Settle in children....

Sally will always hold a special place in my heart though I cannot tell you why. Perhaps because she was so playful even if it was sometimes inconvenient. Dark strands of hair always hung about her shoulders framing her young face of pale skin and startlingly blue eyes. Sally was only 8 or 9 as memory serves and she loved to run in the grass before I had met her. The most important thing to tell you about is that Sally is dead though it never kept her from wanting to visit.
We found Sally, or rather our youngest daughter found her, in a duplex we rented some years ago. They used to race each other up and down the hallway and laugh together. Sally was particularly fond of hiding our shoes when she was upset and wanted attention. At least, that was before she figured out that I could see and hear her. After she figured that out I had an almost constant companion whether I wanted her there or not. At least she was considerate enough to leave me alone in the bathroom.
Most nights she'd come tickle my feet when I was sleeping to wake me up so we could visit. She'd talk about how she couldn't wait for the Spring time and wanted to feel the warm breezes on her face again. It broke my heart to listen to her go on and on about what she wanted to do when she was 'done being grounded to the house'.
We really didn't talk about what she thought she was grounded for. Digging for too much personal information often leads to requests for help from the dead. Something I very much would like to avoid when I can. I never had the heart to tell her that she wasn't going to get to go outside ever again. I held her hand and offered words of encouragement that she should look for a way to move on but denial is a strong force in the minds of those no longer living. If she had been willing to accept what had happened to her (I always felt she died of a debilitating disease and had physically wasted away on the property long ago) she would be able to see her way forward to the next life. In a way, she chose to stay a little girl spiritually and it kept a veil of deception over her.
There are a lot of stories I could tell you about my time with her. About how she loved to sing late at night to the baby next door or when she got so mad that she shredded my wife's femenine hygiene products. But in the end, I'll choose to say that I will always feel sad that I couldn't help her move on and I feel like I left a scared child all alone in that duplex when we moved away.