Grandpa's Orange Hat

After my parents got divorced when I was 11, my grandfather died. My mother and I moved in with my grandmother, as she was alone and my mother wanted to go back to school and needed financial help as well as someone to take care of me.

My grandfather and I were never very close, so I didn't know him well and was not familiar with his routines and quirks.

One winter night, I was out walking our neighbor's dog and had just put her back in the house and headed home. As I was walking across the yards, I saw an older man power-walking toward me wearing an orange winter hat with an abnormally large pom-pom on it. He was also wearing a pair of glasses that I recognized as being just like my grandfather's. He continued to walk past my house as I turned to unlock my door. I turned around one last time to look at this familiar stranger, but he wasn't there. I looked all around, up and down the street, at front doors, driveways, cars...nothing.

There was no physical way for him to have gone into a house that quickly, not only that, but I knew everyone in the neighborhood and knew that he was not a resident.

When I got inside, I told my mother that I had seen a man that looked just like grandpa, but he was gone. I said he was power-walking and the only reason I knew it wasn't grandpa was that he was wearing this ridiculous orange hat with a huge pom-pom on it. She turned white. She opened the coat closet next to me and said, "Like this one?" And she held an orange winter hat with an abnormally large pom-pom on top. We continued to talk about the event and I learned that my grandfather used to love to take long walks at night in the winter before bed.

- Julie, USA (June 2002)