Ghosty Things

I'm not writing about ghosty things because it is October, I'm writing about them because it's Tuesday. Not because Tuesday is Mars' day, the day of war. No, no, no. I'm writing about ghosty things because on Monday nights my neighbor holds seances. You read that right, meetings at which people attempt to make contact with the dead. Seances.

We learned years ago to not talk to this neighbor about our loved ones who have died, no matter how darling she is when she asks you. She will immediately know stuff about them and about you. She will genuinely act as though she knows facts about you and your lost loved one! In fact, she makes a fun party favor. At the last neighborhood event she read me like a book: You are such a...MOM, she read with her amazing powers.

WOW.

In the picture above, although you can't see it, there are almost a dozen cars parked along our little corner of the neighborhood on the usual Monday night seance night. That's nearly twelve people who come to her home again and again and again on Monday nights to have her ...read? deceased relatives.

Look, on one hand I truly understand. Who doesn't want to believe that their loved ones who have died have, somehow, remained on earth here long enough to pass along important and meaningful messages to those they have left behind? Messages that can only seem to be passed along through another person, a seer, a medium for ca$h, but OK. My own mom was game for awhile there. She was kind of willing to have this neighbor of mine talk to her about how much my deceased stepdad loved Mom and wished her well, et al. But anything beyond that was quite distasteful to Mom. For a few days my mom liked the idea that Gary (my step dad) was still here in spirit and was still sending his love to her.

On the other hand, many of the people who own the cars in that photo above have been visiting my neighbor for YEARS. Years of their lives where they have not found comfort nor relief from the loss of their loved one through the claims of contact with their departed. Years where the people who have lost a loved one are willing to pay with the hopes of hearing something, anything, to move them forward in their grief, in their life, toward healing. I have seen the same light blue Volkswagon for almost ten years every Monday night...even in inclement weather.

And that pisses me off. Because this neighbor woman is using the grief of well-meaning people for her own personal gain $$$. If the people slowly disappeared and moved forward into their lives I might be more willing to give latitude to the seances and whatnot. But instead I see the cars repeating for very long periods of time and I get the impression that some of these clients of hers are not moving forward into their lives...of course I could be wrong.