physical body is a living shell for our spirit.  I hope you are lucky enough to encounter a spirit one day.  It’s an experience you will never forget.  You may not see the spirit, but you will certainly know it is there with you.

Jennie

P.S. Thank you to Don Ostertag at Don Ostertag: Off Stage for encouraging me to tell these stories.  His recent Guthrie Theater post (which is wonderful) triggered spirits and ghosts.