My parents divorced in the summer of 1982. In the aftermath, I mostly wanted to be alone while I read endless library books. I was a latch-key kid, prone to solo pursuits and often left to my own devices.

While my parents set up their separate households, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ farm. I’d stay out all morning, toting a paperback and chocolate chip cookies in my “Clash of the Titans” lunchbox, rambling through the surrounding land.

That summer, I started to notice frightening things: a dark, sighing shadow gliding down the hallway at night, murmurs clinging to the foundation of a burned house in the woods, and the unnerving sensation of unseen eyes following me through the pasture.

I became so sensitized that the spirit world followed me from the farm. A glimmering green figure of a schoolmarm appeared at the foot of my bed at my dad’s house one night, and the next week, I heard a voice calling my name in my mom’s yard. My state of mind was already precarious, but these ghostly intrusions pushed me into a place of real fragility.

Something had to give.

I stopped playing outside. I shut the bedroom door against the hall and any melancholy shadows. I stayed up so late that no glowing ladies could awaken me from my exhausted slumber. I refused to listen to any whispers not spoken by living human lips.

Shutting out these spectral visitations kept them from troubling me for many years – until I inherited the farm.

You can’t ignore the ones you’ve loved. Glimpsing them from the corner of your eye is a constant ache of grief. Recognizing their tread on the stairs is a peculiar torture.

In my childhood, I’d been afraid. As an adult, I was heartbroken.

We’re in the home stretch now. Only one week until Halloween! Have a great and very spooky weekend. OKAY, BYE! 🖤