Most of the tales of high strangeness we feature here happened years ago, but this one just surfaced yesterday.
A friend of the blog writes:
Brian I have a new High Strangeness that was just relayed to me in the breakroom at the warehouse
My supervisor’s buddy who works at a local Indian casino was speeding down a local road and was pulled over by a cop for going over 100 mph, given a ticket with the cop’s signature and everything
when he went to traffic court to pay the ticket the clerk looked at him and asked “is this a joke or something?”
turns out the cop had been dead for 10 years. Died in a car crash chasing a speeding driver on that same road
He kept the ticket and has it framed, but also tucked away in the garage
You have to admire that kind of dedication to the job.
Also, if you’re the praying sort and you have a mind to, find a spare minute to put in a word with the Man upstairs for the departed cop’s soul. If the account above really was an encounter with his ghost, it’s likely he’s working through some kind of purgatory. And as Holy Mother Church teaches, your prayers can shave time off his sentence.
It stands to reason that a police officer’s ghost would appreciate it the most.
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Did you ever hear about this story from Bible scholar and translator J. B. Phillips?
“Many of us who believe in what is technically known as the communion of saints must have experienced the sense of nearness, for a fairly short time, of those whom we love soon after they have died. This has certainly happened to me several times. But the late C. S. Lewis, whom I did not know very well and had only seen in the flesh once, but with whom I had corresponded a fair amount, gave me an unusual experience. A few days after his death, while I was watching television, he ‘appeared’ sitting in a chair within a few feet of me, and spoke a few words which were particularly relevant to the difficult circumstances through which I was passing. He was ruddier in complexion than ever, grinning all over his face and, as the old-fashioned saying has it, positively glowing with health. The interesting thing to me was that I had not been thinking about him at all. I was neither alarmed nor suprised nor, to satisfy the Bishop of Woolwich, did I look up to see the hole in the ceiling that he might have made on arrival! He was just there-‘large as life and twice as natural.’ A week later, this time when I was in bed, reading before going to sleep, he appeared again, even more rosily radiant than before, and repeated to me the same message, which was very important to me at the time. I was a little puzzled by this, and I mentioned it to a certain saintly bishop who was then living in retirement here in Dorset. His reply was, ‘My dear J-, this sort of thing is happening all the time.’” – J. B. Phillips, “Ring of Truth”
Years ago now, when my Italian grandmother lay dying of her final illness, my aunt – her eldest daughter – was sitting at her bedside. Suddenly, my grandmother started talking. She still retained the power of speech, so that in itself wasn’t odd. What was unusual was that she seemed to be addressing her words to the foot of the bed.
My aunt, who only knows a few words of Italian, asked, “Who are you talking to, Mom?”
My grandmother answered that she was talking to her mother and father, both dead these many years.
Perhaps assuming that my grandmother was praying to them in Heaven or for them in Purgatory, my aunt asked, “Where are they?”
Then my grandmother pointed to the foot of the bed and said, “They’re standing right there.”
When my Irish grandfather passed, my father was heartbroken. They were very, very close as I am to this day with my father. My grandfather owned a bar and my father was still trying to help run it, as well as help my grandmother try to nail down the details of his services and whatnot. My grandfather was an old school Irish Catholic who went to 6:30AM Mass every day.
The bar had two basements. One was a traditional kind for general storage and had the electrical boxes and plumbing and such. The other was sorely for beer, be it in cases or kegs. It had a slide from a trap door in the sidewalk outside so deliveries could be made without the beer truck driver needing to go inside. And it was accessed by a hatch behind the bar, and a stairway that was steep enough you would be forgiven for calling it a ladder.
The day before my grandfather’s funeral, my dad said he went down to bring some kegs up and while he was down there, got distracted because he thought he heard his dad’s voice up above at the bar, doing his thing with the patrons- my grandfather was an inveterate joker, who made people laugh by insulting them, Don Rickles-style. My dad got overwhelmed and sat down on a keg. And he swears to this day, when he looked to his side, his dad was sitting right beside him and put an arm on his shoulder. I’ve only seen my dad cry twice, but he says that day, alone, he cried his eyes out in the basement under the bar.
A couple of follow up questions, if you don’t mind:
Has your father or anyone else you know of reported further apparitions of your grandfather?
What kind of tears did your father shed that day – tears of sorrow for the loss of his father, catharsis, joy at seeing him one last time, or despair?
To my knowledge, no one ever saw an apparition of my grandfather again, though I am not sure if my father would admit it if he did. I think he regrets telling people of the experience.
His tears were sorrow. He was very, very close to his dad, and also lost him somewhat suddenly at a relatively young age: He was diagnosed with cancer and passed three weeks later.
Thanks for the information.
Based on the limited info we have, I’m inclined to call it a visitation from Heaven or Purgatory. That your father came away sad seems to indicate the latter. But the lack of repeat appearances may suggest that your grandfather came from Heaven to tell your dad he was OK, but your father was just inconsolable. Or, your grandfather was in Purgatory but finished his purgation quickly and moved on to Heaven soon after appearing to your father.
But that’s mostly speculation.
I’m inclined to agree with your speculation, though I prefer the idea that he was in heaven and my father was inconsolable, for obvious reasons! All of my siblings and cousins were born after he passed, so I was his first grandchild and the apple of his eye. Even though I was pretty young when he passed, I still have a lot of great memories of him, even 40+ years later.
Merry Christmas, Brian!
Merry Christmas, Luke!