MUSICAL MESSENGER GHOST (in the Aires)

The image reminds me of the Music of the Spheres. This, in turn, reminds me to relate the Burlington, North Carolina musical messenger ghost encounter I heard recently.

A man in his forties sat alone at the back of the small library auditorium where I was sharing true ghost experiences just before Halloween this year. Many people in the audience joined in the conversation, sharing family stories, and we ran about 45 minutes beyond our schedule for the gathering.

Dave waited silently, patiently. He waited until everyone was gone. Over the years, I have learned that when adult males attend my little ghost events alone, they (usually) want to talk to me. Dave said he was raised in a musical family. His parents, aunts and uncles, siblings and cousins, all performed music publicly as regularly as most people eat supper.

The oddity among his family, David never took to music. Or vice versa. He could pick a little guitar, but it never really interested him and he had set it aside, he said, for many years. When his mother died, he got out his guitar and decided to learn to play her favorite song.

The song was difficult for Dave. He got most of it down, but there was one part of that song he just couldn't get right. He would go to bed at night with the guitar propped in the corner of bedroom. And the next day, every day, he would try again. Dave wanted to play the entire piece of music from beginning to end as a tribute to his mother.

I sat across from Dave in a folding chair as he told me the rest of his story.

One night, he said, he dreamed his mother. In this dream, his mother showed him how to pick the portion of the song he couldn't get right. She showed him how to move his fingers on the frets to get the licks moving smoothly from chord to chord. The next day, Dave played the song smoothly from start to finish.

"I never told anyone this," he said. "I was wondering, though, do you think that was her ghost in my dream?"

I smiled and winked.

I won't argue the point with people, but in my heart this certainly is a true ghost experience. I also like the idea his departed mother was listening to him practice that piece of music.

Having heard dozens of examples of recently deceased loved ones appearing in dreams with real life messages, I consider these "sleep" encounters as direct communication with the dead. And that's a ghost to me. I told Dave the same thing and asked if he had his guitar in his car.

"Nope," he said. "I never took to music, really."

He could only play one song.