My Visit From Beyond

When I was growing up, my brothers had a friend named Wilbur Spangler. He only lived a mile away from us and was often at our house, almost every day. I remember asking my mother why he always left when it was getting dark because I thought he was my brother. (I was very young.)

By the time I was thirteen, I had grown very fond of Wilbur. He was always nice to me and would often take the time to talk to me when I was having some kind of problem in my life, no matter what it was.

One day I was at my sister's house playing games with my nephews and I had a thought, This day is going way too well. I had no idea how correct that thought was.

That night, the unthinkable happened. I had gone to my room for the night when I heard someone knock on our front door. My bedroom was close enough to the door that I heard the knock. Wilbur's brother Bob was at our door. I opened my bedroom door and stood just outside my doorway to hear what was going on because it was very unusual for someone to visit us during the night hours.

I could tell by his voice that Bob was in tears. He was talking to my mother. He told her that Wilbur had drowned and related the details of the funeral to follow.

I silently backed up into my bedroom and sat down on my bed. I didn't cry, I was in shock. I couldn't believe what I had just heard. Then I remembered my thought that this day was going too well. I crawled under my covers thinking of Wilbur and drifted off to sleep.

The funeral was weird. When I went to the coffin to look at Wilbur, he didn't look right. They had thick makeup on him that didn't match the color of his skin. I thought He doesn't look like himself.

Later at the grave site, Wilbur's family asked my brothers if they would help shovel the dirt into the grave because they didn't have the money to pay someone else to do it. They agreed.

My father pulled our car over beside the grave. I got into the car. I could see the grave from where I was in the car. Up until now, I hadn't cried. But, when that first shovel full of dirt was thrown in, I fell apart. I cried harder than I had ever cried before.

I had a hard time dealing with Wilbur's death. I started having dreams that he was still alive and that his parents had faked his death. I started believing my dreams were true and told my family about my dreams and what I thought. My family tried to reason with me, but I held on to my delusion.

I started seeing Wilbur everywhere I went which made me more convinced he wasn't dead. (Of course it wasn't really him I was seeing.) I was losing my grip on reality. I just wasn't able to accept his death.

Then, one night after I had gone to sleep, I heard Wilbur calling to me from outside. I got up out of my bed and went to the front door because the sound of his voice was coming from outside in our driveway. I looked out the window and saw Wilbur standing there. I ran outside yelling, "I knew you weren't dead, I knew it!"

Wilbur shook his head and said, "No, no. I need to talk to you. Let's go for a walk."

"Okay," I said and followed him.

Wilbur proceeded to tell me that he was indeed dead, and I had to accept his death. I started asking him all sorts of questions, what it was like to be dead, why were we here, etc. He answered them all. I remember thinking that it all made sense. We walked and talked until the sun started to come up, and we ended up back in my driveway.

We stopped and Wilbur said, "Now, you have to accept that I'm gone. You won't see me anymore, but you're going to be okay."

I nodded and said, "Okay."

"Now go back to bed," He told me.

I went back inside and laid down in my bed. Instantly I woke up. I ran to the door to see if he was outside in our driveway, but of course, he wasn't.

Was that a dream? I thought. It seemed so real. I tried to remember everything he had told me during that night, but it was slipping away so fast that I couldn't remember anything except the thought that it all made sense. Everything had made sense.

I came to realize that Wilbur had visited me in a dream, a vision. As a result, I quit seeing him everywhere I went, and I accepted that he was really gone. And, just like he said, I was okay.