by Andy Leheny
It’s been almost 18 years since that cold December night when the possibility that the supernatural had entered our home, but not through the sighting of an opaque spirit wandering through an upstairs hallway, but manifested by the simple ringing of a telephone.
We used to live near Rock Island, IL. and often visited a truly memorable cemetery named Chippiannock, which I understood in the language of those early native Americans meant “Village of the Dead.” Although most would not choose having hundreds of departed souls as neighbors, we did not object. To us, Chippiannock was a marvel to explore, from the actual anchor which serves as the tombstone of a ship’s captain, to the fragile-looking, yet stone crib, mourning the loss of an infant ages ago, and all the other tributes to the lives of all those lifeless bodies, or ashes and bones, which now reside there. It is not so much that Chippiannock Cemetery draws us to visit, but that the souls who perhaps still linger there deserve our respect for the joys and tragedies of the lives they lived.
We visited and explored Chippiannock rather often, driving through to look at generations old tombstones and other monuments to the dead. For several Memorial days we took flowers to Chippiannock, with our young son, Noah, as he helped us place these small simple gifts on selected graves.
Our family’s respect for the dead took on a more personal significance when almost 18 years ago now Becky’s 57-year-old brother, Roy, suddenly died. It was hard to imagine Roy not alive. He was a big, robust man, with a gentle soul, who lived in Arizona with his wife, Casilda, and two young adult daughters, Tavya and Sarah. When his big, strong right hand grasped mine in a handshake, it fully enveloped it and his firm grip seemed to offer genuine friendship and good will.
It was two days after Roy’s burial, well after midnight, when our phone rang, interrupting our sleep. I quickly answered the phone, fearing another emergency.
“Hello”, I answered, waiting a few seconds but not getting a response. “Hello”, I said loud.
”Hello,” I said, louder yet. No answer and I hung up.
I wasn’t in the mood for a crank call, not with Becky so understandably upset over Roy’s death. The phone rang again. I quickly answered it.
“Hello,” I now said angrily. But still no response.
“Who is this?”, I asked. Yet I heard no voice, not even a breath..
I hung up again. Over the next hour the crank calls continued, and my anger reached the boiling point. As I quickly answered each time the phone rang, I vehemently cursed the unknown caller. It was then that my angry words woke Becky up. I told her about the crank calls.
“Did you try dialing ‘star 69’?” Becky asked.
That’s right, I thought, I should dial star 69. It gives you the last number which called your phone. I dialed it. The number repeated back to me seemed familiar. I showed it to Becky.
She reached into our nightstand drawer and pulled out her address book. She scanned a few pages and then stopped, surprised.
“Andy,” she said. “It’s Roy’s phone number.”
I tried to think of some reason behind these calls. Then it dawned on me. Maybe for some reason Roy’s wife needed help.
“Maybe it’s Casilda,” I told Becky. “Maybe she’s trying to contact us.”
So despite it being 2 a.m. at her Arizona home, we called Casilda. We explained about the calls we received and shared we were genuinely concerned about her and her daughters.
But she shared no one from her home had tried to call us. They couldn’t explain what happened. We shared our goodbyes and hung up. There were no more calls that evening.
Perhaps there is a logical explanation for those unusual phone calls. Electronics gone astray. The magnetic field of the Earth. Some rational explanation. Perhaps most would believe they were simply crank phone calls. But to others, it may have been a message from a brother to a sister. A message that there is something, or perhaps some place, greater than death.
Choices may be governed by logic. Choices may be governed by faith. Years later we would move to the small rural community of Charlotte, Iowa. Prior to our move to Charlotte, Iowa, as we continued our Chippiannock visits, we wondered to ourselves if each shadow we saw was a departed soul, and if the sound of every broken twig was the approach of the undead.
But in Charlotte we watched and wondered from a new venue. From the backyard of our Iowa home, we could look beyond the ocean of plowed corn fields, to a small country cemetery in the far distance. It was the cemetery of unadorned nameless graves for the residents of the former Clinton County Home for the Poor.
So there we would stare at night into the star-filled country, moonlit sky, and think often of the souls who were our neighbors in Rock Island, and of these poor souls who had become our neighbors. We would sit on our back porch, as the cool night breezes drifted past, and wonder about cemeteries, both grand and plain, and question if the consistent ringing of a phone had some connection to our neighbors then and now. Perhaps, we wondered, whether a cemetery is somewhat like a window, allowing one to stare from life into the murky unknown of Death. And if that is true, is the reverse also true? That those souls who have passed on can similarly look back from their spiritual world into ours of flesh and blood, and breath and life.
We wondered if on that December night the souls of Chippiannock offered a simple act of kindness to a new gentle traveler to their world, beckoning to him, sharing “we know your sister well, Roy. She’s a kind person and she is nearby, ” And somehow those souls engaged the magic which surrounds both life and death, and a ringing phone carried a voiceless message from a brother to his sister. Permitting Roy’s strong hands to navigate their way between life and death, and to gently rest upon his sister’s heart, offering solace. Confirming that the mystery of love is far stronger than the reality of death.
On the next Memorial Day I drove Becky and Noah to the cemetery for the poor. We placed a modest bouquet of flowers at the home of our new neighbors.
Who knows the true power of a simple act of kindness?
-end-
The Focus 