Mona Has A Visitor

In 1998 I was working in a nursing home on the outskirts of Brisbane. My shift began at 4pm and I was doing an orientation shift with a new junior nurse. Everything was going well we had put all of the residents to bed and by this time it was around 9pm.

The last patient we needed to check was a beautiful old sweetie called Mona, she was dying of cancer and used to love talking to us about the old days when she was the secretary at a local Catholic school. She spoke fondly of the children and one of the teachers at the school who's name was Brother John.

We walked up the corridor towards Mona's room, I continued to walk and lean on a stainless steel trolley filling out individuals charts as we went. Mona's room was ahead about 10 metres on the left and the bathroom was on the right, as I walked, head down, deep in thought I stopped at the bathroom as something caught my eye, I thought I saw someone in a robe, as all our patients are basically bedridden I was surprised so I walked over, turned on the light and saw nothing. Believing my eyes must have been playing tricks on me I continued on my rounds, stopping at the room before Mona's to attend to someone before walking back out.

As we walked very slowly discussing a patient, still with heads down, reading from the trolley someone walked in front of me. I stopped the trolley suddenly and said "oh sorry" before looking up to see nobody there. The new girl I was walking with looked at me scared and asked me what had just happened?, I told her I didn't know and as we walked into Mona's room she met us with a lovely warm smile and said "I have just had the loveliest visit from Brother John".

We found out later that he always wore a long robe and died in the 1970's. I was freaked out and the young girl I was working with was crying out of fright.

Mona died peacefully in her sleep the following night.