I See Dead People

Yes, I know it's a famous line from a movie but my experiences with the unknown are anything but reel. Well, not really unknown. After all I know these people, er, souls I mean.

My very first sighting was way back when I was still a college kid who slept on a big bed with my sister beside me. It happened sometime between midnight and 4 in the morning. I woke up with a start for no apparent reason. And there standing on the foot of the bed was an old Spanish-looking lolo with white thinning hair wearing dark-rimmed glasses, black knit cardigan over a pair of dark carsonsillos. He was enveloped in brilliant white light and he was looking straight at me with a benevolent smile. Of course, I did not smile back! How could I? I hurriedly put my blanket over my head and moved a little too close to my snoring sister. It was a wonder I did not let out a scream at all.

By morning, I had forgotten all about it and was only reminded of it when my sister complained about my cramming into her in the wee hours of the morning. Oh yes I said, I saw a ghost but had no idea who it was. So I described the apparition and she promptly said it was Mamay, our paternal grandfather. Yeah, that was him all right. I was only 4 years old when he died so I did not recognize him when he appeared before me. And wait, that day was his death anniversary!

Another sighting was right after I gave birth to Indie in the room where I was confined at St. Luke's. You see my old maid aunt, whom we fondly called Ate, passed away just 20 days before. She was like a second mother to me and my sisters. And I was sure she would have wanted to see her new apo and take care of me after labor. I saw her at the door smiling a happy smile. She asked if she could visit me and I readily said yes. So she glided (yes glided, as if she were on roller blades!) to the foot of the bed and stayed there, forever smiling, until I fell into a deep sleep.


The last was Christmas of 2007. It was our second without my father and I just thought I missed him. I remember saying it aloud, not for anything. But maybe somehow he heard me. Because as I was sitting somewhere in the dining room in our Batangas home, I saw him walking from my mother's bedroom to the living room and then poof! he was gone. He was my father so I wasn't the least bit scared. What struck me was the clarity of the vision, not hazy at all. He was wearing his favorite Christmas outfit of red shirt and white shorts. He did not move nor act in a ghostly kind of way. It was like he was alive, so alive that for a moment I forgot he was already dead.

There were other encounters with strange souls but I'd rather not go into these. That would be too creepy, even for Halloween.

P.S. When Indie saw Ate's picture, she said she knows her and she has seen her already...