'A Lay-person’s Guide to the Spirit World' by Audrey Niven

I woke up once and there was someone at the end of the bed, sitting reading as if they were keeping busy waiting for me.  I didn’t recognise them, but I’ve come to learn they were some relation of my grandmother’s I’d never met before.  That was the first time.  They read to me for a bit, a diary entry from some time in the eighteen-hundreds, but I don’t really remember because I fell asleep again and when I woke up, they were gone. My mother said it was a dream.

The day I got married, I saw someone at the back of the church, just as I came in on my father’s arm.  They had on a long-sleeved dress and were carrying flowers, just like mine.  By the time we reached the altar, I looked back, but they were gone and the minister was waiting. 

See, there’s no need to be afraid of the ghosts.  You just have to let them be.  That’s all they want.  I keep telling people:  I’ve seen them so many times: in the ICU, eating breakfast, a few times sitting on the crash barriers on the motorway as I’ve sped past.  I like to wave. Nobody believes I can see them.  My kids think I’m nuts.  

But we are all passing through, that’s what I know.  I’ll be gone myself soon. And when that day comes, I hope they’ll see that it’s true.