The Haunting of J. R. Barrett.

Remember the movie, The Sixth Sense? Ask my mom. I was that kid. The parallels between that story and mine are eerie except ghosts don’t look like that. Their appearance doesn’t reflect the way of their death. I guess I’d say their appearance reflects the emotions and unfinished business they’re dealing with. Some look very much like themselves while others are mere balls of energy - good energy, confused energy, panic-stricken energy or plain old bad energy.

I hate seeing ghosts. All my life I’ve viewed this ability as a curse, not a gift. It’s awful. Like Sara Wise in Incorporeal, I refuse to pass on messages. Well, let me qualify that. I do pass on messages from deceased family members to living family members. I do not, under any circumstances - with a single exception - pass on messages from anyone else to anyone else. Like Sara, I don’t want a big fat label - certifiable - stuck on my forehead. My husband knows I see ghosts and he accepts it. He’s known about it since the day we met. Thank god he loves me anyway!

The one time I made an exception, things worked out okay. I relented because the situation was dire. Just like Sam Wheat singing ‘I’m Henry the VIII I Am’ to Oda Mae Brown in the movie, Ghost, this particular spirit refused to take no for an answer. He would not leave me alone until I helped him, so I did as he asked.

He came to see me after his funeral and he looked, well, incorporeally beautiful; he was ready to move on. He visited me unexpectedly once more with an important message for a friend. This time I hesitated. I didn’t pass on the message immediately because I knew his friend had experienced a terrible tragedy and I was reluctant to make things worse. A week later, his friend suffered a heart attack. The truth is, I don’t know that passing on the message would have changed the course of events. I don’t know that I could have prevented his heart attack. But my indecision still bothers me.

Mostly I don’t talk to ghosts because once a single ghost gets a foot in the door, man, they descend upon you like white on rice. You never have a moment’s peace. And there’s a lot of nasty stuff floating around out there looking for a place to stick. You don’t want that nasty stuff sticking to you. I’ve seen it firsthand and I don’t want it near me, not no way, not no how.

As Sara says in Incorporeal, most ghosts are long-winded and confused. They speak in riddles. Her ghost, Nathan is an exception. My ghost above was an exception. His voice was clear as a bell.

Now don’t get me started on the haunted house from hell we rented in Utah! Shudder

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4 Responses to The Haunting of J. R. Barrett.

  1. amber skyze says:

    I don’t believe you made the wrong decision. Things happen the way they’re supposed to. As a child I saw ghosts, but I don’t see them any longer. Though they seem to either follow me to different homes or I’m attracted to houses with them.

  2. Thank you, Amber. I do my best not to see them. Can’t help it sometimes. Maybe we’re all weird.

  3. Stephanie says:

    We are all weird. I could almost always tell who was on the phone. My mother in law was always amazed although she called every Tuesday at eight pm so it wasn’t a big shock that it was her. But I would have decided to call someone after not talking with them for a while and the phone would ring. That kind of thing.I have spoken in awake dream states with dead loved ones and foretold things a couple of times but as I have gotten older that has slipped away.

  4. How interesting, Steph. My mom, both my grandmothers and I always know who is calling. It is so strange. I’m guessing this kind of stuff is more common than we think.

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