Do you believe in ghosts? Do you think there are some people who can see spirits that are invisible to the rest of us?

Do these so-called “ghost whisperers” possess a special sensitivity? Or are they just more imaginative than we are?

I don’t know. But if such people do exist, my late husband Eugene was one of them.

Eugene saw his first ghost when he was still a child. It was wartime and he lived in a war zone—a place with more than its share of people who’d died before their time, more than its share of discontented, angry spirits.

Enemy troops occupied his island in those days. Still, little Eugene wandered the lanes, watching the flow of life, playing and talking to the shopkeepers. One afternoon, he found himself far from home as the sun was sinking into the sea, and he realized he’d never make it back before curfew unless he cut through the cemetery.

As he sprinted down the lane, shopkeepers on either side were pulling their metal shades down for the night. The cemetery was all long shadows and pools of darkness. He heaved open the iron gate and darted inside. Then, skipping and dodging around the tombstones and newly dug graves, he raced into the spreading darkness.

That’s when he saw the ghost. She was floating over the graves, a tall, shining woman in a flowing white dress with the long nose and round eyes of a foreigner.

He froze for an instant. Then he ran as fast as he could, stumbling over grave markers, rocks, and uncut grass. He didn’t stop until he reached the gate on the other side of the cemetery. Looking over his shoulder, he saw her. She was close behind, floating between the trees, watching him.

“Stop following me,” he shouted.

She reached her hand toward him.

And he took off again.

When he told his mother and grandmother what he’d seen, his mother scolded him for staying out late. His grandmother simply asked if he’d ever done anything to harm a foreign woman.

“No, Grandmother,” he said. “Never.”

“Then you needn’t worry. Next time you see a ghost, remind her you did her no harm during her lifetime, and she will leave you alone.”

It was useful advice since the white woman in the cemetery was not the last ghost Eugene was to encounter. I’ve written another post, Eugene and the Angry Bangladeshi Ghosts, that tells the story of some ghosts who interfered with work at a cement plant in Bangladesh.

Happy Halloween.

P. S.- Eugene’s stories about his childhood in China inspired me to write my novel, Tiger Tail Soup. If you’d like to take a peek inside, you can read a few pages at Amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com with their “Look inside” option. The book is also available at dogearpublishing and in bookstores.