Carrie Link

FINDING THE NEEDLE

I was packing up my things yesterday and something on the bathroom floor caught my eye. As I bent down to take a closer look, I realized it was a sewing needle. Right there, on my bathroom floor, for no good reason whatsoever. I don't sew. Nobody in my house sews. And if I did sew, I would not do so in my bathroom. I don't know how that needle got in there, and everybody else that lives in my house claims ignorance, as well.

Must be the ghost, aka, Don Wilson.

Ever since my dad died 12 years ago he's haunted the four houses I've lived in. It's stuff like that, things disappearing then reappearing, weird things, and until yesterday, I hadn't realized many of them tend to be sharp objects.

He was always shouting out reprimands for careless regard of potential danger when he was alive. "WALK with those scissors!" "Always point them to the floor!" "Don't just reach your hand in a drawer without looking, you might slice it on a knife!"

When we first moved from house two to house three, my serrated-edged knife went missing. I figured it just got lost in the shuffle, and would eventually turn up. Six months later when it still hadn't, I bought a new one. The very next day the old one showed up in the knife drawer, right where it belonged all along, just lying there minding its own business like, "What? Who? Me? Yea, I'm back."

He once stole my entire set of keys. They were gone for weeks. I had the locks changed, duplicates made, finally was back in business and one day went to grab my purse and there they were, the original set, right next to my purse.

Woohoo recently claimed her money was missing (she keeps it in an oatmeal box - doesn't everyone?). We searched her room. We grew suspicious of every friend that had entered her room. That box was gone. About a week later she said, "Mom? My money is back - right where I always keep it. Don Wilson."

I wasn't missing a needle, but I'm pretty sure Don Wilson wanted me to find it anyway. He put it there for a reason.

When I picked it up off the floor I thought to myself, "How many emotions/beliefs do I drag around without meaning to? How many judgments aren't where they belong, just because they got swept up into some other drama, and never made their way back to their proper place?

It's time to tidy up.