Story time

I believe in ghosts.

I believe in the ghosts of things that once were, and that will be, and that are still here, but not quite.

Most of you might not know that I work at a retirement home- Ashford/Highland Glen. (Shoutout to Sabrina. :))

Most of you might not know that I spend my work shifts taking care of people that can't quite care for themselves, and that even though it's one of the hardest things I'll ever do, it's also one of the most rewarding. I work in a memory care unit, and, as such, I work with people that are in any stage of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or any age-induced mental impairment.

Most of you might not know that these people are the purest and sweetest souls that I've ever had the opportunity to meet.

They're also the reason that I believe in ghosts.

I've held the hand of a dying woman before, and I held her hand after she had passed, and told her that I love her. (Present tense.)

And the story I want to tell is funny, but it also makes me think- which is the best quality of a story, in my opinion.

So, a little background. On a normal day, I start work at 2:30, meaning I go straight from school, and I usually don't get home until around 11:00 at night. The shifts are long, and tiring, and by 9:30, I usually just want to cry. But that's cool.

On one particular night, around 10:00, we were all exhausted and ready to go home, when our pagers started going off- letting us know that there was a call light going off. This was a normal occurs nice, and I stood up to answer it, but that's when I noticed that it was coming from an empty room- one who's occupant had passed away a few weeks early. Weird.

The woman who had lived in that room was one of the residents I was closest to. She was tiny, weighing only around 60 pounds when she died, but her mind was surprisingly clear, and I loved talking to her. Needless to say, it freaked me out that an alarm was going off from her room.

I forced my coworker to come with me, and we walked down the hall to her room, with our iPhone flashlights on, and saw a figure in the corner of my room. I literally almost peed my pants, man. We were both silent until we turned on the light and saw one of our other residents standing in the corner, tugging on the call light. She was a wanderer, and it was common to find her in somebody else's room, but this one really freaked us out. Imagine walking into a pitch black room and seeing somebody in the corner... Yeah. Bad night.

But it made me think. For those of you that don't have experience with Alzheimer's, it's a destroying disease. It turns healthy people into people with hardly any recollection of their surroundings or even their family. And it's heartbreaking. Their former selves are like ghosts, and as sad as it is, some of the people I work with are no longer who they used to be, even in the slightest. That's why it's hard for their families to visit them- because it isn't truly their mom, or their dad, it's a ghost. So, yeah. I believe in ghosts. Maybe not physical, literal ghosts, but the ghosts of who people once were, and the ghosts that are now occupying their bodies, only a trace of who they used to be remaining.