THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE DAYTIME

Now I’m not a superstitious person by any means, and signs and omens are not my thing, but apprehension is. Case in point.

Back in 1991, when Dad passed on, I got the creeps just walking into the home he shared with Mom, who was still living there. I recall having to go there one day to wallpaper her den, while she went out to shop with my sister. It made me feel a little out of sorts, thinking he once roamed the rooms just a few days ago, like his spirit was still present.

I have been spending a lot of time at my parent’s house. Since Mom died three weeks ago, I have been going almost every day to clean and take care of business. Most of the time I go alone, and when I do, I get a little apprehensive about entering the house. The reason is that Mom’s passing is still kind of hard to a degree to get by. There are many happy times and moments that cause me to reflect on the things of long ago.

I see a picture, or an everyday item she used and I can relate to an event or person from the past and I get this strange feeling that Mom is trying to convey something to me.

One day this week, I went to Mom’s house and sat down in the kitchen with an apple turnover and coffee I purchased in Bellport. I had passed the old Bellport Hotel that is now Porters where there is a history from long ago with Mom and Dad. They once ran the kitchen at the hotel during the post war years and I grew up on summer weekends there as a young child, I actually recall some of it. As I was passing the hotel to my car on foot, it clicked and I recalled the long ago past and how it started here and ended here for both of them.

Driving to her house that is about 3 minutes away, I couldn’t help but wonder what was where back in those days, and pulling up into the driveway I parked the car and took out the house keys, and there in my mind stood Mom and Dad.

Pushing against the door as it opened from the lock, I lean into the alarm and it seems like they are still there, and that feels a little unsettling yet comforting, but apprehensively I plod on to the kitchen and sit down to have my coffee. It then strikes me, Mom died of June 11th and Dad died on June 12^th! Mom died in a hospital bed in my old bedroom and Dad died on the floor in the hallway. Both had died in the house, almost on the same date, but did die on the same day, a Wednesday.

As I sip the coffee, I suddenly feel the loneliness of the house, the echo of days and times past, and an eeriness creeps over me. Suddenly: a rapping on what seems the front door startles me. I get up and go to the door to see who it is, there is no one there! I try looking at my I-pad, when once again a rapping is heard. Again I go look and still no one is there. Once again and now I am wondering if someone is trying to communicate with me. I get up and look throughout the house, come to the basement door and look down the stairs where it is dark. I decide there is nothing down there and go back to the kitchen once more. One more time the rapping begins; I look around and start talking to Dad:

“Dad, if you think this is funny, cut it out, or at least wait until I’m with someone else, I know Mom would not kid around like this!”

Then it dawns on me it is the refrigerator, the same refrigerator that had my sisters up all night about a month ago when they slept over!

Or was it?