Ghost Story Thursday! (THE RETURN, *dun, Dun, DUN*)

I've previously shared some chilling (or, at the very least, unsettling) experiences I've had with the paranormal. Today I'd like to share something a little more heart-felt. The eve of my maternal grandfather's death.

The Light in the Hall

My grandfather, Alexander Zendrian, and I never really got along. We were both very stubborn people, and often butted heads, a situation which only made more tense when I moved with my husband, and my first child, Alex. Alex was a little over 1 year old when we took up residence in the top floor of the two family house in which my grandparents live(d) (my grandmother, Lily, still lives in the downstairs house).

Eight years and two new additions to my family later, our relationship had not improved. But then . . . my grandfather got sick.He'd always been a sturdy guy, kinda spry for his age, so when he fell sick it knocked us all for a loop. Turned out he'd been feeling under the weather for a while, but he didn't tell anyone, 'cause they'd make a fuss. That's just the sort of person he was. But then this 'under the weather' feeling became pneumonia, and-seemingly overnight- grandpa was so ill he needed to be hospitalized.

After about a week, maybe (my memory might be off), he was brought home. His condition hadn't improved, though. I checked up on him and Grandma every day, to see if they needed anything, if I could get them anything from the store. Grandpa couldn't eat much, but he'd taken a liking to vanilla pudding, and that he could have. Grandma would call me downstairs when she needed help moving him around, since he was so weakened from the illness that he was bedridden. 

He couldn't even talk, really, outside of affirmative, or negative murmurs. One day I stopped in to see if they needed anything, and I said "Hi, Grandpa," and he just kinda looked at me for a moment. My grandmother said "Al? It's Geri."

He kinda gave her this grumpy look and nodded, like, I know. Maybe I imagined it, but I felt like in that look, he understood that I was there for him. All of our arguments and headbutting didn't matter because he was sick and he needed me.

Then he was admitted to the hospital again. I could tell that my mom (whom I'd never seen cry in all of my [at the time] 31 years) was hanging on by a thread. She was her father's daughter, however, and never showed how she was really feeling. On February 10th, she came by and talked with me about something that had happened at the hospital. Apparently, she was discussing 'arrangements' with my grandmother, and-my grandfather, who they thought was sleeping- piped up and said "I'm still here."

That night, I took a walk to the store. Our front hall was dark, 'cause the light bulb had blown out, and the houses next door are close together, so no light really comes in from the street. I came in, closed the downstairs door behind me, walked to the stair case that leads up to my apartment and saw a light at the top of the stairs. I dread to call it an 'orb', because that's taken on such a silly, overwrought, negative connotation recently, but that's what it was. It was a bright, blue-white ball of light. It just hovered there a few seconds, and then it was gone.

There is nothing in or around the house to create a trick of the light like that.

The next morning, my mother called me and I knew, before she said the words, that my grandfather, Alexander Zendrian, was dead. February 11th, my son Alex's birthday.

From that moment on, I've believed that the light I saw the night before was my grandfather saying good bye.