While playing mahjong last week, one of my friends laughingly asked: “Linda, do you believe in ghosts?” To her surprise, I said “yes, yes I do”.
The dictionary defines ‘ghost’ as “an apparition of a dead person which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living, typically as a nebulous image”. This is exactly how Constance Bennett and Cary Grant appeared to Roland Young in the movie Topper. As George and Marion Kerby they haunted Cosmo. Of course this was a wonderful fantasy comedy film. However, this manifestation of apparitions is not my idea of a ghost.
My line of reasoning went like this: Growing up in a Catholic household, I was led to believe that we all had a guardian angel that watched over us and kept us safe. This pronouncement was made often by grownups, including a priest, so it had to be true. My friend who asked the question is Jewish, so she had no argument with my remark, since Jews also believe in guardian angels.
Continuing down this road, I brought up the angel Gabriel, who made many guest appearances in various holy books: the Bible, the Quran, the Talmud, numerous Jewish scriptures and remember, it was the angel Gabriel who sidled up to Mary and said: “psst, in nine months, girlfriend, you are going to have a baby”. I wrapped up the ghost question with the analogy that, although angels are seen as messengers of God, while ghosts are spirits of dead individuals who, temporarily, are hanging around on earth for one reason or another, both entities belong in the other worldly realm and both angels and ghosts eventually end up in heaven. Ergo, if a person believes in angels then, perforce, a person must believe in angels’ close relatives, ghosts.
While our table of mahjong players ruminated on this ghostly conundrum I averred to one and all that ghosts are real but not in the nebulous supernatural ectoplasmic manner of George and Marion Kerby. Instead, my vision of ghosts is about the people who meant the world to us when they were alive but whose ghosts now haunt our memories; whose past remarks have found their way into our current psyches and who continue to whisper to us while we go about our day, whether in serious contemplation or while still making us laugh at their remembered remarks.
My grandmother, for instance, had a slow moving but terminal illness that pretty much determined she would die much younger than the insurance tables suggested. Concerned that her husband, my grandfather, would become a burden to his children, she often insisted that, once she was gone, he was to return to Italy and marry her spinster sister, or she would return as a ghost and pull his feet while he tried to sleep at night. My grandfather had been hardened by the war and was not a man who took to fripperies of any kind but, nonetheless, he firmly believed she would haunt him. After the appropriate mourning period, he returned to Italy and married her beloved sister, who then became my great aunt step-grandmother once removed.
The ghost of my older brother still haunts me whenever I stand on the scales, whispering the same snide retort that he made during all the years that he was alive: “remember, Linda, there’s no such thing as a pretty fat girl”. Hold the cannolis.
My college BFF, who lost her battle with cancer, will stand beside the mirror with me while I mull over an outfit combination, then remark with her trademark snark: “you’re going to wear those shoes with that dress?” Maybe not.
There are numerous ghosts who weave their way around my spiritual psyche: A college professor who would remind me that every privilege has a responsibility (most often when I’m feeling entitled and full of myself); a favorite aunt who taught me to love Frankie Laine and Patsy Cline. Her ghost sings along with me whenever I play one of their CDs in the car. "Win or lose, I'm a moonlight gambler. . . ." Conversely, a high school teacher who told me I had a brain in my head but that I would probably never use it (ha!! fooled her . . . maybe).
And my all time forever friend who showed me how to live and have fun: Cindy. Cindy would have delighted in my recent purchase of bacon jam; goes great with pb and bananas. She would try anything at least once. I still want to be like her (except for the being dead part). She was fearless: flew airplanes, rode horses, drove her Jaguar dangerously fast on narrow roads, skied the Alps. She believed in me; always slapped my arm and said ‘you’ve got this’. Her ghost continues to silently whisper ‘you’ve got this’ whenever I’m scared or nervous.
In sum, I’ve reached the age where I have more dead friends than live friends, so, yes Virginia, I do believe in ghosts.
