Tales of the Unexplained

A reader, responding to this recent Tale of the Unexplained, writes:

I have a similar story.

My Father died in a car-crash at around 1 AM on the night of Saturday August 22 1987. He was killed in a head-on collision by a drunk-driver. We know the other driver was drunk because he survived for a few hours longer than my Father (killed instantly, beheaded by his own steering-wheel); the other driver’s blood-alcohol was stratospheric. By the way, I know that man’s name, and I pray for his soul.

Well, during that night, before I heard news of my Father’s death, I was in my one-room apartment in Center City Philadelphia. I was 24, and my third year of law school (Temple Law School) was to begin the following Monday. (And yes I completed my law degree the following May, but I missed the first week of classes due to my Father’s death.)

And during that night – when I went to bed after 1 AM as usual – I dreamed of my Father standing in front of his (our) house, and he told me, “remember the ring”. In my dream, he smiled and appeared “content”, but he seemed a bit sad and regretful too. But he was basically alright, and he was “reassuring” me in his typical way.

The following afternoon, my sister phoned me to inform me that my Father had been killed in a car accident during the previous night.

But that’s not a ghost story yet. It becomes a ghost story after I tell you about “the ring”:

When I was a boy, my Father always told me that he would leave me his signet Class Ring from La Salle University (where I also got my first degree as a National Merit Scholar.) It was especially significant to him because he was the first generation among our forefathers to get a degree, and he was a teacher. (And later, I became a university teacher.) He wore his class ring every day of his life. Including on the day he died. And he often told me with especial emphasis, that he wanted me to inherit his class ring.

But when he was killed in that car accident, his body was so mashed-up that he required a closed-casket funeral. And his class ring was not on his hand when his body was taken to the hospital for identification.

But then several weeks after the funeral, my Mother went to the garage where my Father’s car wreck had been taken. She did it on her own initiative, for her own personal reasons, because she wanted “closure” by seeing the wrecked car in which my Father died. That’s all she intended.

But then when my Mother went to the garage to see my Father’s wrecked car, someone at the garage asked her, “Did your husband wear a class ring?” Because the crew who had cleaned up the wreck, found a signet ring on the side of the road.

It was my Father’s ring.

So my Mother identified it, and she took it, and she gave it to me.

And so my Father kept his promise to leave me his class ring.