Spirit Over Time

2007 was a difficult year for my family. I was 18 years old and graduating high school. Under normal circumstances this would be a cause for celebration for most people, but for me, it reminded me of a missing factor in my life. My father had passed away that very same year in the month of February. He would not be present for my graduation ceremony, he wouldn't help me purchase my first automobile, he wouldn't see me marry, and most of all, he wouldn't see me become the man I was supposed to be. These thoughts plague me still, though that is not what this story is about. This story, is about something more.

My father, was self employed as an asbestos consultant, and ran his business from home in his office. He was great at his job and often times worked extra just to make sure our family never went without, he was giving of himself in that way. The one thing I only ever complained about him was that we lacked the usual father son relationship. I wasn't too keen of sports, where as my father was a huge sports fan. Our differences left us with nothing much in common until I reached my later high school years, when I came out of my awkward social shell and developed a sense of humor. My joking around got me in trouble in school more often than not, but it provided my father and I a chance to establish some solid foundation for a strong, funny and enjoyable parent-child bond. Suffice it to say, when my father passed, I felt cheated. Angry at God, and at my own father for making me wait so long to have what I wanted only to have it stolen right out from under me a short time later.

One day, I was in my father's office fooling around on the computer. I used it in the past of course for school research papers and the like, but since it was my father's business computer I wasn't supposed to hog it or use it to play a bunch of games. The office, now had no purpose, since I had graduated high school and yet to attend college, and Dad's business was in the process of being dissolved by Mom, informing his past business partners of his passing. I found myself on the computer a lot, wasting away hours and hours of time watching videos and playing games to take my mind off things.

During one of my sessions of computer entertainment binging, the fax machine began making the typical whirling sounds it would make when an incoming fax was being processed and the paper was about to be dispensed. I turned around in the swivel chair shocked, as we hadn't received a fax in quite some time, and I was sure Mom had already informed everyone that Dad was no longer with us. I rose from the chair and started to cross the room, noting that the small thin green screen where the sender's number would usually be displayed, had some black digital numbers occupying it. I was curious who the sender was.

Mere steps away from the fax machine, as I got close enough to read the number, the screen suddenly went blank, and the whirling sound stopped. Convinced that whoever the sender was must have cancelled the fax job, I returned to the comfort of the swivel chair. I turned back to the computer screen, hand on the mouse, and was about to resume what I was doing when I remembered something.

Just a few days prior, Mom was letting me know that as part of dissolving Dad's Business, some changes would be made in the house, most notably getting rid of some things we no longer needed. One of the main objects Mom had listed I recalled was the fax machine, and she had asked if I would help her donate it or drop it off somewhere on the next day I had time. As I remembered this, a thought crossed my mind.

I arose from the office chair again and looked over my shoulder at the fax machine. I walked across the room as I had just seconds before, but this time with a different intention in mind. I reached the machine, and slowly peeked at the back of it. My eyes were drawn to the power cord protruding from the rear of the machine, a thick off-white colored cord, and followed it with my eyes only to find it wasn't plugged into the wall. There were two outlets, one of which was empty and the other was occupied by the desk lamp's semi transparent gold cord. Beneath the outlets, was the power cord to the fax machine, unplugged and tightly wound up with not enough slack to make it to the outlet. My suspicions were confirmed, Mom had disconnected it just a few days before. I followed the cord with my hand to make sure I was looking at the right cord, and I was. It was true, the fax machine was most definitely not connected. I returned to the computer once more, powered it down, and left the home office.

It's common for lights to flicker and radio noise to be heard in tv and movies when things like ghosts are present. I haven't had that happen to me, but I did begin to receive a fax from an unknown sender that day. Why they didn't finish sending it, or what it was they wanted to say, I'll never know, but I have a strong feeling I know who the sender was. Maybe Dad was playing a joke on me, or maybe he was trying to say something that he just didn't know how (words weren't his strong suit), but I'll tell you this, I know it was him. Dad was a bit of a workaholic and it wouldn't surprise me if after death he still wanted to do more to make sure we never went without. It makes sense to me if he was to ever visit us somewhere, it would be in his office.