My mother, Jennifer, was able to share with me an encounter with an apparition of her grandmother.

Jennifer: “Well, it was with my grandmother and we were really close. And, we always said that if one of us died first we’d come back and let the other one know if everything was okay. So she passed away on September 24^th 1994. And I remember about a week after she passed away, I was just about to fall asleep, and someone came and grabbed my hand. And that was our symbol; we’ll grab your hand to let you know that everything is okay. At that point I was grief stricken so I had forgotten about the pact that we had. And (pause) as I was laying there somebody came and grabbed my hand; I realized that it was her. And telling it was okay. That same night, my dad, her son, um he has this sterling silver little baby cup that has a music box built in, and it’s in his china cabinet and it’s been there forever and it’s never been wound or player or anything. And that same evening, um, the same cup that he gotten when he was a baby started playing for no reason. So we think it was my grandmother coming back and letting everybody know she was okay.”

During the interview, I noticed how casual and calm she was in telling her story. I assumed at first that she would get emotional because she was delving into an emotional event in  her life. It turns out she reacted quite the opposite. It was almost like the experience gave her comfort because she realized that her grandmother was safe and “okay” in death. One of the motifs that I found in her story was the idea of the ghost coming back for unfinished business. My mother and her grandmother had made a pact to let each other know that they were fine after death. When her grandmother died, her ghost seemed to have returned to uphold the deal she made with my mother. I also noticed how my mother didn’t confirm that it was the ghost. She seemed to say that they “believe” it was a ghost rather than confirming that it “was” a ghost.