"Then He Was Gone"

Lone Pine Ranch, my home, was built in 1950. I currently live there with my family. Despite its age, there has been little upkeep or maintenance.  It stands on pier blocks, has no insulation, a sheet of tin for a roof and the mice roam freely throughout. I love my home.

I was raised in a similar structure on Star Thistle Ranch. My mother would bring home dying calves from the dairy farm up the road. She often placed an ailing newborn calf on a pile of straw in our laundry room, located next to the kitchen. In the same kitchen where she prepared meals, my mother prepared bottles for the calf. She would nurture and care for the calves. Within a matter of days we would peek into the laundry room to discover a standing, healthy calf. My mother would then put that “hopeless” calf in the back of her station wagon and return it to the dairy farm. Our family dwelling was like a revolving door of sorts, always open for visitors and ill animals.

This story takes place on Lone Pine Ranch. I was eight months pregnant, sitting in bed reading one night in October.  It was 11:00 p.m. My husband was away on a business trip. A fierce storm crashed against my dated aluminum-framed windows. I thought to myself, “Will the power go out again?” Having moved here just three months prior, I hardly felt comfortable calling one of my neighbors at this hour.

When we bought the ranch it came with a portable generator. In my present state, I was not up to venturing into the downpour to start it. The generator was an old model and when running, it created the noise of a locomotive in our living room.

I remained in bed hoping the heater and lights would continue. Suddenly, I felt cold and a chill raced across my body. Something did not feel right. At this point, I walked down the dark hallway toward the front of the house.

I tiptoed into the kitchen area and stood at the sink near the stove light. I blinked several times, put my head into my hands, rubbed my eyes and looked again. I asked myself, “Who is that man sitting on my couch?” 

My eight-month pregnant form stood frozen in terror. Someone entered my home to get out of the storm. Why my home? Perhaps because I, like my mother, have an open-door policy for our friends and animals in need.

Since we live 40 minutes from town, I wondered how the man managed to cover the long distance to my home. What should I do? Still petrified in fear, I could barely breathe. The man did not stir. Did he realize I was standing just 30 feet behind him? He appeared to be relaxing, even sleeping.

I took a deep breath, moving several steps toward him. He was a gentleman, appearing to be in his mid-60’s. His hair and beard were white. He wore a large-squared, red, Pendleton-style long-sleeved shirt with blue denim trousers. His brown leather boots were lace-up style.

His hands were folded on his lap, his long legs extended onto my coffee table, one crossed over the other. His eyes remained closed. Was it my elderly neighbor? His fragile body surely would have a difficult time making the long walk to my home.

I walked closer to this kind-faced man, noticing something more astounding. Reality immediately took the place of my uncertainty. I could see through him.

I didn’t give the spirit a chance to deliver his message. I just completed the last two years of my energy-balancing studies during which, emphasis is placed on developing a better understanding of the greater beyond. I was incapable of moving beyond my fear.

 Next, I did what I was taught in my training program. I called on the spirit guide(s) of this man to bring him home to the spirit world. I requested the entity leave at once. In an instant, he sailed out the large window over my front deck towards the east and then he was gone.

Almost four years later, I attended a gathering at a neighboring home. I had not visited this home before. A photograph on the wall stunned me. It was an older gentleman whose hair and beard were white. The headshot photograph on the wall propelled me backward.

I asked a woman standing near, if she knew the man in the photograph. She told me it was the home owner’s father. Having met the owner eight months prior, he told me his father passed away several years ago. The resemblance between the man in the photograph and the presence sitting in my living room that rainy night was shocking.

Since then, I have called upon this spirit in times when anxiety sets in while I’m working my ranch. I wonder if on that cold, stormy night he was trying to give me a message. I feel it is him who helps me through the seemingly impossible difficulties on my ranch.

Situations, whether it is a dying animal or a broken water line, are resolved without my being capable of knowing the outcome. Through this sighting, I learned to trust assistance, in one form or another is merely a thought away.

To this day I think about him. I learned spirits do appear in visible form and we can communicate with them through our thoughts. This gentleman was comfortable enough in my home to fall asleep with his legs on my coffee table. Did he visit my home before I moved here, when he was alive? 

The spirit came to my home, however, not knowing why he was there, I sent him away. Perhaps at some future time he will reappear. Most often late at night, I stand in my kitchen waiting for the man who watches over us on Lone Pine Ranch.