Throughout my life, I've had encounters with the spirits of the dead. Some were mysterious, others positive, and others downright terrifying. I've decided to tell the story of my first and most famous encounter (in my family) with a ghost.
When I was four years old, my maternal grandfather, or "Papa", as I called him, died. He and I were very close and I loved him dearly. However, due to how young I was, the concept of death and its finality didn't really register. That dramatically changed three years later, when I fell into a depression over his death. I would sob myself to sleep at night, go into funks for no reason, or burst into tears at the mere thought of him. My family tried to comfort me, but for the most part, I was inconsolable.
As a result, I triggered a poltergeist haunting in my home. Nothing malicious, but to a believer in the supernatural, definitely significant. TV channels would change on their own, overhead lamps would swing in circles (not violently, mind you,) and twice my bedroom door opened on its own. The final incident is the most important. Before, I had chalked it up to my parents or cat. But the second time, a peculiar, familiar calm washed over me. That's when the realization hit me; in my opinion, Papa was trying to relieve my grief by symbolically saying. "Let go; I'm still here." And I did.
And as if someone had flipped a light switch, the activity stopped.