The Gift

Taken from 'Ghost Stories,' by Jo-Anne Christensen


     The Gift


     Dawn Scott considered herself fortunate because not only was she in love, but her father thought highly of her boyfriend as well.  It could be because her father also had a close relationship with his own father-in-law.  In fact, before he died, Dawn's grandfather had given her father a special gift; a pocket knife.  "My father treasured it with all his might," wrote Dawn.  "Wherever he went, the knife would be right along there with him."

     During the winter of 88, the knife went missing and could not be found.  "My boyfriend and my father liked one another very much," Dawn explained, "and to please my father was something my boyfriend always like to do."  So he went to the wharf and searched, but found nothing.  Dawn's father thanked him for the attempt.

     Two months later, Dawn's boyfriend was killed in a terrible car accident.  Her entire family shared her grief, particularly her father, who felt he had lost a good friend.

     Two weeks later, Dawn and her mother were awakened by her father's screams.  His face was white, and he was shaken up.  He revealed that Dawn's boyfriend had come to visit him while he slept.  He sat down on the edge of the bed and heard him as he said his goodbyes.

     "My mother tried telling him it was just a dream, just nonsense.  But my father wouldn't listen," Dawn wrote.  And then he told them something even more unbelievable.  "He finally said...very calmly and serenely...that my boyfriend had returned his pocket knife."

     Dawn and her mother thought that her father was so upset that he was also delusional.  But suddenly, he turned his closed palm-up and opened his fingers.  Dawn will never forget what she saw.  "In his hand lay the pocket knife my grandpa had given my father as a gift before he died."

     Returning the treasure, and thereby performing one final favour, was a gesture of friendship extended from beyond the grave.