A few weeks ago my husband and I and one of our friends took
the day off and went on a day trip to Ojai, a nearby town
with good restaurants, interesting stores, art galleries,
etc. The three of us were walking down the main street in
broad daylight, maybe 3:00pm, on our way to a late lunch.
Our friend had just said something extremely funny, and all
three of us were laughing, hard. I happened to glance
across the street and noticed our reflection in the darkened
store windows all the way across the street, under a little
veranda-type overhang. The reflection was of four people, not three.
I looked closer, and the fourth person was my dead son,
walking with his inimitable long-legged stride, throwing his
head back and laughing, just the way he used to do. His
reflection was keeping up with ours, just walking, laughing,
and listening. We were having just the kind of bantering
conversation that he had always enjoyed.
The reflection was in full color, or, at least, the muted
colors you get in any reflection in darkened glass. I
tried to get my husband's attention to point this out, but
suddenly found myself unable to speak, just kind of flapping
my hand and clearing my throat for a few seconds. The
reflection looked a little weird - it was as if the three of
us were reflected on glass, but my son was reflected on
water -- he looked more "ripply" than we did and there were
little sparkles of light interspersed with his reflection,
just like sun on water.
All the hairs stood up on my head and neck, but I wasn't
really frightened, just astonished. I was actually
comforted to see him, and to see him looking so happy.
taking a walk with us and laughing on a sunny afternoon.
Eventually, I blinked and when I opened my eyes again, he
was gone. All in all, the apparition must have lasted for
about 6 seconds. I debated with myself about whether to
tell my husband and our friend, and decided to wait until
later.
I told my husband a few days later, and he was fairly open-minded about it, saying something about how he could swear sometimes he sees him outside in the corner of his eye, or sometimes he talks to him in dreams.
Maybe this happened just because my mind is snapping and I miss our son so much that my mind "created" this apparition of him taking a day off with us. Or maybe he was really there. In any case, it was good to see him, and this is an example of a non-scary "comforting" ghost. And I hope it shows that not all ghosts of suicides are glooming around, haunting crossroads, clanking chains and scaring the shit out of people.
Submitted from: Ojai, California, USA