WRITER’S NOTE: Some people don’t believe in ghosts. They often believe that ghosts aren’t real. But I can tell you from personal experience that they do exist. This is a true story of a man my family used to know years ago.

Marty was a handyman and a personal friend of our former landlord, Melanie. He would always come by and fix our leaky faucets or toilets in the duplex we rented. He was a nice guy; I’d say that he was probably in his fifties and he had a scruffy appearance, such as old T-shirts and holes in his jeans, and he always sported a faded red ball cap. His scruffy grey stubble was showing his age, but his disposition was shown in his kind eyes and friendly personality. He was likable.

One chilly morning in December, Melanie came by our house. It was a week before Christmas and seeing her before the first of the month was surprising.

“Hey, before I go, have you seen Marty?” she asked.

“No, not lately,” I admitted, “Why? What’s going on?”

“I have been trying since yesterday to get hold of him and his phone keeps going straight to voicemail. He was supposed to show up for work today at one of my properties and never did,” Melanie replied. She looked very worried. “He usually keeps his phone charged until he needs to use it in case I call him to come work with me.”

I nodded, rubbing my chin in thought. “Well, if he does come by, I’ll be happy to have him give you a call,” I reassured her as she turned to go.

“Thanks, Amanda. I would certainly appreciate it,” Melanie replied. “See ya.”

“Later,” I responded as she left and shut the door.

My live-in boyfriend volunteered for the local fire department at the time and I filled him in, from Melanie’s visit to her concerns about Marty. He too thought that was weird and decided to talk to the assistant fire chief about it. He and a few firefighters formed a search party to find Marty. It was getting dark, but they continued their efforts until late into the evening. They eventually found Marty sometime later, dead in a desert bunker. The temperatures had dipped into the thirties during the night and Marty went into that bunker to get warm, but the bunkers were buildings with no insulation and he froze to death. It was said that he might have been there for a couple of days and his phone was not fully charged.

It was the day after Christmas when I was sitting on the living room sofa. My boyfriend’s brother Rick sat on the sofa across from me. Something in the old window behind him caught my eye. Whatever I was going to say to Rick caught in my throat and immediately died there.

“Ricky,” I murmured, “You need to take a look at this. Turn around.”

He turned to look at the window behind him. There was a perfect silhouette of an old man with a ball cap. I raced to the back door in the kitchen to see if someone was

standing there. There was nobody there; no man standing by the window, nobody

wearing a faded ball cap. When I returned to the living room, the silhouette was gone.

Did I imagine Marty’s ghost standing by the living room window? I knew I could not have; Rick was in the same room and saw it too. Not even the tree in the backyard could have made Marty’s shape. Today I still believe that was Marty making that shadow that cold December morning. I think he was there at the rear living room window,  just checking in on us and then he disappeared, saying his silent goodbye.

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