“I’m sorry,” I said to my new friend, Chris, as we sat on the glider on my front porch, chatting about life, “I’m listening to you, but I just saw a little boy walk out of my garage.” I was apologizing for my obvious distraction from our conversation. Chris looked at the spot that had caught my attention, and then he looked back at me quizzically. “Oh, I mean, he wasn’t in the physical. It was a little boy in spirit,” I quickly explained.
The little spirit boy had walked past my gate, tilted his head and looked at me with a mischievous smile on his face, then disappeared completely. It was in the middle of the day, not some midnight haunting.
I made note of the fact that I hadn’t seen daytime spirits in quite awhile. I used to see them all of the time, dashing out of bushes, walking across the highway, or even speaking to me in the grocery store. Such fun times!
My mind suddenly went back to the past week which had presented me with a conundrum. My garage door was not closing properly. It would close about a foot, then open up again. Then it would tease me with potentially successful closure and suddenly open up again. There was no rhyme or reason to it, and after a few tries it would eventually close completely. Chris, my daughter, and my son-in-law, had tried to fix the problem We tested the alignment of the garage door sensors. We pondered the possibility that the intense Arizona heat or the morning sun might be causing the issue, although it was happening randomly, morning, noon or night in all kinds of weather. I finally wrestled with the fact that I might have to call a garage door repair company and fork over a huge amount of money for a repair or new door. I pined for the days when garage doors were manually opened and closed. (Yup, I’m old enough to remember. Sigh.)
As the spirit boy disappeared into the ethers, I suddenly connected the dots. Was it possible that he was responsible for my garage door issues? Could it be that he was playfully tripping the sensors as it was closing? I shook my head and thought, “Nah. That’s silly.” Too far-fetched, even for someone like me.
However, being me, the next day as I pulled my car out of the garage and hit the remote to close it, the garage door suddenly bounced back open, and I thought of the spirit boy.
I closed my eyes and visualized him and his mischievous grin. “Hi sweetheart,” I said gently, “I know you are playing with me, but you have no permission to trip the sensors on my garage door. But, if you look around, you will see a doorway of light, and you can go in there and find friends to play with, and they have ice cream for you, too.”
I felt an odd peace as soon as I said those words.
I clicked the remote once again, and watched it in my rear view mirror as it closed smoothly and seamlessly.
Now, weeks later, I smile as my garage door closes successfully every time, and I think about the spirit boy who finally found closure, too, as he plays with his friends and eats ice cream in heaven.
