A Familiar Haunting on Christmas

I’M OFTEN described as a cerebral person, in short, a nerd. Wearing eyeglasses doesn’t improve the impression I give to others. I’m always carrying a book everywhere I go. Being a wide reader has its advantages: critical thinking, open-mindedness, a broadened view of the world. On the negative side, there’s my being cynical of things emotional and illogical.

So when eerie things started happening in 1990 after Mama died, I chalked them up to coincidences, at first. I was giving a lecture on feature writing to a big group of high school writers when I gave a descriptive example of how I felt on the day Mama died. While I was recalling the last wishes she told me before she was wheeled toward the operating room for her triple heart bypass surgery, the microphone I was using suddenly turned off by itself. Then the karaoke system emitted sounds from radio stations as if someone was turning the tuning dial. A clerk was called to check on the wires and the mike, but found nothing wrong with them. And that was when I remembered that it was the 40th day after Mama died! I prayed silently for a few seconds before I resumed my lecture. The sound system and the mike worked perfectly after that. And that was the first incident.