Do You Believe in Ghosts?

Last night, my good friend Suzy came over and we carved three pumpkins with my sons. My boys definitely enjoyed pulling the "guts" out of the pumpkins and designing the spooky pumpkin faces. Once everything was carved, we lit all three pumpkins, turned out every single light and started telling spooky stories to each other.

I think I went a little overboard on my, "something was in the closet" story because both of my sons were terrified and didn't want to sleep in their room.

"I'm scared!" my youngest whispered, tears forming in his eyes.

"Have you ever seen a ghost? Ever?" I asked. I was trying to infuse as much rationality as possible into the situation seeing as it was almost 9:00 and they needed to go to bed.

"No," he replied. "But the Boogeyman might get me."

I told him I'd said special prayers in his room so it was definitely Boogeyman free. And with the two of them around there was only a Boogerman since they're both highly qualified nose pickers. That made them both laugh for a minute, and then my eldest got quiet and asked me, "Mommy have you ever seen a ghost?"

I told him I didn't know, but that there was nothing to worry about in his room since we've never seen any in there.

I suppose I could have lied and said, "Nope, never ever. Never had anything weird or spooky happen to me." But that wouldn't be true.

I try not to dwell on these things too much, try not to think about the elderly man I sat next to in Midway Airport last year, waiting to fly home after my brother's funeral. At first I thought he was psychic when he, without warning, opened his mouth up and unprompted, told me he sorry for the loss of my brother. Our flight was slightly delayed and we ended up having an extensive conversation about death. He was in the "A" group so he got on the plane first. I was in the "C" group and was the last person to get on the plane. I walked past every seat and he was not on that plane. I thought he might be in the bathroom, so once I was free to do so, I strolled the aisle once, twice, three times.

He wasn't there.

How can I tell a six year old that I was always uncomfortable in the last apartment we lived in. I always had the sense that something was watching me, and in the heat of summer, the air would grow cold.

It got worse after my son was born. I was constantly aware of something unfriendly hovering around, particularly when I gave my newborn baby his bath. It often scared me to the point that I'd sing out loud just to calm myself down.

I knew I had to move when I woke up at one in the morning to the stuttering sound the phone makes when it's off the hook. The phone was on speaker so the noise echoed through our apartment. It only took me a moment to realize that the button on the speaker phone needed to be pressed down in order to come on. I freaked out, convinced that someone was in the apartment, and I started screaming. My husband jumped up with his bat, ready to swing at an intruder.

And there was no one there. No doors unlocked, no windows unlocked. Nothing.

These are not the kinds of things to tell a six year-old and a newly minted four year-old. So, I told my sons again that there was nothing to worry about, nothing to fear...and then I let them sleep in my room so that they'd actually go to sleep.

So I could actually go to sleep. Perhaps I'd scared myself a bit as well.

We all know there are plenty of real-life scary things to worry about: wars, famine, disease, domestic violence. But there's that world beyond the veil, the sensations we have, things we're convinced we've seen.

I try to leave that world alone. I don't want to engage with it, even on Halloween.

But I have to ask, do you believe in ghosts? Do you believe in the supernatural?