Ghost Dada

My son first told me about his Ghost Dada just a few days after my husband killed himself. He was four at the time.

I don't believe in ghosts. I don't think I believe in ghosts. My son's words still made me very nervous. I asked my friends and family members about it. They said the sudden loss probably caused my son's imagination to believe these things as a way of coping. They told me not to be nervous.

A few days after my husband hung himself, my son told me his father was a ghost in our basement, and that he heard a voice telling him to come downstairs. My son did not know his father killed himself in our basement.

My son told me this matter-of-factly, as if I should have already known this information. He said it happened all the time, that he would suddenly hear his father's voice, and it was coming from the basement, and it was telling him to come downstairs.

We still live in the house in which my husband hung himself. We still live there because I don't believe in ghosts. Or I don't think I believe in ghosts.

But I think about moving all the time.

My son told me these things about his Ghost Dada, and then he didn't say anything else about it for over a year. I didn't ask about it for over a year.

Yesterday my now five year old son followed me down to the basement when I went down to find something buried in a storage box. I still don't ever feel comfortable in my basement. It took me several days to go down the stairs to do the laundry after my husband hung himself. At first I didn't go at all and then I went but gave the finger to the place he hung himself every time I went. Then I stopped giving the finger. Now I go down to the basement all the time in a normal way, but I still hate it.

My son stood behind me as I looked through a storage box of clothes and told me that his father is a ghost in our basement, and that he coughs in the morning, and that sometimes he says "I want to come back to the living."

My son told me it happens in his mind, that Ghost Dada talks to him, and sometimes Ghost Dada just coughs, and sometimes he says sad things. My son told me that my daughter hears these things too, she just doesn't tell me about it.

I asked my son if it bothered him, and he said no. He said it is just Ghost Dada telling him things. He told me Ghost Dada is not a bad ghost.

I don't believe in ghosts, or I don't think I believe in ghosts.

But I do believe in my children's Ghost Dada.