Tribute To A Kitchen Ghost

There is an intermittent odor in the kitchen at our summer cottage that smells like something, well, fishy I guess is the only way to describe it.

It was there again this morning briefly, as if swept in by a breeze. Only, there is never a breeze. It always manifests out of still air, like invisible fog, and then fades.

I'll never forget the first time I encountered it 13 years ago. How I scrunched up my face in awed disgust: “What is that?” I asked my husband.

It was the winter after we were married and the first time he introduced me to this place many miles north of our Naples, Florida, home. And to its other inhabitant.

“It's sometimes in the upstairs bathroom, too,” my husband said, his expression wavering between humor and bafflement. His father had also smelled it, he added.

“What is it?” I persisted.

“Don't know,” he said. “But it's been here for years."

Maybe it's because I'm female, but I decided I knew what it was: another female, in spirit form. I asked my husband if he agreed, but he still said, “I don't know.”

A week later we left the cottage and stayed the night at my mother-in-law's. When my husband flipped open his suitcase, that same peculiar stench assaulted us. We had both kept our clothes in the same closet at the cottage, but only his had acquired the odor. I was even more convinced we were dealing with a ghost, but my husband remained non-committal.

I'd never encountered a ghost before, but I'd known people who had. A Spanish teacher in high school had often regaled us with the ornery escapades of the apparition in her home, which she didn't see, only heard. It banged on pipes and turned on water faucets but never caused any harm. Years later, a friend often told me about the male ghost who came and sat on the porch of his Naples beach cottage and never spoke.

So I've always thought...hoped ghosts were mostly benign. I admit I've asked our cottage ghost, if she should decide to show herself to please do it slowly--and preferably not in the dark or when my husband is gone, so she doesn't scare the daylights out of me. Unfortunately or fortunately, she hasn't appeared.

With each passing year her frequency and malodor have lessened. And my husband has noticed she makes herself known anymore only when I'm at the cottage, either with him or alone. I'm not really sure what she thinks of me, but I've come to believe her intentions toward him are protective and motherly.

This morning, I began thinking about what to make him for dinner and, swish, she was there. Another time, we were teasing each other in the kitchen and immediately the entire room reeked. Each time she manifests, it's as if to say she approves of our union. At least, I hope that's what it means.

Because, for awhile a year ago something here wasn't approving of me.

One day out of nowhere it was as if a jumbo jet had landed in our living room, but only I could smell it. For a week the exhaust fumes would appear out of nowhere and follow me around the cottage. At times they were so intense I was sure my husband and I were being poisoned.

I begged it to leave us alone. When it didn't, I asked my husband to have the furnace checked--which he did, but the furnace man couldn't smell anything and found nothing wrong. In the end, it was only after I left the cottage that it left, too.

Still, I feel blessed. I've always believed there is more to this life than what my five senses can physically ascertain. Now I have proof of that—even if it is proof only I trust.

Maybe that's best. It keeps me reliant on my own innate sense of things; strengthens my own capacity to recognize truth in spite of what others believe—to know that my nose just knows.

QUESTION: Do you trust in your own innate sense of things and, if not, why?

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Letting Go of Those I Love

It's not easy to be serene about something as serious as a needle biopsy, but I'm trying, since someone I love is refusing to have one, even though three different doctors--not to mention her family--have told her she should.

Believe me, it isn't as if I haven't tried in the past to guilt, scare, humiliate or nag people into doing what they didn't want or weren't ready to do, all because I thought it was best for them. And, of course, they got testy with me for trying to control them, so I got testy back--and more anxious and emotional, as did they.

In the case of my friend, I know I have to accept her choice. People have a right to treat their bodies as they wish, even if what they choose does appear on the surface to be harmful. I can't deny how helpless and afraid and sad I feel, but all I can do is trust in the value and rightness of her journey--get quiet and centered inside myself, so I'm ready and open to receive the peace and guidance I need.

Otherwise, I'll just make a mess of things.

Like I did two years ago, when I witnessed a turtle attempting to cross a 45-mph, six-lane road and then get hit by a car. The way the poor thing tossed and rolled, he looked like a hubcap flung loose from a wheel, so I was stunned when I stopped and discovered he was still alive and didn't even look harmed.

I carried him to a nearby, undeveloped property, and just before I set him down, I didn't pay attention to his tiny head on that giraffe neck as it snaked out and snapped hold of my finger. His bite was so excruciating that I let him go, but he clung to my finger and dangled in the air. When he finally dropped to the grass, I was still in a frantic haze, but I picked him up and put him further away from the road.

Looking back, I made a lot of mistakes that were harmful to that turtle and myself. I didn't protect my hands from his mouth--or put him on the ground while he was still attached to my finger--so I may have added to injuries that I couldn't see, when I let him drop. I also didn't have the sense to take him to The Conservancy's wildlife clinic--or even to a vet. Either would have been more sane than putting him in that field.

I made these mistakes because I charged in on impulse, instead of first pausing, calming down and asking for guidance.

But the other day, after the third doctor told my friend why she needed a needle biopsy, that a formation in her breast looked suspicious and could be cancer--and yet she still said she didn't want it tested--I didn't charge in on impulse. When we were alone, I looked her in the eye and repeated what the doctor had said, to make sure she truly understood. I told her I had the name of another surgeon she could see, if she wanted another opinion--and that I only wanted her to have the biopsy for the same reason she would want me to have one, if I were in her shoes.

My friend said she did understand, didn't need another opinion, and preferred not to talk about it anymore.  But instead of doing what I have often done, which is to shift up to convince-her-now-or-else gear, something inside me understood I had done all I could; I had to let it go.

Even as I write this I am shaking my head and sighing. It's my physical way of surrendering my friend--to God and to herself and to her own dignity to do with her life as she wishes.

This is between the two of them now, and I have no right to interfere with that. All I can do is to try to have some serenity and faith that this is what's best for my friend, whatever the outcome.

After all, it's what I would want her to do for me.

QUESTION: How do you respond when those you love don't do what you think is best for them?

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