This is a story from T. who experienced the events firsthand for herself. T. is a beautiful woman of Italian descent, who grew up in the West Side. She was a neighbor of my mother's, who used to babysit T. who had rheumatic fever as a a child and her sister, and they affectionately called my mother: Dora.
T. was a grown woman, married to a former Middle-Boro firefighter with adult children, when the incident took place. She had been sick for awhile and found herself being treated in a Boston hospital. On this particular night, her husband and family members visiting her had left for home. She was lying in her hospital room alone, when her condition took an extreme turn for the worst and she started to feel very sick.
For T. it had become a long night of struggle at death's door. Perhaps it was the medications she was on or she was experiencing hallucinations because of the grave nature of her condition or her state of mind, soul and body at the boundary and barrier of the realms of life and death, whatever the case, she started seeing figures walking about in her room.
Dark spectres... phantoms... wraiths... who T. described as "old Italian men and women" in black clothes, the traditional clothing that Italians wore in the olden days when they attended wakes and funerals. So it was truly like a funeral procession in T.s room and they were not silent. They were talking and singing mournfully in Italian or perhaps you would describe it more like chants or dirges.
And this left T., fighting for her life, completely overwhelmed, frightened, feeling that the end was near. And she did not want to die! She thought of her family and her children and grandkids and did not want to leave quite this soon.
And the procession of the Italian spirits seem to go on forever... walking, just walking, back and forth, back and forth in the room, and those sad, mournful hymns of theirs, always in T.'s ears.
Sometime during the night though, T. noticed in the chair next to her bed, that Dora was there, once more watching over her, as she did when she was a child. T. was surprised and amazed and so happy to see Dora once again, especially under the circumstances.
The reassuring presence of Dora brought enormous comfort to T, who was scared as all hell by her condition and the wraiths of the departed with her. And who wouldn't be?
Gradually as the night turned towards day, the spectres faded away and Dora remained there a little bit longer providing T. with safety and comfort and the gaze once more of a beloved friend.
And T. survived the night and went on to a full recovery. It was not her time to go and I like think Mom, Dora had a little bit to do with that.
Addendum: This is indeed a true story and T. called up my father and told him the details of it and how grateful she was to see Dora there in her moment of great need once again
Image Credit: https://us.fotolia.com/id/60687131
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