Ghost Stories

The other day, we were visiting some friends of ours who live out in the country on an old, run down Danish farm they have been fixing up for the past eleven years until it's a real cool place.

Over tea and cakes, the talk turned to odd experiences.

It started because we were talking about dreams and I mentioned a dream I had some years ago when I was supposed to visit my Aunt Ruth in November.

In early September, I saw her in a dream and she said she was sorry, but she was so tired. Early the next morning, my sister in Florida called me to say that Ruth had died during the night.

The lady who lives on the farm said that she doesn't dream, or at least doesn't remember them. However, she can relate a number of puzzling experiences and I will relate one of them:

She was flying to California from Denmark and was supposed to be met at the airport by her husband who had gone ahead of her by a few days. Unknown to her, there was something wrong at the airport with the systems that tell when planes were arriving. Therefore, her husband's uncle, who was driving the car decided to go back home and her husband went with him.

Up in the airplane, it was like Johanna heard a voice saying "Robert won't be there to meet you, but don't worry, you will spend the night with Aunt Ida."

Sure enough, there was no one to meet her at the airport. However, Ida, who was one of the three people she knew in California, arrived shortly on a different airplane and, by chance, Johanna saw her. After contacting Robert's uncle, she did in fact, spend the night at Ida's house.

Years later, back in Denmark, Robert had an odd experience. For some reason, he felt he had to go to Copenhagen to the office of the Graphic Union, of which he was a member. Again, by chance, he went down the wrong corridor and, by an open door, he saw the fellow who was his case handler at the Union, "Well, Robert, you're a bit late, but better late then never."

The upshot was that he had been sent a letter that he was supposed to come. Robert was out of work at the time and the reason he was supposed to come is that he had to have a talk with his case handler about what he was doing to get work. If he hadn't come, he would have been struck in his unemployed benefits. However, the letter telling him to come didn't arrive at the farm until some days later.

Things like this happen to people. I don't attribute any special meaning to them or draw any specific conclusions.

However, I suppose they happen because everything in some way is connected to everything else.

Once in a while we become aware of a connection we hadn't noticed before and we experience a "visitation" of this sort.

The root meaning of "ghost" is "guest" and that is why I called these anecdotes "ghost stories".