Monday, March 07, 2011

Do You Believe In Ghosts?

My inspiration for this post came from one of my talented blogging buddies, Mark, over at Mark My Words.

Over the past several weeks he has shared a few posts about his fascination with all things paranormal, particularly ghosts. He asked his readers if they too believed in ghosts, and I for one said that I did.

His posts caused me to remember an experience I had many, many years ago.

First, allow me to say that I am very open to things. I’m not someone who needs scientific proof that something is real for it to be real. I go with my feelings, therefore if my feelings tell me that something is real, it’s real.

One of my all-time favorite films is The Sixth Sense. It's pure genius. And I think it’s ironic that the story was set and filmed in Philadelphia, which is where I was born and now live again. I once saw an interview with M. Night Shyamalan, who was the writer and director of the film, and also a Philadelphian. He said that many of his stories are set in and around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania because of its ‘ghost-like’ feel. And he’s right, Philly does have a ghostliness about it. Perhaps it’s all the old American history and architecture, but you can feel the presence of people who once lived here. It’s as if a part of their essence still remains.

Now I don’t find that scary in anyway. Truthfully, find it very comforting and kinda cool.

Yet, the ghost experience I would like to share with you did not take place here in Philadelphia, but rather Florida.

So you see, ghosts are EVERYWHERE.

At the time, I was living in a garage apartment in Orlando, which sat behind a big, beautiful old home that was about 90 years old. I lived in that same apartment for 13 years. On this one particular evening, I was visiting my landlord and landlady while we all sat in their dining room, enjoying one of our delightful catch-up chats that we would have every so often.

I don’t know how long we were sitting there, but at one point they each got up and walked into the kitchen to get us something to eat, when all of a sudden out of the corner of my left eye I saw the image of a man walking down the staircase in their foyer. He wasn’t actually walking, more like levitating down the stairs. And rather quickly. Then he just vanished into thin air.

However, in those few seconds I got a good look at him. He had light skin, brown eyes, dark hair, and a closely cropped beard. He wore a white long cloak.

Well, needless to say it startled the hell out of me; causing the hair on the back of my neck to JUMP.

I never even mentioned it to my landlords when they came back into the dining room because I knew they would think I had been smoking some killer grass.

But several months later….

….I was sitting in my kitchen having a cup of tea and talking to a woman I had recently met in a class I was taking. My kitchen had French doors that were opened at the time, which overlooked the patio area of my landlords’ home. And as casual as casual could be, this woman said, “Oh….your landlords have a ghost living in their house.”

(blinking) I said, “What did you say?”

She said, “A ghost. Your landlords have a ghost living in their house. I can see him standing on the patio. He’s got dark hair, dark eyes, and a beard. He’s wearing a white robe. But don’t worry, he’s a friendly ghost.”

OH. MY. GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, now whenever anyone asks me if I believe in ghosts, I say….you better believe it, baby-cakes!

I see dead people……