Maybe A Ghost Story

I recently was at a store (in Toluca Lake) that I frequent.  Julian (not his real name) is the associate who’s been helping me for almost a decade.  He knows I write this blog and he excitedly told me that he had a story that might interest me.  It did, so here it is!

Julian’s family has a home that’s two hours outside Puerto Vallarta.  It’s been in the family for generations.  Down through the years, relatives and friends claimed to have experienced hauntings.  Julian himself claims to have seen and felt “things” that he can only label as “ghosts”.  His father-in law, though, scoffs at such nonsense.

Early this summer, Julian and his family went down for the Quinceañera of his niece.  Per tradition, the local Priest came to hear confessions.  Julian’s dad has no use for Church ritual and took a nap when the priest arrived.  He fell asleep and some time later awoke, feeling like someone was pressing down on him.  His legs shook uncontrollably and he freaked out.  He screamed; people rushed in and – nothing.  He insisted, though, that someone had been on top of him.

Hey, it’s Halloween and what’s a column without a ghost story?!  I don’t think Julian made up this tale.  Since I don’t know his in-law, I don’t know if the man is a jokester, had a nightmare or – if he really was assaulted by a ghost.  What I do know is that there’s more to life than we can see.

Not only is there more than we can take in at any one time, I think we’re so overwhelmed that often we don’t pay attention to the little that we can see.

In Thornton Wilder’s classic play, “Our Town”, the lead character Emily dies in childbirth.  Soon after, she asks the character of the Stage Manager if she can return home to live out just one day.  Against his better judgment, he agrees.  Emily is moved by the simple beauty of ordinary life and stunned by how people are unaware of that beauty.  Although invisible to her mother, she cries out, “Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really saw me – it goes so fast we don’t have time to look at one another.”  Back at the graveyard, she asks the Stage Manager, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”

It’s easy to take life and others for granted.  It’s also easy to take our own life for granted. 

The countdown for 2014’s end begins with the last piece of Halloween candy – so how do you want the year to end?  Challenge yourself to see just a bit more of what’s there to see and experience.