When Ghosts Speak - Mary Ann Winkowski [29]
As I do in all houses that I am clearing of ghosts, I allowed the homeowner to ask questions of the spirit in her house. We learned that the woman was ninety-three when she died and that she had lived a long and happy life with her husband, who had died ten years before her. During the conversation, it became clear to me that she still missed her dear companion. I was certain that when I made the white Light, she would eagerly embrace the opportunity to be united with her true love.
To my surprise, when I asked her if she was ready to go into the Light, she adamantly refused. “I didn’t go the first time and I won’t go now” was all she would say, no matter how much I cajoled her.
“Don’t you want to be with your husband?” I asked.
It broke my heart to see the tears running down her cheeks. “I saw him in the Light the first time,” she said. “He looked so young and handsome.”
Holding her thin arms out in front of her and gazing at her shaking hands, she continued, “I’m an old lady. Look at me: I’m wrinkled and gray, and I can’t even stand up straight. What would my handsome husband want now with an old dame like me?”
When I understood her fears, I was able to reassure her that she, like her husband, would return to her prime. “You’ll join your husband and you’ll be a really cute couple again,” I promised her as I made the Light.
And as she straightened up as much as she could and walked into the brightness, I truly believed that she was heading into the same kind of love and happiness she had known as a newlywed.
The White Light and When to Cross Over
Of course, there are some spirits who are ready to leave the earth as soon as they have departed from their bodies. But even for those willing to go, there is no great rush. In fact, as you’ll read in chapter 5 about funerals, almost all ghosts stay to attend their own.
When I was younger and regularly attending funerals with my grandmother, I sometimes wondered what spirits did from the time I saw them at their viewings until their memorial services were finished and they stepped into the white Light that hovered near them at their grave in the cemetery. Perhaps they had unfinished business and traveled from person to person or place to place to see for themselves that all loose ends were tied up to their satisfaction.
But I also learned that for some ghosts waiting to go into the Light, it was just a matter of timing. After a few years of marriage, Ted and I moved with our two young daughters into a small house on a private street. Just outside and across the street from the house was St. Bridget’s Cemetery. At the bottom of the hill, on the county road running past our home, was another large cemetery. Living so close to two graveyards didn’t bother me at all when we bought the house. Ghosts do not hang out in cemeteries. The energy from other living creatures is vital to their continued strength: They seek out people and crowds. Frankly, for ghosts, cemeteries are just too quiet.
One day I came up from our basement and was shocked to see three ghosts sitting at my dining room table. Now, I had never before (and only once since) had any ghosts in any of my other houses. Naturally I was curious. “Hey, who are you, and what are you doing here?” I asked.
Normally, ghosts are shocked that I can see them, but these three didn’t bat an eye. They glanced up at