<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div dir="auto"><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 42px;"><span style="line-height: 42px;"><font face="Helvetica">Ghosts</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 42px;"><span style="line-height: 42px;"><font face="Helvetica">Once when my girls were small <br>and we were decorating the porch with cobwebs <br>and jack-o-lanterns, they asked about the altar I had set up inside— <br>the photos of their grandfathers and aunts and uncles, <br>the tea-lights, the Virgin of Guadalupe on a tall glass jar. <br><br>“This time of year,” I say, “the veil is thin between the worlds. <br>Sometimes those who’ve passed can come back to visit. <br>So we make them welcome.”</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 42px;"><span style="line-height: 42px;"><font face="Helvetica">“Like ghosts?” they ask as we hang two <br>sheet-draped Styrofoam balls from the corners <br>of the front porch eaves. <br>“Yes, we can call them ghosts.” </font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 42px;"><span style="line-height: 42px;"><font face="Helvetica">Next morning, the first frost of the season <br>ices our neighborhood roofs and the hills beyond. <br>My girls pull on their jackets and head to school, <br>their breath before them in small puffs. </font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 42px;"><span style="line-height: 42px;"><font face="Helvetica">“Look,” one of them says, “we’re making ghosts!”<br> And another, “Are there ghosts inside us?”<br>And the third, “Let’s walk our ghosts to school.” </font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 42px;"><span style="line-height: 42px;"><font face="Helvetica">I think about that long ago autumn morning, <br>the photos on the altar multiplying each year, <br>and wonder whose ghosts I carry inside, <br>who is walking with me, even now.</font></span></p><font face="Helvetica"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 32.200001px;"> - Terry Ehret</span><br id="lineBreakAtBeginningOfSignature"></font><div dir="ltr"><div><font face="Helvetica"><br></font></div><div><br></div></div></div></body></html>