The Ghost of my Grandfather

I had what’s known as a “crisis apparition”

It was March 1st 1985. It was a Friday and I was 4 years old. My grandparents lived in Lairg, in the county of Sutherland in the north of Scotland, while we lived in Ayrshire, which was a couple of hundred miles south.

For clarification, I remember nothing about this incident, so I can’t speak from memory, but I can tell you exactly what my mother told me.

She said that I had been playing outside in our garden and that I came in to tell her that I had been playing with Papa Sammy. He was my paternal grandfather. She dismissed it as a childish fantasy. After all, he was hundreds of miles away in Lairg and children play such games all the time. There was no reason to think much of it.

Then, a short time later, my other grandfather came to tell her that there was a phone call. We didn’t have our own phone at that time, which was quite common, it being the 1980s. It was the call to tell her that Papa Sammy had died very suddenly in Lairg, around the time that I had been playing with him.

What I experienced is what’s known as a crisis apparition — a visit from a loved one around the time or shortly after they passed away. Some people think it’s a form of telepathy.

I don’t think people would have believed me if I had told them about seeing Papa Sammy after they had found out he died. So, I’m glad that the 4-year-old me told my mother at that time, before the call came through, because there can be no doubt that it happened. I also wish that I could remember it because being so young at the time, I have very few clear memories of him. I remember the colour of his nose, and the sound of his voice. I remember his cough and the smell of coffee on his breath. I remember the warmth of the cuddles and the thickness of his hair. But there aren’t a lot of events.

The story about my crisis apparition is what has led to me having a strongly held belief that ghosts exist. I don’t think they can do us harm, but I think they can appear and communicate. Having said that, I don’t believe that everyone who claims to have had a paranormal experience really did. I believe that some people can be mistaken or there could be others inventing stories with mischievous intent. That is why I try to keep an opened mind about paranormal experiences and be agnostic. Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t…

I have had other ghostly experiences that I can’t explain but most of them happen in the form of dreams. I will dream about a deceased loved one giving me information, for example about a pregnancy in the family. A few weeks later, that pregnancy is announced. On the day that my mother had a heart attack, I had a visit in dreamland from Papa Sammy and my uncle and my uncle just sat with me in the dream. He didn’t give me any information or communicate. He simply sat with me. A couple of hours later, I got a call to say that my mother was seriously ill.

I thought I would share these experiences because it’s coming up to Samhain, the Pagan holiday strongly linked to Halloween, where the veil between the living world and the afterlife is said to be at its thinnest. If there ever was a perfect time for a deceased loved one to visit me, I think it would be now, but I doubt that’s how it works. I live in hope though!