Not So Spooky, At All

Gravenhurst Train Station 1920 - Adams Photo - Courtesy of Fred Schulz

NOT SO SPOOKY ENCOUNTERS WITH THOSE WHO HAVE PASSED

   

One such instance of a possible spirit encounter that comes immediately to mind, involved my father-in-law on the eve of his passing.

     My wife had been at the hospital in Bracebridge, Ontario for most of the sunny day in October, awaiting what was inevitable. Her father was slowly succumbing to a serious heart condition and it was a matter of hours before he was released from this mortal coil. I was looking after our young lads here at our Gravenhurst home, sitting out on the deck looking over the beautiful woodlands we call The Bog. We were talking about their grandfather's circumstance when all of a sudden a small brass bell (which had once hung on the verandah of the family cottage on Lake Rosseau), rang everso lightly. We all heard the faint ping of brass but there was no one standing close by or any chance it was accidentally hit. I have no recollection why I said it aloud or why I related it to the ring of a bell but I whispered immediately to the boys, "Your grandfather has just died." In less than five minutes the phone rang and it was Suzanne calling to let us know her dad had passed. Coincidence? The work of the spirit world? A message from the deceased? Or just the tieing together of what we find convenient, wishful truths at that precise moment. It makes it a tidy bit of legend when we credit such things with paranormal intervention, when in fact it could have been a bug bouncing off the bell, at around the time my father-in-law succumbed. Still, keeping this story in mind as you read on, you will find many other stories that happen in a similar unanticipated, unexpected, quite impromtu way that seems a tad more than mere coincidence. Do these things happen to us because we're open to possibility? I think the messages are received, as John Edward, the well known medium has maintained, when we validate that those who have passed can communicate with the living. We have always been receptive but we don't spend our time questing out spirits from their eternal peace. They find us when they feel so inclined. And we pay attention, let me tell you.

     It may just be a word, a sensation, aroma in a room, a reaction to a piece of music or a scene outdoors that often reminds us of days with loved ones now passed. Usually we are reminded of some incident that occurred, vividly recalling the time and place, and we often pause and ponder whether there is a subtle message within. Was it just a sentimental moment? Or did someone on the other side feel compelled to remind us of a commitment we once made, or a promise yet to be fulfilled. As one example, I was sitting in the yard one afternoon in the fall of 2007, when all of a sudden I said to Suzanne "Witch Hazel." "I have no idea why this came to my mind......does it ring a bell with you?" She didn't have an immediate answer but the more we thought about it, many suggestions were made about where this would have come up in our respective lives. While there was no conclusion it did make us talk about the old days of Suzanne's family in the Ufford and Windermere area of Muskoka.....dating back as far as the 1870's family homestead. Was it a mission inspired by the other side to link us with some important detail we needed to know? We have no idea to this day but every now and again the plant name will pop up as if to remind us to keep up the quest.

     I probably validate the spirit-kind more than most people I suppose, and I frequently will make some one-way chatter with old chums of mine, when I'm suddenly reminded of their unretiring characters. If I'm looking for an old book I need for some research project, I may seek the help of my old book collecting buddy, David Brown, ( I wrote his biography following his death in the mid 1990's), and on many, many occasions, possibly a few days later, I will eventually find the book I was looking for. Rather than making adament claims that "No of course, Brownie couldn't possibly have helped me from the spirit-world," I just take the book and thank Dave as if he was fully responsible. Reminds me of the old anecdote about the woman who complained to a friend that her mentally stressed son thought he was a chicken, and when the friend said that she should tell him bluntly he was to cease the nonsense, the mother replied, "I would but we need the eggs." If Dave Brown can help me find a book I need, because that was his specialty amongst the living, well folks, I'm going to chatter away and take what breaks are afforded me. That's pretty much the slant of this series of blogs on ghosts and spirit-kind I have encountered. It's not to convince you that ghosts exist but rather to explain why we, the Curries, have been able to walk so freely, happily and communicative amongst them for all these years.        

     We're not mediums and we've never been to a seance. We do read a lot of books about ghosts and the paranormal but I couldn't even quote you one line that convinced me of ghost/paranormal existence.

Much of it goes back to having parents that refused to quash expectation, and who nurtured free thought and unrestricted privilege to challenge anything we felt was mired in doubt, inaccuracy and complacency from counter-point. Suzanne's parents and mine never once discouraged us from full investigation, and in fact, gave us the moral courage to take giant steps where others chose modest proportion, and caution every step of the way. We celebrated fantasy as we embraced freedom, and it made us cunning investigators, who might well have squeezed through the small door that opened to Alice's Wonderland, or snuck in line to get the first enchanted step along the yellow brick road (ahead of Dorothy) on the way toward Oz. And if we had come upon the midnight revel of the wee fairies in these enchanted Muskoka woodlands, we would have instinctively and by knowledge known, to watch only in silence, respectful of the full rights and privilege of legend and lore.

      My favorite author, Washington Irving, once wrote that he was disappointed that science was dissecting all the fantasy from the world, into only what could be precisely identified, documented and thusly and finally attributed to the life of individual species. Irving thought that it would be a terrible corruption to those traditions and fantasies, if mankind was to give up on things like fairies and the existence of other enchanted wee beasties that emerge occasionally from the mist of such haunted places as dark, historic woodlands; from beneath rickety old bridges, and deep caverns in the rock grandeur of moss covered hillsides. Science, he thought, should not be the only source for information, and it certainly must not be the initiative to abandon expectation and fantasy, or believe for one moment that there are no such things as phantom sailing ships on the Hudson River, or a headless horseman who seeks the noggins of unsuspecting weak-willed mortals. He thought enchantments had their place in this world, and I have taken his advisory to heart all these years, and have never been disappointed in the immersion and fantasy, I have been privileged to experience......by being open to possibility, and believing as an eternal child, that the universe is a very fascinating, dynamic place afforded to mortals in which to dwell.