Grandpa's Ghost example essay topic

I've always believed in ghosts and spirits. Perhaps it was because it amused me, or perhaps it was because I've been stuffed with ghost stories ever since I was old enough to comprehend them. I've been around a lot of people who grew up in remote areas of the world. You know, the place where electricity doesn't exist, and running house water is just a myth. Well, anyway, I've heard many ghost stories from them, mostly drawn from their actual encounters and experiences.

These stories were pass on to me on many different occasions. Like say... around a campfire, a mid-night drive across towns, or just under the dim candlelight of my friends' basements. One of my friends's tories was about his dad. You see, back in those days when my friend's father was just teenager, water was a rare commodity.

At every dawn, he had to leave his home with two vases on either side of a stick on his shoulders to get drinkable water from the village's well. The walk was about two miles. People did not live close to each other in those days, they lived on their farm, and every house was quite far from each other. There wasn't any pavement, or cement street, roads were simply made out of rocks, and mud, and dirt. And the only mean of transportation was cows. Nevertheless, my friend's dad always stopped by his neighbor's house, the two boys grew up together and they " ve always walked alongside each other to get water.

When Mr. Shoe, my friend's dad, was fifteen, his friend died of malaria, so from then on; he had to walk to the well by himself. One day, while coming back from the well, Mr. Shoe heard running footsteps coming from behind him. So he stopped and turned around, no one was there. The footsteps then slowed down to a jog, and then to a walk, then it stopped next to him.

He was puzzled, but he wasn't scared, so he kept walking. The footstep started again, but this time it was next to him. The footstep's pace matched Mr. Shoe pace evenly as he walked down the street. The tall grass that was growing on either side of the street, he recalled, drooped down and turned purple that day.

It seemed dead and somehow... evil. The sun did not rise yet, and the moon still hung stubbornly on the cloudless night. But Mr. Shoe was not surprise, he has seen days like this. But never before had he been alone on this kind of dawn, his friend was always there, and they would talk about things and that made him feel better about being up on such a late day. His parents warned him about robbers and people who would steal anything to get a little money. He, too, have heard from others about people getting killed in the middle of the road, over a couple of vas and a worn out shirt.

Mr. Shoe was so worried about his safety that he had forgotten about the footsteps on the side of him. The day passed and he went on to work on the farm until it drew to an end. The next morning was bright, the sun peaked over the green mountains and bees and butterflies hovered around the flowers blooming from the grass. It was quite a difference from the day before. Suddenly, Mr. Shoe remembered about the footsteps, so he paused and listened for them. There was nothing besides the chirping of the birds and the rustlings of the tall, green grass.

It went on to be like this for a few days, everything was so beautiful and perfect. One day, Mr. Shoe woke up to a dark and damp dawn; it had been raining over night. As usual, he made his way down the muddy street, suddenly, the footsteps came back. He turned around, nothing. The footsteps again slowed down and stopped beside him. There were no footprints on the mud.

As Mr. Shoe walked, the footsteps also walked alongside him. All of a sudden, two men jumped out from the grass in front of him. One of them had a butcher knife in hand. They leaped forward; Mr. Shoe stepped back in shock.

Abruptly, the two men came to a stop; they looked at him in terror. One of them started to babble and both was sweating heavily. Their faces turned purple and they collapse on the ground in front of Mr. Shoe. He didn't know what to do but run for help.

The two men were recovered and imprisoned afterwards at the town. When asked why they passed out, the two men turned pale and told the people that they saw a boy's rotting body next to Mr. Shoe. He stood as though he was carrying something on his shoulder. There were worms and maggots digging on his flesh.

He was about in his teens. His face was yellow and deformed. Blood was running out of his ears and a hole on his chest. When shown a picture of Mr. Shoe's friend, the two men jumped and started acting very strangely.

They swore the ghost that they " ve seen looked just like the boy in the picture. The town received running water that summer. My friend's dad no longer had to travel far to get water. As for the footsteps, it never bothered him again. Mr. Shoe told us that he visited his friend's grave before he moved away to the city. The grave was located on an open grassy area at the family's farm.

Upon burning incense for his deceased friend, he heard laughter coming from the top of a tree. The branches grew over the grave and the friendly laughter came from the branch overhead the tombstone. Another ghost story that I thought was also very interesting came from within the family. My aunt, to be exact.

You see, my aunt is the kind of person who strongly believed in supernatural powers, bad and good lucks, palm readings, and spells to keep away evil spirits and such. I used to tease her about these things and she often was mad at me about it. I remember when I was around six; she told me a story that I will never forget. I have no grandparents, they all passed away long before I was born. The story that I'm about to tell occurred five years before my birth. My aunt is a very wealthy woman and her house is relatively big.

She lives with her husband and five of her children. My grandfather spent the latter part of his life living with her. She took care of him very well for she provided him with all of his needs. She told me that grandpa enjoyed tea a lot. Everyday he would sit at the wooden table and drink his tea; his eyes would gaze out the window at the garden and the kids playing on the street.

Grandpa died of old age with a cup of tea in his hand. When the people came and removed his body, they had to pull the cup from his grip. Respecting my grandfather, my aunt always left a teapot and a cup on the wooden table. About two weeks after his death, the government needed the plot of land that my grandfather was buried on, so his body had to be relocated.

My aunt did not want to rebury my grandfather, so his remains were cremated, and his ashes released to the wind. One night, while the rest of the family was asleep, my aunt went downstairs to close the chicken fence that she thought she forgot. While passing the wooden table in the living room, my aunt saw my grandfather's ghost sipping on a cup of tea. His ghost did not have any feet, and he was grayish clear. He had his legs crossed just the way he used to and he was staring out the window, his face seemed to be thinking hard.

Startled but respectful, my aunt remembered how much grandpa hated to be disturbed, so she walked outside to find out that the chicken fence was closed. She went back inside the house, when passing by grandpa's ghost; my aunt thanked him for closing the fence for her. Grandpa nodded. The next morning, the family went awoke to find an empty teapot, and ring of tea around the bottom of the cup on the table. She told the family what happened, and everyone believed her except my uncle. From then on, there was always a tea on the table, and no one was allowed to sit in the chair the ghost was sitting in.

One day, when my uncle was taking a nap, someone grabbed him by the shoulder and rocked it back and forth as though they was trying to wake him up. He did wake up, and it was grandpa's ghost that was the one rocking his shoulder. The ghost told him that there was no more tea in the teapot, so my uncle got up and boiled some tea. The ghost walked over to the wooden table and sat there staring out the window. When my uncle brought the tea up, my grandpa grabbed his wrist and shook it gently.

Then my grandpa thanked him. My uncle told me that the ghost's hand felt warm and comforting. From then on, the ghost seemed like a member of the family, as if grandpa never passed away. My cousins were frightened at first, but then they got used to the fact that their grandfather's ghost was just downstairs, sipping on a teacup. The year that I was born, my aunt and her family had to relocate because the government needed their land, too. With all of my aunt's wealth, and the money given to her by the government, my aunt bought an even bigger house.

Unfortunately, the wooden table fell off the truck during the move and was chipped to pieces by other vehicles, it was an old table. My aunt bought a prettier table for her new home and had tea ready on it just like she used to. But grandfather's ghost was never seen since. My aunt had people make an exact replica of the wooden table she used to have and even tried to collect the pieces from the last one. But no matter what she tried, grandpa's ghost never came back. Some people said that the ghost was probably sitting on the table when it fell, and was killed by traffic.

But how could a ghost be killed? Anyway, the government constructed a hotel on the land where my aunt's house used to be. Rumors went around saying that the hotel was haunted. It did not receive a lot of guests and was latter converted into an office building.

The company that ran it hit rock bottom and went bankrupt. Another company bought it and was also driven to the ground. Frustrated and embarrassed, the government later demolished the building and the plot of land became a park where kids played. Strangely, someone placed a wooden table in the park.

Some kids were playing hide and seek after dark and ran into a ghost sitting at it. The ghost waved at the kid, but they ran home and no one came to the park. Everyone was afraid so no one came to take care of the park. Therefore the park was converted into a cemetery.

Looking back at it, grandpa was deprived of his resting place... and it's ironic that the government's big project became one.