Here's my "ghost" story:
First, let me set it up with the context. Sidewalker is a term from Therapeutic Horseback Riding, it was my passion for over 30 years and I have performed every role from President of the program to tacking horses and everything in between, but what I loved most was being a Sidewalker. So, what the Sidewalker does is walk alongside the horse (hence the term) to interact with the student, help them with the lesson, and most importantly, protect the child in the event of an emergency. A thousand-pound horse creates a dangerous situation if it is startled, it bolts, bucks, or falls.
At the time my horse farm had both a covered arena and an uncovered arena, in the staging area, was the mounting block, open arena, and where everyone congregated, tacked the horses, etc, the covered arena was about two hundred yards away. we would mount the kids (FLRW, behave yourself, just let it go by) and the therapeutic team would walk them out across a field to the covered arena when that was where they were riding. The entire horse farm had a ten-foot chain link fence around it. So, typically we walk around the arena for an hour with each rider, doing lessons and exercises, because we are doing this all day, because of the monotony of it, I had a tendency to start thinking about work or something, and stop paying attention, the leader or therapist could usually tell when I'm zoned out and get my attention, scold me, etc. I would respond that I was sorry, but I was having an epiphany, which was the big joke with all the kids, a lot of them greeted me with something like, had any epiphanies today Side? Sheesh, I didn't realize I'd have to explain so much before even telling the story, but that's done so here's the story.
I'm sidewalking with a ten-year-old autistic girl (Autism was my therapeutic specialty), we are in the covered arena, about 30 yards on one side of the covered arena it is open, no wall, instead there is a fence and gate there, our barn manager and one of our volunteers were leaned against the fence watching the lesson. So, I started thinking about work and zoned out, I wasn't paying attention and as we came around the bend, I saw an old woman, maybe 70 or 80 years old, she is standing against the fence maybe ten feet away from the barn manager and volunteer. The woman smiled at me, it's hard to describe what that smile did or how it made me feel, but it startled me and caused me to snap to attention, in my mind at least, I heard her voice calmly say, "You know what to do", I heard this very clearly and suddenly, I'm completely in the moment as alert as ever. Right then, the horse stumbles and goes down head over heels, it seemed to happen in slow motion, and I took the girl off the horse as she went by me, had I not gotten her off the horse, she probably would have been injured, maybe very seriously.
So, now the girl is crying, the barn manager and volunteer have rushed into the arena to help us out, we get the horse settled, calm the girl down and put her back on the horse to finish the lesson (getting back on is important or they will never ride again). I asked the others where that woman went (I felt I needed to thank her) and they said "what woman?", they didn't see a woman there. The girl was non-communicative, only spoke with ASL, and for the rest of the session she was fidgety and excited, as you would expect after such a mishap. So, we finish the lesson, go outside and I'm looking around for this woman, she isn't around, and we walk back across the field to the staging area. As soon as we dismount the girl she ran to her mother and started excitedly signing to her to tell her what happened, I'm thinking "oh great, I'm going to have a frightened mom to deal with. While that's happening, I'm asking around and nobody saw the woman, I'm thinking, what the hell, she certainly couldn't climb the fence, and nobody saw her walk across the field, WTF.
So Mom comes over and I said "I guess she told you what happened", and started to explain to calm her down, to which she said what her daughter told her is that her grandmother was there. I said, I saw her and wanted to know where she went, I want to thank her (thanking this woman was very important to me at the time), anyway, Mom tells me we are mistaken, the girl's grandmother died two years ago. I was shocked, and to this day, maybe two decades later I remain shocked by what happened. I have no idea what really happened that day, but I know that I experienced a woman who helped me protect that girl from harm, and I know the girl saw her too.
I don't know if I actually saw a ghost that day, I think it's best to not even try to explain it, or even comprehend it rationally, I just know something happened and I'm grateful for it. One thing is clear, my skepticism about so called "ghost stories" completely disappeared that day. and I believe in my heart that, somehow, some way, the girl's grandmother reached out to me to protect her granddaughter.
