My Ghost Story

“I am not afraid of ghosts. Why? I do not believe in ghosts, because it is my belief — based on past readings of the Bible, though I am not a religious person — that human beings who die either go to heaven or hell, not linger here on earth as ghosts. It’s pure hogwash, fiction, myth, wild imagination!”- Wilson Lee Flores, Phil. Star columnist

“Ghosts don’t exist, the Bible says so.” Yeah right. And the world was created in seven days. Personally, I wouldn’t claim to know anything about the afterlife, with it not yet happening and all. The Bible states that when we die, all souls go directly either to heaven or hell. So what? A lot of what’s said in the Bible aren’t factual. And I can never deny what happened to me and my family 18 years ago.

November, 1992. My family went to Cabagan, Isabela to attend a funeral. My grandmother had recently died from cardiac arrest. It was instantaneous and unexpected. She was merely having a hearty dinner with my aunt when she suddenly clutched her chest and fell off her chair. She was dead before they could get her to the hospital.

After the burial, there was one afternoon when I took a nap. There were three of us in the bed; my 10-year old cousin, my brother, and me. I couldn’t get any sleep because my cousin was wildly thrashing in the bed and I was getting hit in the head. Should I get up instead? I could end up dead. Then I heard my aunt call my name. She needed someone to accompany her to town and buy some stuff needed for the night. And so we left.

We came back around 6pm. The entire household was in disarray and I could hear people shouting frantically from inside. Me and my aunt wondered what was going on so we rushed inside. A crowd was gathered in the room where we took the afternoon nap. I saw my cousin was seated at the center of the room and he was shaking uncontrollably, with a very high fever. His mother, one of my aunt got hysterical. A local “albularyo” was knelt beside him. “Kunin n’yo ‘yung damit na suot ni nanay nu’ng namatay sya.” , she called out calmly. My aunt darted right away to my grandmother’s personal closet and took out a white blouse and a black skirt. She handed these to the albularyo, who then placed the items on top of my cousin’s head. What happened next felt as if the earth gave way from under me and swallowed me whole.

“Na’san na ang mga anak ko?” were the words that came out of my cousin’s mouth. But it wasn’t his voice that we heard; it was my grandmother’s.

“Nanang!!!” my aunts and uncles pleaded, upon realizing who was talking. I stood frozen in my place beside the doorway as I watched the whole thing happen. My grandmother (who was physically my cousin) reached out to my aunts and uncles and spoke to them one by one. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could see my grandmother’s gentle hands as she caressed her children’s heads while she spoke. “Pasensya na kayo,” she surrendered, “kailangan ko na’ng umalis.” Her children surrounded her and wrapped her with their arms, trying desperately to keep her from leaving. And then she was gone.

When my cousin finally came to, they asked him if he was aware of everything that just happened. He had no recollection of anything. What he remembered was taking a nap, when all of a sudden he sawnanang outside the window and in the yard waving at him, urging him to follow her. He said that he immediately stood up and ran after her but no matter what he did he couldn’t catch up. All he could see was her back turned towards him, and the white blouse and black skirt that she wore when she died. He followed her right to the cemetery where her body was laid, and saw a light coming from the heavens. She stood directly under the light, and he saw my grandmother raised upwards into that light where she disappeared. That was when he woke up.

Many years later, we still get to talk about what happened that day. I for the life of me cannot fathom any other explanation. I couldn’t imagine my cousin capable of such a ruse; he was to young and naïve for that. My grandmother came back from the grave to say goodbye to us one last time. This is what I believe.