The Travelers

One of the parishioners shared this with me after Mass, Sunday. Her husband has been ill for awhile and is quite elderly. Twice now he has called for his wife, around 3 AM or so.

The first time she answered his call, he asked, "Do you see her?"

"Who?" she responded.

He continued, "There's a woman in the house, I did not see her face, but she has long hair and a poke-a-dot dress."

She became concerned that they might have an intruder in the home. Since he was in ill health, it fell to her to check. She went to all the rooms, even opening closets, with a skillet in hand if she needed it. There was no one. All the lights were on. The windows and doors were shut and locked. No one except themselves was in the small trailer home.

He must have been dreaming, she thought.

Another night it happened again. She answered his call.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "What is it?"

"Don't you see her?" he queried.

"See who?" she answered.

"Her!" he responded. Pointing he said, "Right there, she is standing right next to you."

"I see no one," the distressed woman answered.

"She is still wearing the yellow poke-a-dot dress. She has long hair, too. Are you sure you don't see her?"

Increasingly worried, she assured him, "J---, there is no one there."

"But I see her, all the same," he pleaded, "except for her face which is strangely blurred."

His doctor was called and the poor wife suspects that he is not getting enough oxygen. However, what makes the case increasingly peculiar is that his sisters and parents, prior to their passing, also reported strange people, invisible to the eyes of others, passing through their homes. The doctor himself said that he could not find any immediate medical cause for the sightings and then shared something in a personal way with her about such things. He explained that back in his home country, somewhere in Asia or India, the dying often reported strangers moving about around them. It was also not the first time that, as a doctor, he had heard about them from critically ill patients. He said that among the lore he had inherited, they were called "the travelers".

Could it be that there is a supernatural explanation for this? The old man was a fallen away Catholic. Could these be angelic spirits or those of ancesters trying to get him to make amends with God before leaving this world?