ghost

i'll tell you a ghost story - which may seem a little out of character because i don't believe in the afterlife, but this one can be backed up by a witness - sally - and neither one of us is a fabulist.  also, it will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

my mother died in 1968, was cremated and interred in a crypt below the altar in saint peters church - her home parish - in philadelphia.  end of story you say...not quite.

some years later she was dug up - which i didn't think was legal but happened anyway.  my cousin got a letter from the parish secretary saying she now resided on her desk and would we please come pick her up - which i did.  from then on she sat, in an urn, on the bureau in my library.  when sally and i moved to carpenters row i brought her along where she rested, quietly, for some years under a table in the front room.

at some point i, from my seat at  the counter in the kitchen, started seeing a dark shadow, a murky cloud, rise from the area of the urn...not often but enough that i took note.  i didn't say anything to sally.

one evening i saw it and sighed in exasperation.  "what's wrong," asked sally.  "nothing.  i just saw my mother again," i replied, nodding towards the urn.  "have you been seeing that too," she exclaimed.  it turned out that she, from her position at the stove had seen the apparition as often as i had.

"what does she want do you suppose?"  sally asked.  "to rest in peace i guess.  too much noise around here," i replied.

the next morning at 6 a.m., a lovely may day, we took her to the brandywine and poured her ashes into the fast moving water.  she swirled away in a long train of grey.

neither of us has seen her since.