Ghost Story

I decided to forgo training again today. My left calf has a huge knot in it and I want to make sure that I'm ready for Saturday's longer mileage.

I have my Mom in town visiting and we decided to go out to dinner with my Aunt, Micaela. We chose a tasty Japanese place and settled down for some Seafood Udon and Nigiri.

Both my aunt and my mother are widows. My stepfather, Armando (Mando) passed away last September from prostate cancer. My uncle, Jose (Tio Pepe) died of Leukemia about 5 years ago and is one of the two people I'm personally walking for.

During dinner they both start talking about seeing the ghosts of their respective husbands. Seriously.

Here's one of the stories my Mom told. In Mexico November 2nd is the Day of the Dead, a holiday where we remember our dearly departed. My mother and her neighbor, Brenda prepared a beautiful ofrenda for my stepfather pictured here. Check it out. The one they prepared is very elaborate and involved a lot of handiwork and materials, including multiple types of colored paper. They spent a lot of time hand cutting the paper into various shapes and designs as part of the decoration over the course of a couple of days. Well, it seems that during the preparation, the green colored paper went missing. They looked high and low for it including back at Brenda's house and they weren't able to find it. Both remember seeing it with the rest of the paper but couldn't find it. They continued on without it.

On Day of of the Dead, friend's arrive and gather chairs from inside the house around the ofrenda which is outside under a covered patio for the celebration. They bring small gifts, tell funny stories, remember Mando and generally have a good time. After the party is over they bring the chairs back in the house. The next day, my Mom was planning on taking down the ofrenda but decided to leave it up for another week as Mando's birthday was on November 11. On the 11th, they have another get together around the ofrenda and gather around outside again. The next day, my Mom is cleaning up and finds a piece of the missing green paper beneath one of the chairs inside the house. This is one of the same chairs that had been hauled in and out of the house on two recent occasions with no one seeing the missing paper. She says that she immediately thought of Mando and laughed to herself and picked it up and went on with cleaning up. A few minutes later she returns and finds three more pieces of green paper under the SAME chair!!! Somehow three more pieces of paper had materialized out of thin air in a place she had just checked!

My aunt also told a few stories that I won't get into but involve actually seeing my Uncle's ghost in the hallway of their home. One thing in common is that both my mother and aunt say that they felt no fear at all during these encounters. They say that they felt as if it was a playful event. I find that particularly interesting for some reason.

My mom is a retired clinical psychologist and is not prone to crazy talk. I'm not sure what to make about all this but it sure made for some gripping dinner conversation.