A True Ghost Story: The Second Last Stop

As I mentioned in the first installment of the Get Spooky series, I have a couple personal ghost stories to share. These events are truly dear to me. Perhaps because of my love of science, I hold these experiences in high regard, because they are irrevocably unexplainable for me. Up until this point, I haven’t shared these moments at all, except with a select few people. In fact, the story below is one that I’ve only shared with Jay until now.

Why am I sharing this personal story with you now?

Simply, it just feels like time to do so. I guess I’ve come to a point where I want to put a timestamp on these events and what better place than on my blog? So here’s my first story, “The Second Last Stop“.

The Second Last Stop

I have an uncle. We’ll name him Tom (not really his name, but for this post that’s how we’re going to roll.)

He was just… intermittently there, while I was growing up.

Besides family ties, I didn’t have much readily in common with him, except for maybe one thing. I admired his career. He worked in an industry that I was fascinated with, and thought at one point, I’d end up there with a similar career as well.

But, that’s about it.

So that’s why, what happened near the end of May 2009, was so very weird to me.

I woke up on a Saturday morning in absolute tears. I found myself flat out bawling from a dream I just had. And well, that’s not normal for me. It in fact, never happened before, and hasn’t happened since. As far as I can tell, I’m not one to make noise when waking from a nightmare. So, to wake up into an ugly cry, and making an utter wet mess of my pillow for a good few minutes straight, was something new.

My apparent distress came on the heels of waking from a thoroughly weird dream featuring my Uncle Tom.

In my dream, I was standing in a bus terminal, near a bus that was ready to take off and Tom walked up to me and gave me a great, big hug. He said, “I know we haven’t talked much lately, but I gotta go, I have to say goodbye.”

We kept hugging, and weirdly I didn’t want to let go. With my face smushed into his shoulder, I asked him, “Why? Why are you leaving like this?” I begun to cry in my dream (and judging by my pillow, outside of my dream as well.)

If this moment beside a bus had happened in real life, I would have said, “Have a great trip. Travel safely.” Or something along those polite lines. I certainly wouldn’t have been clinging, almost begging him to stay. Considering that he and my aunt had divorced a few years or so before, I wouldn’t have wanted to be near him at all.

I suddenly woke up after my plea, a bit shocked to find that those tears in my dream were in fact real. I wound up lying in bed for over half an hour to fully shake away the sobs and depression that I inexplicably felt all over for no qualifying reason that I could think of, save for the uncomfortable scenario that my brain seemingly just put me through.

I was so confused and utterly flabbergasted at myself for feeling such immense hurt and enough pain to outwardly cry over an uncle that I didn’t think of much at all anymore.

While laying in bed, attempting to calm myself down before starting my day, I begun to convince myself that I must have felt compelled to somehow say goodbye to him, even if only in a dream. As I mentioned before, he and my aunt had divorced, so there was no reason for me to see him at any family function, like a Thanksgiving dinner, ever again. I had concluded, perturbed and annoyed at myself, that the dream had been a significantly delayed response, reacting to him just no longer being “there” in the general vicinity of my periphery anymore.

As my feelings for him and the whole matter went, it didn’t make much sense, but it was the best I could come up with.

Once I felt more at ease, I walked down the stairs from my bedroom to the kitchen for a late breakfast, only to be stopped on the way by my mother. It’s not an uncommon thing to happen. She’d usually brief me on what tasks she’d want my help with to have accomplished during the day, so I didn’t think anything strange about it. That is, until she physically pulled me over to the side of the hallway and whispered…

“You’re the first to hear this among you and your siblings; your Uncle Tom passed away last night.“

I think I said, “Um, okay,” as I was quietly freaking out over this huge coincidence. My mom walked away to go tell the rest of the family, as I begun to walk in a daze towards the kitchen. This morning was absolutely surreal, and I hadn’t been awake for more than an hour at that point.

How is it, that after perhaps a full year of not even randomly thinking of my uncle at all, I dreamt of him saying goodbye, only to learn that he’s well and truly gone that very same night/early morning?

Trying to process with logic, I briefly wondered if I had overheard the phone-call that my mom no doubt had that morning, but that’s such a highly improbable feat all on its own. Thinking on it now, the house phone hadn’t woken me up (I had a line in my bedroom and frequently woke to the shrill ring).

Thanks to the brilliance of super thick carpeting that was installed in my bedroom in the late 80s, the only way that I could have heard any conversation in the house from my room, was if it was happening right in my room. My mother hated coming to my room for any reason, as it meant climbing stairs, and with her back, that was not an option she used much. My door was locked though, so it’s not like my mom could sit in my room to talk to her sister. Like every other day, I did everything I could to keep my annoying, younger siblings away, especially while I slept.

So, had I been visited by my uncle’s spirit before he moved on? Did I have some extended experience beyond Jung’s Collective Unconscious theory?

I have absolutely no clue.

What I do know is that I still physically shake while thinking about it, which has made typing this out an interesting exercise.

EDIT Oct 31, 2017: As I’ve been clearing my mother’s things, photos have arisen of my hanging out with my uncle at the Ex when I was maybe five, with us clearly having a great time. I would have been the only child in the extended family living locally, so my aunt and uncle undoubtedly took care of me here and there, but I, unfortunately, have no memory of it.

Great Canadian Ghost Stories

There are a ton of great ghost stories to be found online, and our favourite Ranting Ginger has compiled a great list of ghost stories from Canadian Bloggers, including posts from Life on Manitoulin, Mama Bear’s Haven, Whispered Inspirations, and more! I would entirely encourage you to check them out.

Do you have a ghost story? I would love to hear your experiences, so please share them in the comments below!