Text Box: The Harbinger by Mary Stella My only true ghost story isn't all that scary.  Perhaps that alone should frighten me. *g*  Almost 30 years ago, I stayed over at a friend's house after we'd gone out partying.  The next morning, I woke up shortly before the alarm sounded and rolled over to wake my friend.  A man was sitting on the floor by her head.  Dressed in a loosely-tucked in white shirt, khaki pants and loafers without socks, he was busily cutting the story and picture of a plane crash out of the newspaper.  I didn't recognize him, but he appeared to be in his early 30s with light brown, short hair.  I watched him for a moment and distinctly remember thinking, "I guess he's supposed to be there."  I then rolled over and went back to sleep.  A few minutes later, the alarm blared.  I turned back toward my friend and the man were gone.    

Text Box: I described the incident to her in detail.  She told me that this was not the first time she and her mother had 'sensed' someone and she asked me again to describe the visitor.  When I did, she brought out an old photograph.  It was the man that I'd seen.  He'd died years before, but in his life, he had been a close friend and 'suitor' of her mother.  My friend's father had died when she was a small child and years later, this man became her substitute dad.  She decided that he'd appeared as a benign warning that she should rethink her engagement.  I don't know whether he was right, but I agreed that his visit that morning was certainly benign.   —- Mary Stella