After reading Willow's latest post, I had to tell this story.
When my daughter was in high school she met a boy who was one year older. He was in one of her classes and I met him on a field trip to SF for their class. From the very beginning there was something drawing me to this kid. He was just special, that's the only way I can describe it. And it wasn't just the way he looked at my daughter. (Which was with respect, I might add - something not all adolescents use when looking at girls.) Anyway, she had another boyfriend and, while she really liked this boy, didn't break up with the boy she had been going with. Fast forward a year:
It's a normal day, both girls are at school. I hear my daughter's phone ringing in her room. I have this unbelievable urge to answer that phone. It made me anxious when it rings again. It was so weird. I wasn't in the habit of worrying about who was calling my teenage daughter. I go upstairs and listen to the message. It is this boy, he says to call him back. My daughter gets home and I am "bugging" her to call him back! She says no, she'll talk to him later. He was going to baseball practice and she wanted to go work out at our gym. (What I didn't know was he and she had been e-mailing each other and he was trying to convince her to be "with him". And she still hadn't made up her mind.) Now, let me assure you, I wasn't in the habit of pushing my teenager on to boys! Quite the opposite - I tried to watch her and her boyfriend like a hawk. But there was something different about this kid...
My daughter and her father come out of the gym, and there is a terrible accident on the corner. She worries it could be her boyfriend that lives up that way.
She gets home and tries to return the call to the boy. His grandmother doesn't know were he is, but he is supposed to be home. I think she tries again later and no answer. Can you see where this is going? Yep, it was the accident on the corner. He never made it home from baseball practice.
My daughter's boyfriend later told me that he overheard this boy telling another boy that day, that he was going to call my daughter and convince her to break up with him. He heard this at baseball practice. (Both boys were on the same team.)
I'm not going to go into the unbelievable pain and anguish our family, daughter, his family, the whole school went through. The story here is the aftermath. My daughter is not sleeping well, she says she keeps seeing this face (unrecognizable) hovering close to her face in the night. She's terrified. In the meantime, I'm hearing banging going on in her room during the day. I am the only one home. She had mirrored closet doors that were heavy and they would bang into the wall like someone was opening them with great force. Lots of noise - some small bumps, some louder - stuff falling off tables, etc. I do not tell her of these things. And for some reason, I'm not afraid. I finally decide maybe this boy is trying to tell her what he wanted to tell her that day. So I go upstairs and loudly tell him to go away, (that's what I read you are supposed to do in these circumstances), that he is scaring my daughter, and making her very sad.
Things begin to settle down, no more banging, daughter beginning to sleep better. So, you tell me, was it his ghost?
9 comments:
Well they say a spirit that doesn't get closure can't rest, so yes I think it's a possibility. How sad though.
How very sad. I had a similar experience when my mom died. We had not been speaking for almost a year--Mother was difficult to be around and she had said some things at my son's wedding that hurt me and my daughters deeply, so I suppose I was "punishing" her. She came to me in the night-not a dream- and I eneded writing a letter to her before she stopped making her prescence known. I am at peace and hope she is too.
This is very sad. Maybe your daughter should ask him to move on and leave her alone.
Thanks for your comments. I wrote this in present tense as I was telling the story, when it actually happened several years ago. Most of the problems ended with me "asking" him to leave - something I had read along the way about asking ghosts to leave and they are supposed to leave. I'm still not sure how I feel about this episode, but the boy was such a great kid, if he was trying to communicate, he quit when I said he was making her sad and scared.
There is nothing that can haunt us more than unfinished business. I do believe that boy was being persistent, but since he was a nice kid, he quietly went away when you asked him to.
Life is very strange!
Very sad story, but I love the way you told it. When my sister had similar experiences, I told her to tell the spirit to move on toward the light. That seemed to work well for her too. Thanks for commenting on my new story. I'm very excited about it.
Yes it was his ghost. And you did well by explaining to him that he had to go. Sometimes I tell ghosts to go look for their grandparents because it sends them in the direction of healing and renewal.
Only in our culture, at this moment in history, are we so cut off from the Dead. Everywhere on earth, throughout all of history, this story would have been sad, but normal.
May he rest in peace.
The torture of the hungry ghost is not so much the frustration of not being able to get what he wants. rather it is his clinging to those things he mistakenly thinks will bring satisfaction and relief.
That's one bit about ghosts according to Tibetan Buddhism. It sounds as though you did exactly the right thing for that poor shocked young spirit and for your daughter too.
ps - Are you ready to get rid of word verification yet?
Thank you all for your comments. You are all right in the fact that this was a very traumatized spirit. He was a wonderful boy, a unique boy. The kind that united all the high school groups. The turn out for his funeral was unbelievable. I think what happened that day was he had finally made a decision to go for the girl "of his dreams", one he had waited patiently for for over a year. He was extremely popular, yet didn't have a girlfriend this entire time. He knew what he wanted, and if you could see how he looked at her, it wasn't kid stuff. I felt, as a mother, that this boy would love and protect my daughter. Really strange feelings for the age of the players. His mother found music and poetry he had written, in his room, and said much the same thing. I think he was probably thinking of what he was going to say to her when he got home and was killed almost instantly. He probably felt he needed to make contact with her after he died. He had unfinished business. After I asked him to leave, he did. I know he is where he needs to be as he was a loving, kind young man. He would have gone to the light.
Post a Comment