I love a good story, especially ghost stories. Perhaps it’s because my family had its own set of ghosts that I’m so intrigued by them. My father had a special name for the ghost in our family – “Mr. Toops.” Whenever the back door flew open by itself, Dad would always say “Come on in, Mr. Toops.”
We never thought much about my father’s invitation because Dad was a little silly at times. Later we found out that Mr. Toops was a real person, a man who lived next door to my father’s family.
Mr. Toops was hard of hearing, and he often walked right in the back door, figuring it was a waste of time to knock and wait for somebody to yell “come in.” My Grandmother Marguerite would see him standing there and say “Come on in, Mr. Toops,” and the line stuck through the next two generations.
There were plenty of other ghost sightings in the Hebert family – my grandmother claimed she often saw a faint image of a man standing near the edges of family functions. She wasn’t afraid of the Gray Man, as she called him, and neither were we.
She claimed her ability to see him was because she was born with a veil. Near the turn of the century, almost all births were at home. Marguerite was no exception; and when she was born at home in New Orleans’ mystical French Quarter, her birth was something special.
Marguerite was born with a “veil,” part of the amniotic sac that can partially cover the face of the child. It’s not common, but midwives believed that a child born with the veil had special powers and could see ghosts and into the future.
My grandmother said her mother kept the “veil” in a sealed jar, but someone stole it, and she believed the veil was headed for a voodoo ceremony. Despite the loss of the veil, for all her life, my grandmother had the ability to see and know things before they happened.
My mother’s father also had the gift of second sight and sensed when something was about to happen, from the culmination of a business deal to knowing someone was coming to visit.
From those two, I developed an insatiable curiosity about things beyond what we can see.
Whenever I hear a story about someone having a sixth sense, I want to know every detail, and that’s why I bent my brother’s ear the other night.
Johnny recently had an encounter with someone who could tell the future. He was visiting with a nun in Louisiana, one who supposedly has the gift to sense when things are going to happen and, in some cases, to heal people. She relayed to my brother that he needed to watch his blood pressure.
Just a few days earlier, my brother had a full physical, and he checked out fit as a fiddle. But while exercising, he over-exerted himself and developed a two-week long headache.
The doctor told him his blood pressure went through the roof, and he suddenly remembered the nun’s prediction.
My next phone call to my brother will be to see if he can introduce me to this special nun. Perhaps she’ll know if there’s any hope one day I’ll develop a sixth sense like my grandparents.
It sure would be nice to know who’s about to knock on the back door.
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.