One lovely October, I spoke in a small high school and told a few ghost stories. Afterward I was led into a side room for a conference with the math teacher. He had something he wanted to share and her is his story:

My religious group holds weekly sacramental meetings.

Last week I was up at Norfolk attending one of the meetings. In that group is a fine man. George Grey, one of the most respected men of the community, George has had an interest in young people for a long time. He even "adopted" a teenage boy whose parents had been killed in a car accident on Highway 275.

George spoke in the meeting of an unusual experience during the week. He said to the group, "As you know, Larry came to live with us two years ago." He nodded to Larry who was a new member of the group. "And, as you know, Larry has had troubles since his parents died. He has had run-ins with drugs and so on. It was pretty hard for all of us for awhile there, wasn't it Larry?"

Larry smiled. His troubles were well known to Norfolk people.

"But now this is past," George went on, "and Larry is turning out to be a fine young man.

"Well, this last Monday I was home in the afternoon. I stepped out on the back porch and looked off across the yard. As you know, this has been a glorious fall. Our marigolds have been doing better than they did all summer.

"I stepped out on the back porch, walked out in the yard and was suddenly aware that somebody was behind me--between me and the house. I turned around and looked, and here was a lady, all nicely dressed up, standing on the back step where I had just been!

"I walked toward her and introduced myself, asking what I could do for her, and she simply smiled and said, 'Thank you for what you have done for Larry.' Then she faded away."

George said, "I swallowed a couple of times, and ran around to the other door to get into the house to call Larry at the lumber yard. I told Larry what had happened. He asked me a lot of questions. I told him what she was wearing, nearly as I could remember."

"That was Mom!" Larry said. "She wore that dress the day she died."

We all turned and looked at Larry and he said it was all true. "That was the way it was," he said.