Colorado Ghost Stories. Antonio Boone's Garcez

      Harold is seated while Clayton stands beside his partner.

      Homosexuality was not looked upon as negatively then, as it can be today. People knew about it, and just accepted such things as two women or two men living together as God’s plan. Back then we had other more important things to concern ourselves with like making a living from the land. It was unusual to see two men living together as a couple, but you know, I knew that there were other couples like my brother and Clayton who owned property in the area, because Clayton would tell us about them.

      Our family lived acres away from most of our neighbors, separated by hills, and even mountains, so we didn’t get to have much contact with each other. Our time was spent doing the usual chores that come with trying to make a living from the land. Most of us didn’t have the time to spend gossiping about other families.

      I remember when, before Harold got the polio, he and Clayton visited Denver for a few months. Clayton was an architect by trade, and helped design the Denver Club building in downtown Denver. With the money from this project they purchased a home in Grand Junction. After my brother’s death, Clayton returned to Grand Junction and eventually sold their house, then moved to Denver.

      During the time when my brother was ill in bed, I remember him telling us about the different people who he had seen standing by his bed. These people, he told us, were relatives of ours, who had past away years before. He would point out to us where in the room they were standing, what they were wearing and some- times, what they would be saying. My mother and father knew, but didn’t tell my sister and me until after my brother’s death, that seeing the dead was a sign that he himself was not going to survive for much longer.

      During his funeral, and after his burial, Clayton was very sad. Right before Clayton moved away, he gave my mother all of my brother’s belongings and presented my father with Harold’s rifle and belt buckle. A year after Clayton moved away to Denver, we received a few letters from Clayton, but eventually the letters stopped coming. I don’t know what ever happened to him.

      One day, while Rosella and I were outside washing clothes, Rosella came up to me and said, “Olivia, I heard Harold calling me last night.” I answered, “What do you mean?” Then she told me that she had been seeing our brother’s spirit walking about the bedroom, and once even saw him staring at the front door. She was too upset to tell anyone, but she decided to confide in me be- cause she felt it was time to do so.

      I was caught by surprise by my sister’s information and I told her that I believed what she was saying, but I didn’t think it was necessary for her to keep it to herself. She needed to tell our parents about this. That evening, while the two of us with our parents were seated at the dinner table, Rosella broke down and described to us what she had seen.

      My father took this news the hardest. He wept a little and then told us that he believed my sister, because he had also seen my brother’s spirit standing a short distance away from where he was working, building a wall behind the house. Something caused my father to look in the direction of the yard, and there he spotted his son’s spirit, standing and looking straight at my father.

      “Harold didn’t say anything, he just stood in place,” father told us. Father asked him, “Son, is that you, is it you son?” Then, my brother’s image slowly faded away. The only ones in our family who didn’t get a visit from my brother were my mother and me. That would change a few years later, when I was in my twenties and was about to give birth to my only child, a daughter.

      It was a difficult birth, and as soon as my daughter was born, I passed out from all the loss of blood and stress. It took me a long time to recover, but after I did, a few days later I again landed back in bed with a terrible series of headaches. These headaches were the worst you could ever imagine. Day after day I’d suffer with migraines. They were terrible.

      During one of theses headaches, I was in so much pain that I remember crying out, “Lord, I can’t take this any longer, take me with you!” After having said this, I remember laying on my right side in bed, staring with tear-filled eyes, at my infant daughter. Just then, I first sensed the presence, hearing the footsteps of someone walking in the room. I turned my eyes to look at the door and I saw my brother slowly walking towards me! I was overcome, not with fear, but with joy. Even though I was unable to move, even a finger, I knew my brother was in the room with me.

      Strangely, as soon as he reached my bed, he held out his hand and placed it on my forehead. At first I felt coldness, then immediate warmth spread from my head to my shoulders. I closed my eyes and whispered, “Thank you Harold, my dear brother, thank you.” The terrible headache pain disappeared. I remember falling asleep and waking up when my husband came into the room and sat on the bed and called my name. Since that day, I haven’t ever had another headache episode. I really haven’t, the headaches have never returned.

      As my daughter grew, I remember, at the age of six or seven that she once began talking and playing with an imaginary play- mate she named, “Uncle man.” Because she was so young and precocious I didn’t think much of this, and I didn’t question her regarding her playmate, until she reached her teen years, when she brought up the subject of her imaginary playmate once again.

      She mentioned to me if I remembered the playmate she had had when she was younger, and I answered, “Yes, I do remember you telling me once or twice about him.” She answered, “Well Mother, he told me he was your brother and that he was always going to be your brother.” I answered, “Do you mean to say that you were talking with your Uncle Harold?” “Yes, yes Mother, that’s who he was. It was Uncle Harold.”

      My immediate response was to not believe my daughter, but she was now old enough to know right from wrong, and she was very serious about this. I looked her straight in her eyes and asked, “You are not lying to me you actually were talking with my brother?” “Yes, yes I was, but somehow I knew, even as a little girl that I would have gotten into trouble if I were to keep bringing him up time after time. Anyway, he didn’t visit me very often, just maybe two or three times total.”

      That conversation with my daughter took place many years ago, and in 1976, my daughter died of breast cancer. She was my only child. Before her death, during my prayers, I asked my brother’s spirit to come and take my daughter, his niece’s soul, with him to Heaven. My daughter died a peaceful death, and I would tell you more about this, but what happened was very personal and beautiful. I will keep this as my own secret, between my daughter and me. My husband died eight years later in 1984.

      Because of all the examples of love and the connection that I’ve seen in my life with my parents, my family and on a personal level, I have no doubt that the spirits of our family members will continue to help us when we need them the most. I’m aware that my time will not last too much more than a few more years, it might end earlier than that. I have a peace that has carried