Others families have a skeleton in the closet

We have a ghost in the bedroom

When my husband and I met thirty-six years ago, my father had already been dead six months. My mother kept no pictures around the house, and I had not even a wallet size photo to remember him by. Everything that was my father had been moved to the attic. My mother preferred the out of sight/out of mind method of grieving.

My dad loved his two daughters. He was both father and mother to my sister and me in many ways. If we stubbed our toe, dad felt the pain. The years between my graduation from high school and my dad's passing had been traumatic. I married my high school sweetheart, a man later diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic with latent homosexual tendencies. He liked to use me as a punching bag. My father suffered every blow, frustrated and feeling useless because he couldn't protect his baby. Eventually, with support from my family, I went into hiding and filed for divorce. My dad suffered a heart attack shortly thereafter and died. I believe his constant worry about me hastened his demise.

Before my divorce was final, I met my present husband, Mike. There aren't enough good words that can be said about this man, and I know without a doubt that my dad would have embraced him as the son he never had. I am absolutely positive about that because dad introduced himself to Mike a few weeks after we got married. Yes, he was still dead, but Mike saw him clear as day standing at the foot of our bed.

On the evening in question, Mike awoke needing to go to the bathroom. We lived in a very small apartment. The bedroom was miniscule; its smallness necessitating that our king size bed be pushed almost to the wall on one side. It was easier for Mike to climb over me than to squeeze out on his side. Just as he got one knee over my sleeping torso, he saw a man standing a few feet away, smiling at him. Mike said he felt no fear. In fact, he was amazingly comforted. Still on his knees, he asked the apparition, "So, what do you want?" The man did not answer but lifted his hand in a two-finger salute, turned and slowly disappeared as he walked away.

Mike looked at the clock on the night stand. It was 2 am. He got up, went to the bathroom and returned to bed, falling immediately asleep. In the morning, he told me the story. The hair on my arms literally stood up as he described my father - mustache, haircut, stately nose and wearing his favorite shirt. The two-finger salute was how my dad waved goodbye to everyone.

Of course, I was skeptical. Now, remember I said earlier that there were no pictures of my father. Mike had never seen a photo of him. We immediately drove to my mom's home, where I tore the attic apart looking for old photograph albums. My dad and his two brothers looked almost like triplets. I found those pictures. I also grabbed photos of other deceased male relatives just for comparison purposes. Lining them up on the kitchen table, I asked Mike, "Any of these guys?" "Yeah," he said without hesitation, pointing to my dad, "This man. This is the man I saw."

Thirty-four years later, I'm still leery about telling this story. Most people will say, "Wow. That's amazing." Their body language says, "This one's nuts!" Nuts or not, I choose to believe. I know my dad is still looking out for me, and with Mike as my husband, he no longer needs to worry. His two-finger salute was a sure sign of his approval.