Ethereal Pats

   Sometimes these guys - spirits -  can take you by surprise. In fact, that's usually when these "pats" from the other side happen. It goes something like this:  The room is quiet, you're sitting doing a crossword, writing a list, concentrating on a piece of embroidery you're working on. Or changing a tire. In any case you're minding your own business concentrating on anything but ghostly taps on the shoulder from 'somewhere out there.'
   And someone calls your name. Or just says, "Hi!" You may recognise the voice immediately and if that person has left our world you're liable to prick your finger, drop the wrench or wet your pants. But it might be a voice you've never heard before. Which wouldn't be surprising. I havn't a clue what my great-grandparents might have sounded like. If it spoke French or Gaelic though - that would be a dead giveaway.
    Very often you'll be on the edge of sleep as my daughter was when suddenly, loud and clear, she heard someone call her name.
   "Karen!"  She started awake. Turned her head clutching the covers. Her husband was sound asleep beside her. The sounded of his breathing was low and even. She patted the covers, no kids or dogs in the bed... There was no one else in the room.
   Light from outside the bedroom window blanched a path across the floor picking up the pale pile of used up socks and one of the children's toys.  She waited. "I now know what they mean by bated breath." She told me.
  And it happened again. "Karen." The voice belonged to her father who had died earlier that year. "There was no doubt in my mind it was Dad's voice."
  "So?" I asked.
  "It scared the crap out of me! I grabbed the side of the table so hard my ring cut into my finger."
  "Then what?"
  "I asked him not to scare me like that... I said, Dammit Dad! I know it's you, but you can't come ghosting around my room like that!"
   "And..."
   "Two nights later, it came again - but this time he was laughing. I knew it was his laugh - no one else laughs like that. And it didn't scare me. It felt nice. And he hasn't done it again."
   When something like this happens, you sometimes can't believe what you've just heard or seen, or sensed - or dreamed.
  And when this happens, I just say, "Okay. I think it was you - actually I know it was you - and I think I know why you did that ...but would you mind giving me a sign? Something that will make me totally sure it's you."
   And you will get your sign. You won't even have to hunt for it, looking behind doors and under rocks. It will be right in front of you. And you get to pick your sign.
   "Show me a wild red fox," You say, chuckling to yourself. "This isn't going to work, I'd like to see a wild red fox in New York City. HA!" (Clearly this could be a problem if you live in NYC.)
   But not to spirit.
   Tomorrow I'll tell you about the Zebras.