THE ghost FILES

Karina Machado is a journalist, host of the

Spirit Sisters podcast and the author of Spirit Sisters, Where Spirits Dwell and Love Never Dies, a non-fiction series exploring the extraordinary experiences of ordinary people. Now, on The Ghost Files podcast each week, Karina will introduce a guest who’ll share their personal encounter with the spirit world.

FOREVER HOME

If, like me, you enjoy relaxing with a pile of homes and interiors magazines, you’ll be familiar with the term, ‘forever home’ to describe the house you want to live in for the rest of your life. But what about beyond? Chances are you haven’t planned that far, but myriad ghost stories attest to exactly that – deceased residents who are so fond of their abodes they refuse to leave, or perhaps haven’t even realised they’ve passed?

Veteran Avon rep Ursula tells just such a story. “I was an Avon rep for over 25 years in Perth. One of my elderly customers called Suzie passed away in her 80s,” she says. “One day, I was delivering Avon products to her daughter at the unit where Suzie used to live. Suddenly I saw her in the kitchen − like see-through − and then the words, ‘I don’t like the way they have moved the TV’, came into my head.”

Ursula kept mum, but a few weeks later, she told Suzie’s daughter about the encounter. She learnt that, in life, Suzie “had never liked it when they moved the TV”, recalls Ursula. “The two sisters moved the TV back to where it stood before.”

There’s something comical about the after-death communication of such a mundane matter, but it’s quite poignant. One theory suggests a person sometimes becomes so attached to their belongings, home and routines, they don’t realise they’ve left the physical plane.

There’s no way to know whether this was the case with Suzie, or whether she was simply popping in to her ‘forever home’ to visit her daughters. Whatever the case, Ursula remembers her fondly.

“When Suzie was alive we used to often have a cup of tea together and have a chat,” she reflects.

“She always had a great sense of humour.”