Don't Worry, Be Grumpy

Kind Ghosts

A friend was a poor builder’s laborer in Perth. He was helping renovate an old house built on stumps. While cleaning up after everyone else had gone home, he was passing by the outside of the old building when he heard someone say, “Put your hand under here!”

There was no one around, so he thought that he had imagined the voice.

Then he heard it again, “Put your hand under here!” This was not his mind playing tricks. This was real. This was a ghost!

What would you do? Please don’t run away. Many ghosts are kind.

So he carefully put his hand in the space between the ground and the raised floor of the house, and pulled out a large tin box. Opening it, he found many thousands of dollars in cash. He suspected that the previous owner, who had died, had hidden the money under the house to avoid paying taxes. The laborer used that money for the deposit on his first house. It was how he got his start in life.

So if you ever hear a ghostly voice say, “Put your hand under here!” you now know what to do.

Another friend lived alone with her dog. She would go for a walk with him in the woods twice a day. She loved her dog as if it were her only child.

One morning, playing with her dog in the woods, she lost her ring. It was not an expensive piece of jewelry, but it held treasured memories for her. She had a reasonable idea where it must have fallen, but no matter how long she searched, she could not find that ring. Disappointed, she gave it up for lost.

Soon after, she forgot all about the ring when her dear dog died. She missed him terribly. Her walks in the forest without his company made her so sad. So she preferred to remain at home. But one strange thing lessened her grief. For many days after the death, she clearly heard him barking in her house. She was not imagining this. The barking was real, and she easily recognized the sound as her dear dog. It made her a little less lonely.

But she could never see the ghost of her dog. She would hear it in another room, rush there, but there was never a dog to be seen.

One day, she was inside her house by the entrance door when she heard the ghost of her dog bark just outside. She quickly opened the door, expecting to see him for sure this time, but again her beloved dog was not to be seen. Something else was there, however. She looked down, and in the very middle of the welcome mat was her lost finger ring. Her deceased dog had found it for her.

Much of her sadness disappeared after that. Death was not as final a separation as she had once thought. From then on, she heard her dog no more.

Tim had migrated to Perth from London. In the middle of one night, alone in his house, he woke up and turned on the bedroom light. Standing at the end of his bed was his old mother.

His mum lived in Essex. He knew that this must be a ghost. However, he wasn’t scared at all, he told me. He was so happy and peaceful seeing his mother silently standing there, smiling at her son with unconditional love.

He knew his mum must have died, but he never felt sad. The love coming from his mother’s smile smothered any sadness.

The apparition lasted a long time, several minutes. When the ghost eventually vanished, Tim did what any Englishman would do in such a situation. He got out of bed and made himself a cup of tea!

Drinking his tea, the house phone rang. It was his sister in England.

“Tim, sorry to wake you up in the middle of the night, but I have some bad news.”

“Yes, I know,” Tim interrupted. “Mother has died.”

“How on earth did you know?” his sister exclaimed, incredulous. “We have only just returned from the hospital!”

Then Tim described his mother’s ghost. It was one of the most welcome and wonderful experiences to see his mother and bathe in her love one last time.