When Ghosts Speak - Mary Ann Winkowski [52]
With this complicated history, I wasn’t surprised to walk into the funeral home and immediately encounter an outraged ghost. This spirit wasted no time in telling me that after the disagreement with his youngest son, that son, being an attorney, had had another will drawn up. This version gave him a much larger share of the estate than his brothers—about 90 percent of all the assets. He waited until his father seemed to be failing, then, telling his father that the paperwork was intended simply to redistribute some stock allocations, had the man sign the second will.
“But I’ve outsmarted that scoundrel,” the father’s ghost told me.
In his last weeks, the father had asked Daniel to take him to another lawyer. He had never felt comfortable with this son handling his legal affairs, and the fight they had was the last straw. With the help of his nurse, the father had communicated to the new lawyer the terms of another last will and testament. This lawyer had been smart enough to have a doctor pronounce the old man in his right mind. The ghost was sure that the will was valid.
“Daniel knows where the will is,” the ghost told me. “Go tell those boys to stop all this nonsense.”
I looked over at the three strapping sons in the corner of the room. They looked like they were having an argument. As I walked over, I could hear the youngest saying, “Well, maybe he left everything to me because I took care of him all those years.” His wife, the one who had called me, took me aside and asked if I could help settle the other brothers down. “They’re very upset over the change in the will, as you might imagine,” she said. “Did their father say why he did it?”
Can I tell you how awkward I felt at that moment? What was I supposed to tell this woman who had called me with the family’s best interests at heart? That her husband was a liar and thief? That her father-in-law was still outraged?
Although I didn’t want to drag him into the matter, I knew that the person they needed to hear from was the father’s nurse. I called him over and gently told him that I knew he had something to say to the family. And then, as he began to talk, I rapidly excused myself. I may have been able to help the family find out the truth, but knowing it clearly wasn’t going to make things any easier.
Are You Happy with the Arrangements?
I get a lot of calls from families concerned over whether the deceased is happy with the way all the arrangements have been handled. Sometimes they want to make sure that their cantankerous uncle George will promise to peacefully cross over; at other times, they genuinely wonder whether they have made their recently departed loved one happy with the choices they have made.
I have learned not to have any expectations of what I will find when I am called to a funeral home to answer this type of question. A while ago, a woman called to ask if I could come to the viewing for her husband. Her voice shook as she explained that she wasn’t sure he’d be happy with what she’d done.
I arrived at the funeral home just before the first session of calling hours ended. There weren’t many visitors, so I just signed the guest book in the lobby and continued inside. When I got to the viewing room, I have to admit that despite all my experience, I was stunned.
The man’s casket was leaning straight up against the wall. It was tilted back slightly so that it didn’t tip over, but there he was, standing straight up at the front of the room. His hands were folded across his chest; he was wearing a peaceful expression and a handsome dark suit.
I was so surprised that I didn’t even look for the ghost. I just went right over to the widow and introduced myself. “What’s this?” I asked her. “I can’t believe