Leslie Kean writes in Surviving Death: “Pat was an attorney and lived with her husband, Mark, and twelve-year-old son Chris. Her mother lived nearby. Only a short time before she contacted me, she learned that her son had been having conversations with a ‘ghost’ he identified as that of the woman who had been the previous owner of their home. She also learned that these almost daily conversations had been going on for well over a year.
“Since moving into the house, Pat, as well as her husband, her mother (on visits), and more frequently her son Chris, had seen an apparition appearing and disappearing in the house. The initial sightings had come shortly after they moved in, when Chris was eleven. They saw the apparition of an elderly woman walking through the living room, typically toward the stairs. In a number of instances, the figure waved at the them before disappearing a few seconds later.
“Pat had grown up in a family environment that acknowledged and even discussed psychic experience, and she was not afraid of the apparition. Still, she didn’t tell the other family members about seeing it until after her son had spoken up. Nor had her mother or husband told any other family member about their own experience.
“Things came to a head when Chris began talking about the origins of some of the antique furniture, and specifically dolls, in the collection of the former homeowner that were still in the house. When Pat asked if Chris had found some kind of diary or letters describing the items and their stories—something they’d been looking for throughout the house since they moved in—Christ simply replied, ‘Lois told me.’
"Who’s Lois?" asked Pat.
"You know, Lois—the ghost you, Dad, and Grandma have been seeing since we moved in.
"How do you know we’d been seeing a ghost?"
"Lois told me.
Then Chris told his mother that Lois "had appeared to him every day since the first time he saw her, when he waved back at the figure he saw. He said that the woman did not disappear once he waved at her, but rather approached him and began communicating.
Kean writes: “I was quite excited to interview the family and observe the environment, especially since Pat stated that Chris was able to get verifiable information from Lois. This is a rarity when it comes to apparition cases. Apparently Lois not only spoke with Chris, but she also watched television quite a bit with him (and even, he said, helped him with his homework).
“Pat arranged for me to have lunch with the therapist who Pat had asked to talk with Chris. The therapist admitted he was an agnostic when it came to ghosts, but told me he was convinced that Chris was well adjusted, incredibly mature for his age and not prone to making things up, consciously or otherwise. If fact, he said, that if his other clients were as well adjusted as Chris, they wouldn’t need therapy at all. While based only on a single session, he commented that it seemed the boy’s relationships with his parents and grandmother were all very good.”
Kean describes her visit to the house as follows: “Pat and her mother said they had seen the figure for fleeting moments, and she always appeared as an elderly woman. Chris, on the other hand, told me himself that he had been seeing her almost every day for more than a year and a half, since that first time he waved back at her. He told us she didn’t always appear as an old woman. Lois often shifted her appearance, looking like a teenager, a six-year-old, a woman in her thirties, and sometimes middle-aged. When I asked him about her clothes, Chris said they changed all the time. Pat and her mother also admitted to seeing Lois wearing different clothing, even though she was always the same elderly woman when they saw her." Kean felt this was significant, "as was the appearance of Lois at different ages. Changing clothing and even changing ages, especially when coupled with interaction and communication, is an indicator of self-awareness and consciousness.”
After walking through the house, Kean writes, “We ended up in the living room and sat down in a semicircle facing Chris, to ask Lois some questions. Chris was seated next to an empty easy chair he identified as Lois’s favorite spot to sit. According to the boy, she was sitting right there, although no one else could see her.
Kean writes that she asked Lois how she “appeared in a form that people could see—how was that possible? Through Chris, Lois said she believed she did not have a ‘form.’ She believed she was some kind of ‘ball of energy’ that was able to communicate by ‘projecting her thoughts’ to others. These thoughts included visual and verbal information that she would ‘project into the minds of others’ so they would ‘see’ and ‘hear’ her as if she were really there.
Kean asked her why she "was Lois appearing in different forms and clothing?”
"Because that’s how she felt that day," Chris replied.
Kean also asked Lois: “why she was still hanging around her old house, why she had not passed on. The answer was that she had many parties in her life, and hadn’t been an avid churchgoer. A believer in heaven and hell, she thought too much partying and not enough church might send her to hell, so she figured, why take a chance? From her deathbed in the hospital, she focused on being back at home. When she felt herself slipping away, the next thing she knew she was in her house.
After Kean asked Lois if she had any questions, Chris looked at the empty chair and then told Kean about what she and the two persons accompanying her on this visit had talked about during their drive to the house.
After looking over to the chair again, Chris said a bit sheepishly: "You’re probably not going
to like this, but Lois wanted to make sure you weren’t bringing blasters to get
rid of her, so she hitched a ride with you here and eavesdropped on your conversation."
Kean writes: “Chris continued to see Lois on a daily basis for a while, but then lost interest as he grew up and discovered (and was discovered by) real girls. However, I was informed that Lois continued to help him with schoolwork, and even offered advice about his girlfriends. When last I spoke with Pat, Lois was still in the house, still seen on occasion by members of the family, and still apparently happy to be earthbound in her lifetime home.”
Leslie Kean, Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife (Three Rivers Press, 2017).
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