Shattered – A Ghost Story

I am not religious, so I don’t believe in heaven, or that my sister who passed away at the age of 23 is in a better place. I don’t proclaim to know where her energy went or if she is gone forever, but even if it doesn’t make sense, I like to think she’s out there somewhere. And I think she’s let me know she is.

Christine and I lived with 2 other girls in an apartment in Brentwood, California just a couple of years before she died. Shortly after she passed, my parents, Mike (my husband to be), and I went to her favorite Chinese restaurant on San Vicente. We were seated at a booth with a glass top over the tablecloth. Almost immediately after taking our seats, the glass began to crack. The cracking continued, and in just a few seconds, the entire glass tabletop was shattered into tiny pieces. I have no proof this was my sister, but the four of us, including my ever-so-skeptical husband felt it was.

A few years later, Mike and I hosted Christmas Eve in our new house for my entire family: three grandparents, aunt and uncle, aunt’s mother, cousin and wife, and brother in-law. Of course, as always since her passing, we missed my sister. We started on appetizers. My mom brought out a glass platter of stuffed mushrooms, and as soon as she put it down, it shattered. We didn’t dwell on it, and just kept going on with our festivities. After appetizers, as I whisked in the butter for the demi-glace sauce for our standing rib roast, our glass stove top shattered, completely. A few hours later, it was the coffee pot. All without any conceivable explanation, except the one my heart chooses to believe—my sister was with us that Christmas.