A Lesson From Elaine’s Ghost

A large percentage of Americans believe in ghosts and spirits – a whopping 40% according to some polls – even though there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support their existence. Why do people believe in such a superstition? A personal encounter or experience with something that defies a rational or conventional explanation permits us to seek a non-rational explanation? Some people who have issues or problems dealing with a death of a close friend or partner can cause someone to imagine they still exist, a bit incorporeal, with them, or even visiting them from time to time to ease their emotional distress. From my experience, those who claim to have seen or communicated with a ghost or spirit insist they exist even though no scientific test can conclusively prove it so.

I’ve had many encounters with ghosts and spirits. I don’t for the life of me know exactly what they are, but something was there that was different from an ordinary experience allowing me to believe something supernatural was in my presence at that time. Today I will share a more unique encounter that touched me in a way which brings peace to my mind and a lesson to be remembered.

She died two days ago.

We gathered in my living room of my apartment on Ashland in Buffalo, NY. After lighting some candles to set the mood as the sun set over the houses across the street, the four of us sat together in chairs forming a circle. September, the older and more experience person in the group when it comes to beliefs and practices which reside outside conventional reality led our group. She held her hands out to her side, palms down, asking that we hold hands with each other. I held her hand in my left. My right held someone else’s. There think were two other people in that room and I can’t remember who they were. There are of course only a few possibilities, but as to exactly who I just don’t remember anymore.

What I do remember is the rest of the story. September was saying something, words out loud, a chant of sorts, a calling of her to come to us. I said her name, I called her too. We all did and we held each others hands tight. Then there was warmth, an incredible buzzing of heat emanating several feet away between September and I outside our circle. It glowed red and yellow but they were not colors seen with my eyes but rather with my mind. I saw a blank spot on that floor visually but felt her standing there which my mind painted with a vibrant, warm hue in that location. The vibration of the energy was unmistakably Elaine’s. It was beautiful. It was extraordinary. It was her in spirit standing right before us creating a feeling for us all the beauty and love which life is. I smiled in joy. Finally I can say goodbye, but at the same time I was blown away that this was actually happening. It was happening, in my apartment, Elaine is here in a warm, loving radiance.

On the mantle I had placed Elaine’s tube socks she let me wear when I spilled beer on my feet in her bedroom a few weeks before. Each of us gathered her personal belongings that were left with us after she unexpectedly passed away and rested them on the mantle above the fireplace near where we were sitting. All I had of hers were white tube socks. I gestured to the socks and told her she can have them back because they are not my style and I didn’t have the chance to give them to you when you were here. I remember thinking she laughed at that because an arm came up and moved across her chest, up to her neck or mouth then swung back down again. It was just a blob of energy that moved differently than the rest of the larger radiant red and yellow force, but it sure seemed like an arm to me.

I remember feeling a weakness, a feeling of waking up as the special, unique moment was coming to pass. It was as if we, as a group were unable to maintain the connection with her. Again, it was like a gradual feeling of being roused from a wonderful dream. I felt the urge to thank Elaine for our special moments together, for our bond we shared, and say my last goodbye before she leaves forever. That was a powerful yet peaceful moment for all of us sitting in that apartment on Ashland. For me it was not a feeling of loss, but of thanks which swelled from a feeling of deep gratitude from what we shared. Elaine emanated the same warm love to us all. So we all thanked her and said our goodbyes, fore we all sensed she was leaving. We all smiled and let her go together. She drifted to her left toward the mantle where her possessions where resting. During that movement she faded away.

And she was gone.

On a cold, blustering day we parked the car on the side of the road across the street from the cemetery. The clock tower showed several minutes past noon. My friend who drove us there laughed. She told me that Elaine hated the clock tower at UB and now here she is buried near one. Forever, time will shadow her grave. As we crossed the street we panned through the open gate into the land of manicured lawns and stone monuments. It snowed that morning. A several inch layer of white crystal covered all like a blanket over sleeping bodies. I knew too well that these bodies will be asleep for a long, long time.

Elaine’s funeral was that morning. None of her friends were invited. Her mother blamed us all for her only child’s death. Several weeks later I spoke with Elaine’s mother on the phone for hours as she wanted to know my involvement in her deceased daughters life. She also shared with me her story of losing contact and losing the life of the only thing which mattered to her. But I digress…

The main through-way just past the cemetery gate going left and right was well worn. Thousands of footprints melted the snow and the black asphalt revealed itself to the sun getting warmer and in turn, melting more snow. Which way to her grave? We had no information on her whereabouts. And this cemetery is huge. I didn’t expect such a large number of people to have visited here this morning, for I was hoping a single line of footprints in the fresh snow would lead us to Elaine’s final resting place. It was then I realized footprints will not be necessary, for I “felt” a strong feeling of sadness to my right along the asphalt road. And so I followed it. I “saw” in my mind’s eyes twenty to fifty adults dressed mostly in black walking with their heads down from that direction. Though they moved slowly and somberly, they were not physically tired but many held umbrellas which I thought was odd. Maybe they were present during the morning snowfall.

And so my friend and I followed that dreary river upstream, each footfall landing in wet snow that splattered on my shoes. Perhaps after fifty yards this intangible aura of sadness which led me here turned left. And so we looked left. A wide, rectangular swath of snow was removed. If I recall there may have been some mud or dirt in the area along with many foot indents left in the lawn. The grass was pretty much flattened. Clearly, a burial occurred here earlier today. At the end of this rectangular clearing was a lone stone marker perhaps two-feet wide which lay in the ground. We walked up to it. It said “Elaine.” Flowers were left around the stone. While I had no flowers, I did bring her tube socks. I pulled them out of my long left pocket of my trench coat, bound tightly in the traditional manor one wraps socks and placed them right below her stone marker. My friend said something, which I do not recall. With my hands in my trench coat pockets, we retraced our steps back through the lonely cemetery grounds on this cold and overcast day.

Aside: this friend of mine who drove us to the cemetery had a large, but brief impact on my life direction. When we met a couple months before Elaine’s death she told me she had to something important for me. She then provided me a copy of the Interview With A Heretic which drastically propelled me forward and outside conventional reality. Later on our first date, a mere block away from Elaine’s apartment we sipped on drinks inside a cozy coffeehouse as Elaine was lifted and removed from the home on a stretcher. Elaine was a mutual friend. It was during a casual discussion of her I remarked that I saw a fireman exit her house signaling someone was dead inside. Right then we both knew the reason for us being brought together was happing. She would later learn through networking and interrogation the burial cemetery location and drive us there. Our relationship ended shortly after.

Have you ever experience this?

Have you encountered or experienced anyone after they passed away? What was the experience like? Did you come away feeling loss or negative emotions or joy, love and gratitude like myself? How do you rationalize the experience, as in, how do you fit spirits and/or afterlife into your world view and reality? I for one am not sure what I experienced that evening on Ashland. It may have been a group hallucination. Why bring in supernatural elements when a completely rational and simple explanation works? Well, I may never know exactly what that in my room that evening on Ashland but what I do know is how I reacted to it. And it is that reaction which brought peace to my mind, love into my heart and this story to you. Her spirit taught me how to let go.. of her and her tube socks. Frankly, that is a hard lesson to learn. So what lessons have spirits taught you?

May you live with peace, gratitude, forgiveness. This is a song I associate with her.