Missing an Earring

The Cowardly Lion said "I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks..." So do I, and like the Cowardly Lion I don't need proof, but that's exactly what I got.

My tale revolves around a simple set of earrings, or rather one earring. My tale has to start at Christmas, because that's when I lost my sister's favorite earrings.

This Christmas the spirits were also in attendance in the house on Helwhig street (no fooling Helwhig street). The family was a particularly spiritual bunch and spirits did not bother them, that was if the spirits behaved themselves. From time to time they played jokes just to let the family know they were there. I, myself, believe in ghosts but don't really need to know they are there.

On one really exhausting pre-Christmas day (I was spending the day with my sister's adopted family). I was tired and wanted to take a nap. My sister wasn't going to be off work until much later (Christmas retail shopping). So I headed upstairs where no one was to take the desired nap. That day I had borrowed a pair of my sister's favorite earrings given to her by her then boyfriend. They were gold x's and o's meaning love to match the bracelet he had given her. However, the spirits were being playful, and I being a new person to the house, they wanted to welcome me (or at least let me know they were there). They had to do very little to frighten me. They scratched the walls, talked without making sense, and heavy footsteps up and down the hall. I decided a nap really wasn't what I needed. I left the earrings on the ledge. It was explained to me later that the spirits were particularly heavy in the house because they were waiting for Gram to die. She did so the following February. However, for the story's sake, I left the earrings on the ledge forgetting about them until later on in the evening. I ran up to get them and they were not there. I looked everywhere, in the bed, under the bed, on the ledge, in the covers, and they were nowhere to be found. I had to apologize to my sister 2000 times before she'd even speak to me. I tried to tell her the spirits were playing a joke, she wasn't amused. I left after Christmas was over for home.

She must have forgiven me because she let me visit the following summer. Gram had died and the house on Helwhig street was being sold. I even looked for them then, however she and her boyfriend had broken up so she wasn't to upset by that time (go figure I lose the love earrings and they break up a month later).

I had returned home from the visit in New York to go back to school when I got a call a week later telling me Aunt Judy had died. It was traumatic for everyone because she was muched loved and very youthful. I had taken it bad myself. No one expected her to die, but she had. By this time the favorite earrings were forgotten about and part of the past. A week after learning of Aunt Judy's death I was walking into my room actually thinking about Gram and Aunt Judy when I glanced towards the floor. There was something shiny lying there. Now in my room finding the floor is something of a miracle and finding something tiny and shiny is cause for celebration. I glanced at the floor and found something tiny and shiny, thinking it was just a tack or something else I picked it up. It wasn't a tack or glitter it was a forgotten earring. An earring placed on ledge a year ago, forgotten about a year of sadness. It was an earring made of gold with x's and o's, a earring sent with love to let me know Gram and Aunt Judy were thinking of me too. So if I didn't need proof of spirits, they gave me proof of love that lives on in and around all of us, in every direction and in every realm of existence. If you do not believe that's okay, I have one earring and the feeling of love to sustain my belief.