1 Hand... 2 Ghosts... 3 Lessons

What mother doesn't take advantage of every opportunity to teach her children a lesson?

As I have said before, I grew up within a family that accepts the existence of ghosts and, as a kid, it was common to hear my family members talking about their experiences with the paranormal and the unexplained. As a child, it was always fascinating to listen to those stories that, sometimes were scary and others that were even funny.

Out of my Mother's experiences, the following three are, perhaps, my favorite ones; not only because they happened to my mother, but because she managed to used them as a tool for giving her children a positive perspective about ghosts and the paranormal world.

First Lesson: Sometimes they just want to finish an unfinished task.

Before getting married, my mother used to work as a secretary at a lawyer's office during the late 1950's.

One day Mr. T (the lawyer) and her were walking on a street in downtown Mexico City after spending the morning visiting the courts and some clients, at some point they stopped after a woman of humble appearance came walking towards them calling the lawyer.

When the woman reached them, Mr T asked why she hadn't come to the office to bring the documents so he could start the legal process to get a deed to her house.

The lady said that she had been very busy and it wasn't easy for her to get away from home, to which Mr T agreed to go to her place and pick up the documents. They said good-bye to the woman and saw her walking toward the tram stop.

A couple of days later, Mr T and Mom went looking for the woman at her place, only to be told that the woman had passed away about two months earlier.

Only after learning this information they both realized that they had been talking to a ghost and felt goosebumps all over their bodies.

Convinced that the woman was worried about getting the deed in order, even after her death, Mr T finished the process free of charged for the family.

Second Lesson: They mean no harm.

Mom underwent a surgery on her right hand in early October 1982 and had to spend few days at the hospital. She shared the room with five other patients. My mother was not only the youngest, but the only one with minor mobility restrictions since her hand had to stay in a vertical position by securing it to the bed-rail with a string. The rest were elderly ladies recovering from orthopedic operations like knee and hip replacement. One of them, "L", was able to get up from bed with great difficulty and the help of crutches.

The layout of the hospital is three long hallways, each of them with one side covered by windows and the rooms on the opposite side. The room my mom was staying at was at the end of the hallway, after the washrooms - one for men, one for women - and a utility room.

Mom's bed was the first one on the left side of the door, and the six beds were divided in two rows.

One night she woke up with the feeling of being watched and, under the dim light coming from the hallway, she saw a woman standing at the side of her bed and staring at her. She thought it was "L" needing some help, perhaps to go to the washroom, and turned around to untie her hand from the bed-rail hearing the woman painfully walking around her bed.

When she had set her hand free and turned around, the woman wasn't there anymore and, not only that but "L" was sleeping peacefully in her bed at the end of the opposite row and her crutches were leaning on the wall.

Puzzled, my mother got up and walked to the hallway and to the ladies' washrooms, thinking that whoever the woman was couldn't have gone too far considering the way she was walking, but there was no one in the hallway nor in the washrooms.

She went back to the room, aware that there was no way she hadn't seen the woman if she had left the room through the door and, after much thinking and reasoning, she came to the conclusion that the woman wasn't a living person.

Third Lesson: Take the time to investigate... Not everything is what it seems.

This last experience took place during a windy night in the early 60's while my mother was waiting for my dad to come home from work.

They lived in a suburban area in a neighborhood still under construction with few scattered houses and not many street lights. Mom was standing by the window watching the nearby avenue in hopes to see Dad getting off from the bus.

At some point she saw a small form moving erratically on the sidewalk, at first she thought it was a fat and rather large rat but, as it approached the nearest street light, she realized that it was not a rat but a horrible, spectral hand slowly crawling in her direction.

Terrified, she was ready to run to bed and cover her head under the blanket but on second thought, she decided that since it was an eyeless hand surely it couldn't see her, - could it?

So she stayed put watching the spooky limb find its way on the dark street. When it got closer, Mom became fully aware that that was not a hand but a rubber glove the wind had picked up somewhere.

Thanks for reading.