"Ghosts..."

Supposedly, I'm somewhat educated... fairly knowledgeable about many things... at least to the point where I can carry on a half-way intelligent conversation about different topics...


I am only puzzled by a few things... mostly involving love and relationships... but go figure... huh?


I have to admit that I am damn near addicted to those stupid ghost hunting shows on the Sci-Fi  Channel...

Even though most of the episodes are lame... they think they see 'shadows'... or exclaim.. "What was that?!?!"... or... "Did you see that?!?!?!"  Then at some point in the program, they all gather to review the 'evidence'... and something that sounds like a muffled fart is alleged to possibly be the ghost of Abraham Lincoln reciting the Gettysburg Address or something like that...


I'm not sure what is on the 'other side' when we die... where it is we go... if we even go anywhere at all...

I guess the idea of 'haunted New Orleans'... or the prospects of tortured souls looking for lost loves... or searching the battlefields where they are said to have died holds some sort of romanticism about it...


Supposedly, the Battlefield at Gettysburg is among the most haunted sites in the United States... specifically the part of the battlefield where Pickett's Charge took place... you can read about that attack here...

I've never had any first-hand experience with 'ghosts'... but something did happen some years ago... that my son and I still talk about...
My son, BoyRedshoes was about three... and early one Sunday morning, he is in our bedroom... shaking my shoulder... saying... "Daddy... wake up... wake up, Daddy..."


I ask him what he wants... and he says... "There's a woman in my room reading a story to me..."


That startled me because even though a child, he didn't ever go around making those kinds of stories up... so I got up and went to his bedroom.. I did see a "Babar The Elephant" book at the foot of his bed, but I always read to my kids at bedtime... and I had probably read that book to him on the previous night...

Lil Redshoes insisted that she was sitting at the foot of his bed... and when he had sat up to look at her... that she put her finger to her nose... as if asking him to be quiet so as to not disturb anyone...

I told him that no one was in his room... and that maybe.. just maybe... he had dreamed about it... he insisted she was there... I went back to bed... and Lil Redshoes came and snuggled with me until morning...

Off and on for the next couple of days, he would refer to the lady, although he never said he saw her again...

I've talked off and on about how I loved my Mom... how much I adored her... and how much I missed her after she died...  I had a photo of my Mom... that I got enlarged and framed...

This one evening, I was hanging the photo... trying to balance it... get the position right... and Lil Redshoes went running past me... and suddenly stopped and looked at the photo...

"Daddy... that's the woman who was reading the story..."

Mom had died before Lil Shoes was born... so he never knew her...  but my Mom would come over and read to Girl Redshoes whens he was little...  she would sit at the foot of the bed and read and carry on with her so... she so loved her granddaughter...

So I explained to Lil Boy Redshoes about who his Memom was... and how much she loved her grandchildren...  he never seemed to be afraid... for he would have had nothing to fear...  I don't know if it actually happened the way he told me it did... but, I hope it did... I like the idea of my Mom coming and reading to my little boy...

~shoes~