People who know me, also know I love a good ghost story just as much as I like sharing my own experiences.  Being in radio gives me a forum which I derive a great deal of delight from, not only do I get to share, but I am lucky to have others share their experiences and encounters with me.

I’ve recounted many times my encounter with my best friend who had actually passed away the day before, the British soldiers I saw marching through one wall and out the next but there is one story I have hardly told anyone, mostly because it’s very something I treasure.

Just over two years ago my partner of 15 years succumbed after a very long and horrific fight against Cancer.  It was if my world had been ripped apart and to be honest, I wasn’t coping with it at all, I had just lost my soul mate, my best friend, it didn’t matter that we both knew it was coming and had tried to prepare for it, my heart was ripped to shreds anyway.

It was about 6 months after Rita had passed away and the pain of her loss was overwhelming me that day.  As I stood by the window looking out onto the sun setting across the water with the rain beading on the window, I cried.  It was the first time I had done so since her funeral, I’m not ashamed of it but I’m not one given to such things as a rule, I am the type of guy who draws back into himself.

The pain I was feeling just defies description, how could I go on, my world had changed irrevocably.
As I stood there staring into the rain I smelt perfume that was very familiar to me, it was the perfume that Rita always wore.  It only made me feel worse but I then felt a light touch on my face and then something that I find hard to explain but it was like I was being hugged from behind, it was something Rita used to do often whenever I was thinking about something, it was her way of letting me know she was there without intruding onto my thoughts.

The feeling that came over me was something akin to what I would feel each and every time we were in each others arms, somehow I just knew she was there right at the very time I needed her most.  The feeling held for sometime before I finally whispered “I love you, I miss you” then I felt another light touch on the cheek and then, nothing.

I went to bed early that night and hugged her pillow, I savoured the memories I had of her but amazingly the pain I had felt up until I felt I was being hugged had abated.  Was this the product of a pained mind desiring so much for one last moment with my love?

That morning I woke and as was my usual habit I went for a run and afterwards I jumped in the shower, came out and sat down with a coffee to watch the news.  Sitting next to the TV was a vase which, in the days Rita was still with me would always contain fresh flowers, I had not bothered since, in fact the place was a bit of a mess, not on my list of priorities I suppose just getting through each day was more a chore than anything else.

I looked at the vase for what must have been 20 minutes then got up and went down the street where I got some fresh flowers and came back putting them in the vase.  I don’t know why, I didn’t really care for them, it was just something I felt I had to do.

As I placed the Vase back next to the TV I saw out of the corner of my eye Rita standing in the corridor leading to the bedrooms, she was smiling but as I turned to her there was no one there.

I can’t say for sure Rita was there when I needed her the most or it was just my mind, who cares, it was what I needed, an extra moment.

Not a day goes past where I don’t think of her.  Not a day goes past where I don’t thank her for the time we shared, for the patience she showed in taking a rough man and making him believe in himself.  Not a day goes past where I don’t miss her, but life goes on, the pain has been replaced with the memories and every so often I feel her there with me, usually when I need it the most.