I almost didn’t blog today…I’ve got a busy day ahead, but since it’s Halloween, I thought I’d share a few of my ghost stories. They’re not really stories, but a few webbed occurrences that I can’t explain.

I work part time at a retirement resort. Ghost stories go with the territory, but most of them are explainable. I’ve been there a long time and know that when the air kicks on it can sound like a family of ghouls walking through the dining room. I know that the loud crashes coming from the kitchen are usually the ice machine, or dishes falling/rattling from the equipment vibrations. And sometimes the weird reflections you can see in the mantle over the lobby fireplace are just headlights from the care center that sits on the hill above us.

The spookiest stuff happened a good decade ago. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve dropped down to part time and don’t experience as many incidents as I used to, or the “situation” has left the building. So here we go. People with Alzheimer’s and Dementia—when they hallucinate, is it only hallucinations, or can they see into the other realm? At one time I would laugh at this theory, but not anymore. Here is one reason why: We had a few Dementia sufferers who would see a little girl or boy around the same time period. A little child bouncing a ball. Playing. Sometimes, you could hear old time music play, although that could have been a TV in someone’s room, but the sound was a little off, like weird carousal/clown-vintage-muffled music. One of our beloved residents known for hallucinating all kinds of things often came to the lobby looking for “the little boy. Have you seen that little boy with the ball?,” she would ask.

Maybe it was coincidence. A few of the staff surely blew the idea out of proportion, but when multiple people hallucinate the same thing, it makes you wonder.

My ghost story: While downstairs in our social room, I saw in a glass office door, a reflection of an old man wearing a red flannel shirt pulling an oxygen tank. He looked very much like a resident who had passed away some months earlier, but logic kicked in and I assumed it was someone behind me out for a late night stroll. When I turned to speak to him, no one was there.

Knowing how the mind can play tricks, I looked around for large planter, an odd shaped piece of furniture, or something that would make me think I had seen a ghost. Nothing but large open space.

No chills, no voices, no cold breeze. I looked back at the glass door, but the reflection had gone.

What was it? One of my friends assured me it was a demon. I have forgotten the explanation, but it was a stretch, in my opinion. Do ghosts exist? Possibly. There are a few hints in the Bible, but nothing (that I’ve discovered) that fully confirm or deny, except we know the people of the day believed in them.

When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water, and accused him of being a ghost, he didn’t correct them by saying ghosts don’t exist, he just said, “Be still. It is I. You have nothing to fear.” Matthew 14:27.

I guess that’s all we need to know. There is a supernatural realm of some sorts, yes, but all we need to know is that there is Jesus, and he says we have nothing to fear.

Happy Halloween friends. Stay safe and have fun.