The following is a former winner of the Amazing but Incredibly True Story Contest.
Copyright Kaye Fish, 1998
It was the Spring of 1987 and my friend called me up and asked me to take a little trip with her to Greenville, North Carolina, where she was supposed to register for classes at East Carolina University. She said her uncle could get us a hotel room for half price since he was in the hotel business and she and I could lounge around by the pool after she had visited the college.
Later that day, as she and I sat by the hotel pool, I started thinking about my uncle, my father's youngest brother, who had died right before Christmas in 1983. Gary was a blackjack dealer at the Sands hotel in Las Vegas. In my youth, he had always called me "Sunshine" because of my golden blond hair. I was troubled by my uncle's death because the police in Las Vegas said that he had taken his own life with a revolver he had owned since serving in Vietnam. Why? That was the question my family and I wanted and answer for. There had been no signs of depression and his life seemed exuberantly happy until his death. Somewhere inside of me, I had always felt that my uncle did not take his own life.
I went to sleep that night thinking about him and I felt I had barely drifted off when I heard someone singing softly in the room. I sat up and looked around the hotel room, wondering if my friend was singing in her sleep. When I turned my head back to the left, my uncle Gary was sitting on the bed beside me. His eyes were brilliantly blue and his face was shining with a warm glow. He sang to me as he had when I was four years old, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray..." I fell into his arms and sobbed as he stroked my hair. I actually felt the warmth of his body.
Suddenly, the phone rang and I looked over at my friend in the bed next to mine as she answered it. Sleepily, she thanked the front desk person for the wake-up call.
"Ann," I said, "this is my uncle Gary!" I still felt his hand resting under mine as I introduced him.
"Huh?" Ann said, and squinted her eyes in my direction. When I turned back to my uncle, he was gone. I could not convince my friend that he had not been a dream. I have always been a light sleeper and have never walked in my sleep as some do. I know this was my uncle's way of telling me he is at peace, and it isn't my job to worry anymore about if he killed himself or not. Driving home that day, I hummed "You are my sunshine" and felt a calmness I hadn't felt in years.
To contact the author, write to Kaye Fish , or visit her website at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3256
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