I don't really know if I believe in ghosts, but being of the Christian religion I believe in spirits, and I do believe the soul lives after the body dies. Whether visitation is allowed, how, and why seem open to speculation.

My mother told me a pretty, slightly creepy story. When I was a baby, my mother heard a voice on the monitor saying something like, "There, there, it's okay." No one was in the room and it seemed very odd to her. She told my aunt on my father's side about it. My aunt said, matter-of-factly, "That was my mother." My grandmother on my father's side died before I was born.

The Bible refers to a spiritual gift, called "discerning between spirits," which it is my theory God often equips young children with for their protection. I remember as a child, I'd be frightened of certain places for no apparent reason. One of them was my brother's basement. I would not go down there alone, and when I was there I was always uncomfortable, though I did not know why. Years later, I was told that a man had hung himself there.

Another interesting thing is there was this one room in my grandparents house I was afraid of as a child. It seems it frightened the other children too. Something unsettled about it somehow. My mother was sleeping there one night. She woke up and something had grabbed her ankle. She felt it, was sure she felt, but I don't recall she saw anything. There are graves in the yard there from many, many years ago. A child is buried beneath a tree in the yard next to the room. There are a few other members of the family who previously occupied the house buried in the yard as well, but we're not sure where they are. I didn't know about any of it, but I remember how I hated to sleep in that room.

Lastly, once in the middle of the night, my mother and grandmother were sleeping. There were sounds of things moving about in the kitchen. My mother's uncle had just died, though I cannot recall his name. Mother asked grandmother what she supposed that was. Grandmother said "Oh that's just (the name I forgot)." She seemed to think it was perfectly normal and understandable. I do believe her sister, who lived somewhere else and probably hadn't heard of the kitchen incident, reported to have seen an apparition of him, as well. It was like he was saying goodbye.