A Gift From The Other Side

This story happened in 1979 when I was 20 years old. Its a true story, some of you may not believe it, but its true. I am now 47 years old, My grandfather died the year that I turned 20 and it is a time I will never forget, something very unusual happened to me 3 weeks after his funeral that to this day I have never spoken of, this is the first and only time I will ever tell of it.

You see as a child my grandfather and I were almost inseparable, I tagged along after him everywhere he went, I am his name sake. My mother named me Lester and every one always called me little Lester after him. I loved my grandfather more then anyone else in the world. He took me fishing. He lived on a big farm, and in the summers I would spend most of my school vacation with him. He even taught me how to drive, mostly by letting me drive the old tractor around the farm.
Grandpa was a good man. As I grew up and was heading off to college Grampa gave me my first car. I always made time to come back and visit on break.
One night after a night out with some friends and some studying I went to bed kind of late. During the night I had a strange thing happen to me, I felt some one shaking my shoulder like they were trying to wake me up, I opened my eyes and there stood Gramps, and I said "Grandpa what are you doing here?", he looked funny, kind of sad, and he said "Lester I have to go away, but I will always be near you, can you remember that?", and before he vanished he said "I love you boy" and then he was gone. I thought to myself I must have been dreaming. I went back to sleep, but early the next morning the phone rang out in the hall and John, one of the other boys in the dorm, came in and said I had a call. I went to answer it. It was Mom saying that Grandpa had passed away during the night. All at once I remember what had happened the night before, Grandpa had come to say goodbye and to tell me he loved me. But what did he mean that he would always be around?.
Later that day I was talking to some friends of mine and this one girl Cheryl, who is into the paranormal, I thought to ask her what she thought he meant by that, she said he meant that he would come back and always be with me after his death. She told me the way I would know was to place something in a pocket of whatever they buried him in, something that meant something to both of us, and let it be buried with him. And if later on it turned up somewhere then I would know that Grandpa was still with me and that he was watching out for me.
Later that day I drove home to be with my family as they prepared for the funeral, and as I sat in my old room I went through some of my old things. I had a box of things that I had kept that I use to think were treasures, as most kids do, so I searched through them and found the perfect thing to use for the test. It was an old pocket watch that grandpa had given me when I was about 5 years old. It never worked but I didn't know it, I just wanted to carry one because he always carried one.
So the day of the funeral came and as I was saying my goodbyes to Grandpa, I secretly slipped the pocket watch into his pocket while no one was watching, and wished him a sad goodbye.
The funeral over and every one gone, I drove back to school as finals were coming up. After that would be a few days of break.
During library study one day I ran into my friend Cheryl, she asked, well did it work?. I looked at her, curious as to what she meant and then she said, the test to see if he would come back. I had forgotten all about it, It had been weeks ago. I told her I had done it but didn't really expect it to work, and she said it worked, believe me if you did it, it worked.
Well that weekend meant a two week break so I was headed home. And as I was driving I started thinking to myself, could it really have happened?. I was anxious to get home to check, but expecting nothing. I pulled into the drive and got out my bags, and ran up to my room. As I reached under my bed to retrieve the treasure box, I became a little bit frightened. The watch couldn't possibly be in there, no way.
As I opened the box and sorted through the contents, my heart nearly stopped beating , there in the bottom of the box lay the pocket watch, the very one that I had placed in Grandpas pocket on the day of his burial. He had kept his promise, he had come back to take care of me.
My soul felt great joy and also great peace, knowing that Grandpa would always be with me.