My Dad's Story

As a little girl growing up in the 1970s, I had a pet guinea pig. My two sisters and I each had our own guinea pigs and we loved these little guys. Mine, unfortunately, got sick and passed away. I was devastated. My Dad got a shoe box, which we decorated, and placed the deceased guinea pig in. Dad even made a little cross for the grave and we staged a little funeral in our backyard. After the funeral, I stood there alone staring at the new grave with tears rolling down my cheeks. All of the sudden, something popped up out of the ground where the guinea pig was buried and ran towards the woods before vanishing before my eyes. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

It was in the shape of my guinea pig and while part appeared solid, another part of it was transparent. It almost looked gelatinous, if that makes sense. A small sprout, near the makeshift grave, actually moved as this 'shape' moved by it. I knew what I had seen. My heart beat fast as I stood there, unsure what to do. I grew up in a Catholic household and we were taught that animals don't have souls. I knew that wasn't true based on this experience (and others that were to come later on in life).

The first person I told was my younger sister who told me to stop lying. I remember trying hard to convince her through my tears that this had really happened. We are both in our 50s now and to this day, I don't think she still believes this.

Later on that day, my Dad was out front mowing the lawn. When he saw me crying, he shut the mower off and came over to me to see how I was doing. I relayed what had happened to him with some reluctance. Much to my surprise, he believed me.

He relayed the following story to me.

As a young boy growing up in southern Connecticut (we lived in Massachusetts at the time), he and his older brother were camping in a makeshift tent in the backyard of my grandparent's home during the summer. This happened in the 1950s. The house was built on a hill and was the only one in the area for quite some time. My grandfather built the house with the garage built facing the backyard. When more houses went in, the street was placed to the other side of the house so it was an odd spot for a garage door. The point of these details is to describe how rural the area was at the time.

As my Dad and Uncle slept in this tent, which was most likely a large blanket draped over rope, my Dad said a bright light appeared outside. He woke up, rubbed his eyes, and then peered outside. There stood a very old man in robes, with a long white beard, and holding a staff. The light he saw from inside the tent was actually emanating from this entity. My Dad said he was frozen in fear. The man just stood there watching him. He didn't speak or make a sound. When Dad finally got the courage, he scrambled back into his bed. He tried to wake my Uncle up but to no avail. He burrowed under the covers and closed his eyes, willing the apparition to leave.

In the morning he told my Uncle what had happened, as well as his parents, and of course, no one believed him! To this day, he swears this happened and I believe him. What is interesting to me is wondering what the entity wanted or what it's purpose was. Was it a guardian of some sort? What throws me is the robes and the staff. Almost sounds biblical and not something historically seen in what was once a rural area of Connecticut.

My Dad is now in his late 70s and has only been given a few more months to live, due to cancer and an advanced stage of Parkinson's disease. I like to think that this spirit is a guardian, or maybe an angel, that will help him over to the other side when that time comes.