A ghost story for the holidays
By Valerie Woods
Copyright
© 2012
Was Marley & Scrooge the only ghost-to-human intervention ever?
This is what I wonder.
Marley’s haunting, and the
arrangement he made for Scrooge had a far-reaching and beneficial effect.
Surely, poor Jacob Marley’s ghost
found some peace for being such a compassionate medium.
I like to believe so.
I would also like to believe that
attempts at intercessions such as this occur with some frequency among
unfulfilled spirits. Even now.
Even
in Los Angeles.
I
Believe.
Chapter One
The fact that
Trevor was dead never got in the way of interfering in his sister’s life. Since the incident with the bus seven years
previous, Trevor had been trying, in vain, to contact her. He had managed to make his presence known
with a number of spectral visits, but Vivian, the sister in question, had
dismissed those occasions as by-products of stress, drunkenness or just her
imagination. Nothing to really take
seriously.
In
life, Trevor had been an elegant, cold-hearted, selfish human being. Those who
knew him well felt it was a judgment on him when he and that bus had met. But
not Vivian. She herself was as self-centered and cold-hearted as they came, exactly
like the parents who spawned them. That was the Blake family way. Dysfunctional
didn’t even register for them.
But
Trevor never gave up hope. Besides,
what else had he to do in the afterlife?
And, truth be told, he owed her.
Vivian had no idea she was forging the same desolate afterlife in which
Trevor existed.
You
see, Trevor was among that host of spirits who, when death had come,
discovered the grave and dust-to-dust were not the end. It had been quite a shock. The first shock being he really was dead and
second, that even in death, he still had work to do. Who knew?
The third, and most amazing shock was that he and all souls, both on
earth and on other planes of existence, were beings of light. The degree to which a soul allowed that light
to expand and encompass their lives was the goal of the soul’s journey. There was, literally, a light within,
sometimes a tiny flicker, sometimes a more expansive glow in various areas of
the body. In rare cases, at least on the earth plane, there were those who
experienced a complete immersion of light in every cell of the body. It was no coincidence these rare beings
were called “enlightened.”
It wasn’t until
his final encounter with an L.A. city bus that Trevor became conscious of his
own light, a tiny flicker about the size of a grain of rice. He’d carried this grain of rice-sized light
throughout his sojourn in life, never allowing it to expand more than was
comfortable for him. And so, he was
destined to wander in death, a witness to the light and joys he could have
shared, as a more loving and charitable citizen of the planet.
The
only good news was that un-enlightened spirits, like Trevor, had the option to
escape this transitional limbo. All that
was necessary was to effect a change of heart in one living soul. A successful spirit-to-human intervention not
only saved the living soul from eternal wandering upon death, it also
transformed the spirit from Wanderer of the Dark to Resident in Light. And there was one more human heart inspired
to make the world a better paradise.
There
were some who had been trying for centuries to make contact with the living; others,
just a few months. And the competition
was fierce, especially at this time of year.
In the northern hemisphere, the period marked by the Gregorian calendar
leading up to the winter solstice in December, has been a time of thanksgiving
and celebration for millennia. During this time, the human heart, which had
been sealed shut with the pressures of survival and anxiety with the lessening,
life-giving rays of the sun, was ripe for flowering into bloom. The solstice in
December signaled the return of the sun.
It was the season of light on the earth and goodwill toward all.
In
the realm above the earthly plane, Trevor was determined to be a Resident in Light
before New Year’s. Before Christmas, if
he could manage it.
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