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"Don't be afraid Kid, just take it easy and keep going."

By Georgia Warren

It was either a Tuesday or a Wednesday afternoon. I was driving north on Rt. 81 from Cortland through Syracuse just a mile or so from the Mattydale-Northern Lights Shopping Center exit. The traffic was light and I was rolling along about five miles above the speed limit. I could see a tractor-trailer a ways up the road, and decided I better start slowing down. My brakes failed me; no brakes at all. The only thought I had was to turn off the ignition, but I pretty well knew that wasn’t going to slow me down in time to not barrel right into the truck in front of me.

“It’s an emergency brake Kid.” My father said firmly from the back seat. “Pull the emergency brake and then release it. Now, do it.”

I did it. The car jerked something awful, but it slowed.

“Do it again.” my father said. “Just keep pulling the emergency brake and releasing it. There you go, you’re getting in control. Now put your hazard lights on.”

I got the car under this jerky control and over two lanes into the breakdown lane and ready to fully stop. “Now, what’s the plan Kid? To sit here for two hours waiting for a tow truck to take you half a mile? Come on just keep going. The car dealer that does repairs on this piece of junk is right up the road, let’s get there.”

My father drove tractor-trailer and taxi for decades, I listened to him and kept going, very slowly, but I kept going. I knew I was doing okay when I heard him light his pipe and I smelled his cherry tobacco. He only smoked his pipe when he was relaxed, if he was nervous it would have been a White Owl cigar. I got off the exit, went up a slight grade to a stop light, still jerking along, but I kept going, made the left turn to the car dealer, and then a right into the parking lot. Sweat had started pouring down my back, and I could feel my face turning red as well.

Once I had the car stopped, all I wanted to do was get out, reach into that back seat, and give my father the biggest hug I had ever given him in my life. I wanted to see him right that second, even if my legs were wobbly.

As soon as I turned around to push the seat up, I knew. I knew he wouldn’t be there, and I wouldn’t be able to give him a hug. I wouldn’t be able to say, “Thanks Poppa, I love you.” My father had died 37 years before. Before he had time to teach me to drive. Before he could have ever told me the trick with the emergency brake.

When I told the salesman at the car dealer how my brakes failed, it didn’t seem at all strange to him that I was crying.

That was the very first time I found myself hearing or seeing someone who had died. It has happened a dozen or so times since then, but never again has it been my father or any family member.

I don’t know if the experiences I have are just an accumulation of bits and pieces of information I notice unconsciously about people. Perhaps I pick up through telepathy what a person wants to hear about a friend or a loved one. I have even thought they might be some kind of shadow of a person who is no longer alive. Whatever these entities are, they are completely vivid. I see them, I hear them, I can smell their tobacco or perfume and sometimes even their sweat.

I don’t believe in ghosts. I have a lot of theories; mostly, I just don’t know.