Ghosted
Is it a ghost? Or is it some wandering spirit? Do I believe in ghosts?
I’m staring at the doorbell app image showing a light dancing around my front door at 3:44 AM. It’s Easter morning and my phone insists I had a visitor.
Wait a minute! It’s Easter morning—did Jesus show up at my front door and I missed it? What if Jesus knocked and I didn’t answer the door? Am I about to be lifted up like those depictions of the rapture?
I play the recording again. The light is vertical and waves around in no discernible pattern. I strain to see if it has a face—don't spirits usually show a face?
What’s the difference between a ghost and a spirit? Is someone sending me a message? They picked the wrong person for this. My kids already think I’m batty. If I say I have a message from the spirit world, they’ll cart me off and throw the key into some bottomless abyss.
It must be a reflection from someplace, I tell myself. Even so, I decide not to peek out the front door until it is fully light outside. If it is a ghost, I do not want to actually come face-to-face with it. The shock of seeing a ghost would probably immediately turn me into one.
People on television are always trying to prove ghosts are real. What if I have the proof right here? I could sell this and be famous! Would that anger the spirits? If the spirits are angry, would I have to hire a shaman or an exorcist?
Wait a minute—do I believe in ghosts? Maybe I do now.
The sun comes up and I peek outside. My front porch is mercifully clear of ghosts and/or spirits and/or Jesus. Although I don’t picture Jesus standing around on my front porch waiting for me to open the front door. I suspect there would have been thunder and maybe some lightning to get my sorry derriere out of bed.
I dash to church and then to brunch with my son and his family.
I hand my phone to my son, confident he will be amazed at what he sees. He stares for a few seconds. Does he believe in ghosts?
He looks up from the phone and hands it back. “Mom,” he says, “it’s a spider web blowing in the wind and reflecting the light from the doorbell.”
It doesn’t matter. I don’t believe in ghosts anyway.