A Visit From Grandpa

When I was 17 years old, I accidentally burned my right breast with a freshly brewed pot of regular coffee while at work. A few days before I accidentally spilled that entire pot of coffee on myself, I got a visit from somebody who had died about 7 years previous, and who I miss still to this day sorely.

I was up late at night, doing my AP English homework, like I was always doing, because my high school English teacher gave us LOTS of homework to do before dismissing us for the end of the day. I was rather tired from doing all of this homework, and my hair was beginning to get into my eyes, because I was in the process of growing my bangs out. Well, as I was closing up my homework, because I finally finished it, I heard a light tap on my bedroom door, and a voice say, "Melanie, what are you doing still up?" I instantly realized that it wasn't my parents, because they knew that I was working on homework and I wouldn't go to bed until I had it finished, and then would come downstairs to tell them good night. I looked up and there was my dead paternal grandfather standing there, looking at me, but he was a ghost, and I could see into my other bedroom through him. I looked at him, and said, "Pappaw, what are you doing here?? You're dead-- you've been dead for about 7 years now. Do you know how bad I miss you?? Did you come to tell me goodbye or what???" Grandpa just shook what was once his head, and said to me, "No, Melanie, I didn't come to tell you goodbye, but I DID come to tell you something else, though. And, yes, I know how much you loved me when I was alive, and I know that you still do love me. I still love you too." I replied though my sobs, "Well, what is it, then??" My dearly departed grandfather said, "Melanie, you are going to be severely burned on a part of your body, and it is going to deform you for the rest of your life. I just could not let you have this happen to you, with out being warned about it in advance." I looked at my grandfather and said, "Pappaw, there isn't a day that doesn't go by that I don't miss you, and I wonder where you are in the spirit world and I hope that you're okay." Pappaw replied to me in his usual, soothing way, "Melanie, well, I'm usually in heaven, but I wanted to let you know that I was okay, and about what was going to happen to you, I just couldn't stand myself to know that you were suffering." After Pappaw said that, he walked over to me, kissed my forehead, lifted my head up, and said, "I miss you too, dear, and I can't wait until you one day, in the distant future join me up in heaven. Oh, and by the way, your husband is coming from a different religion than what your parents raised you, but not like that's an issue now, just take my word for it." Then Pappaw was gone.

A few days later, I went on to spill that pot of hot, freshly brewed coffee on my right breast, because I was pouring it left handed, like I do any other thing, because I am left handed. I still bear that scar on my person to this day, and it is a third degree burn, too. My burn has also caused my left breast to be twice the size of the right one, and that right one really hurts almost all the time. Every time that the right breast hurts, I think of my dead paternal grandfather and his ghostly warning. Not only that, but I've met the man of my dreams, and he's Catholic, and I'm a Baptist.