My Ghost Story

True story.

There really isn’t much to it, but here it is:

 

In the mid 1980s I was in the Navy, stationed in Oakland, living about 20 miles south of it on the east bay in a town called San Leandro. My wife and son and I lived in a rented bungalow. A nice little place on a quiet little street.

 

One weekend morning, cannot remember if it was early Saturday or early Sunday, around 3:00 a.m., I was a wake and sitting at the kitchen table. I was playing, essentially Yahtzee baseball (easiest way to describe it), listening to music and, most likely (though I am not sure), drinking a beer. My wife and son were both sleeping.

 

The phone rang.

 

Naturally, I was startled. It seemed to echo in the quiet kitchen like a fire alarm bell. Just as naturally, I was immediately apprehensive and worried. No phone call at 3:00 a.m., even if your family lives in the Eastern time zone three hours behind you, can ever be a good thing, can it? 

I don’t think so.

 

I arose and answered. I was greeted with the crackle and sizzle of static and nothing more. Unfazed, I said, “Hello?” Still nothing but static. I said, “Hello?” again. This time I thought I heard a voice faintly, the way you hear, or think you hear, that all-important beeping through the incessant ringing of your ears during a hearing test.

 

The voice seemed to say, “Hello” back. From what I could hear, the voice sounded calm, not panicked, not pressed, not hurried  by a sense of urgency.

I said “Hello?!?!” one more time, growing a little impatient and also just a tad bit annoyed. 

This time the voice said, “Hello…John?”

 

Still more annoyed than anything, I said, “Yes, who is this?

Nothing but the crackle and sizzle of static, though I swore I heard, one more time, “Hello... John?”

 

Finally, not freaked or frightened, but just weary of the hassle (it was, afterall, three in the morning), I hung up.

 

On the way back to my seat, it occurred to me that, though it was very faint, the voice sounded very familiar. I thought to myself that it sounded just like my mother’s voice. And, then, in wonder and amazement, I stopped dead in my tracks: It was my mother’s voice. If I had to testify in open court, I’d have done so with a clear conscience. I couldn’t swear to the certainty that it was her, but I could with all certainty testify that I sure thought it was her (and didn’t think it was anyone else). And that was incredible and just this side of miraculous because (I think you know what’s coming next):

 

By that time, my mother had been dead for about five years.

Again, even with that knowledge firmly in hand, I was not freaked out, creeped out, frightened or upset. Perhaps, because it came so out of nowhere, was over so quickly, the realization so firm and indisputable that it just seemed…okay? I wasn’t sorry I “missed” the call (maybe I had gotten all I was supposed to get from it, and maybe so did she). It seemed like something of a missed opportunity but, then again, maybe it wasn’t: maybe all it was was all it was supposed to be. Didn’t know then, don’t know now.

 

Here are my skepticisms: First, we never know anything for certain; there is always room for doubt. Surely there was room for plenty of it here. It could have been an East Coast relative, perhaps drunk and chatty, calling for company (I had relatives who might do that). But it sounded like my mother. Two, there was an old Twilight Zone episode that sort of involved the same thing. I am not saying one had anything to do with the other; just saying the suggestion might be there. 

But, again, it sounded like my mother. 

Also, my sister had confessed to once having a similar experience with a recently-dead friend of hers, Same static, same distant but familiar voice (though, in her case, she did freak out. But, then, he wasn’t a parent. What harm could a parent intend for a child?) Again, not suggesting that there is any connection, other than the power of suggestion. My other skepticism: I didn’t freak out. Wouldn’t you have? Wouldn’t anybody? If you were so firmly convinced that you’d just received a phone call from a dead person, wouldn’t have been the tiniest, teensiest bit freaked out. I wasn’t. That makes me wonder about what I heard

 

What doesn’t leaving me wondering was the voice. It was my mother’s. Plain and simple. Always wonder what she might have wanted to tell me; this was the mid-1980’s and she had died in ’81. Maybe she was making a five-year anniversary call (though I caan;t be sure of the date). Her younger brother would die of leukemia in 1986. Perhaps she had something to say about that. I don’t know. I never will. And maybe that’s just as well. Who knows what would have transpired if we had connected and chatted.

 

Thinking about that does tend to creep me out.

 

 

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

I find this quite interesting. Being a retired Navy guy who used to drink a lot, the first thing I wondered about was your condition at the time of the call. There's much in this world that we don't understand.

[Dez H.]

Damn now that's some s**t. I would've been freaked out if that happened to me. Have you gotten any more calls like that? Man if that happened to me i still would've been questioning that night. I probably would've went to a psychic to find out if my mother was watching over me. I like this story it gave me goose bumps. Good s**t.