I Assumed My 3-Year-Old Had An Imaginary Friend. Then He Said 5 Words That Completely Unnerved Me.

Living in a 100-year-old house, you get comfortable with the probability that some previous occupant completed the circle of life on the premises. After all, until the early 20th century, most people in the U.S. were born and died at home. The idea never troubled me. And I never considered that my own dwelling could be haunted.Then I became a mother.One day, when I was nursing my baby in the living room, he pulled away abruptly and stared, wide-eyed, at a spot directly over my left shoulder. So intent was Simon’s gaze that I turned around to see what had caught his attention. A dancing sunbeam, maybe? Or a spider? There was nothing.I forgot about the incident until a few days later, when it happened again. With no warning, Simon reared back and looked beyond me, over my left shoulder, his body entirely still. He didn’t seem scared, simply intent. But after it occurred several more times, I was spooked. What exactly was the kid seeing?The incidents took place at varying times of day, but only in that one particular place in the living room.“Maybe he’s seeing a ghost,” joked my husband. “Maybe, right at that spot, someone — ”“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. We knew nothing about the previous inhabitants of our 1908 wood-frame house, but I had never experienced spectral phenomena here — or anywhere else, for that matter.For months, Simon continued to stare at whatever it was in the living room. But by the time he was 3, the “ghost” had been mostly forgotten. Then, while I was preparing lunch one afternoon, I heard him speaking animatedly in the next room.“Who were you talking to?” I asked, snapping a bib around his neck.“Oh, that’s Toddy Ro,” he said nonchalantly.I was charmed. My toddler had an imaginary friend, just like all the parenting books said he would.“Tell me about, uh, Toddy Ro,” I said, fully prepared to learn that this oddly named personage was obsessed with gasoline lawn mowers and plastic spray bottles, objects my son was bizarrely fixated on these days. Simon turned his limpid blue eyes upon me. “I see Toddy Ro sometimes,” he said. “He’s here. In our house.”The calm certainty in my toddler’s voice as he said those five words was strangely unnerving. I looked around, almost expecting the mysterious Mr. Ro to materialize beside the high chair.In the days that followed, I tried to pry more information from Simon, but he simply smiled, or repeated that Toddy Ro was “here.” The only physical description I was able to elicit was that Toddy wore “a funny hat.”Simon talked about and conversed with Toddy Ro for the next year, after which the mysterious visitor’s presence seemed to fade. I never truly thought it was a ghost, or that our house was haunted. But many people might have.In fact, a recent Gallup poll found that over a third of Americans believe in ghosts. That’s a surprising number in our modern world. After all, we are long past the era when only flickering candles or campfires held back the ominous dark, inspiring eerie tales of spirits walking abroad. Then again, maybe it’s not so remarkable. Like our forebears, we still seek to explain phenomena we can’t fully grasp. And despite all the discoveries of this high-tech age, some mysteries endure: the creak of an old house at night; the unanswerable question of what happens after death. Neuroscientists tell us that humans are hardwired to make sense of the world through narrative — and ghost stories have been with us for millennia. So I can understand why the spirit world inspires belief.Scientists are curious too. The Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine is dedicated to “evaluating empirical evidence that suggests consciousness survives death and the mind is distinct/separable from the brain.” Gary Schwartz, a professor at the University of Arizona, is “investigating the survival of consciousness after physical death, collaborating with research mediums and using cutting-edge optical sciences technology to measure potential spiritual energy.” A large-scale study of near-death experiences conducted in 2008 found “while it was not possible to absolutely prove the reality or meaning of patients’ experiences and claims of awareness … it was impossible to disclaim them either.”I lean toward skepticism when it comes to spectres, but I’m not immune to the cultural fascination around ghosts and children. The incident with Simon made me think about the many tales where kids are conduits for the supernatural, endowed with a special ability to perceive otherworldly presences: the little boy in Neil Gaiman’s ”The Graveyard Book,” raised by kindly shades; or Tolly, in the classic “Green Knowe” novels, who encounters ghostly playmates in his family’s ancestral home.Maybe it’s because our kids are essentially mysterious to us that we’re intrigued by stories where they have a direct line to the spirit realm. Or perhaps it’s because children seem to inhabit their own worlds so intensely, or because of their innocence, that we find ourselves speculating about their ability to connect with the unseen. Of course, there are more rational explanations for what I experienced with Simon. It turns out that infants are actually able to spot things we adults don’t notice, mostly because of their sensitivity to changes of light we can’t see. And it’s not uncommon for young children to hallucinate (even with no underlying medical condition), a typically benign phenomenon that disappears as they get older. So while a ghost-spotting kid makes for a good story (hello, “The Sixth Sense”), I’m sure Simon never saw anything truly supernatural in our old house.And yet, it’s never the scientific theories I mention whenever I tell the story of my son’s uncanny behaviour as a baby and toddler. It’s the spookiness I dwell on, the mystery of it all. I may not be one of the 39% of Americans who believe in ghosts — but everyone loves a good ghost story.Simon is in college now. Recently we were recalling stories from his childhood, and I asked him about his old friend Toddy Ro. He looked blank. “You told me he lived in our house?” I prodded. Simon shook his head. “You remember the strangest things,” he said.Yes, I suppose I do. The strangest things.Kate Haas is an editor at Literary Mama. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe Magazine, Slate, Salon, and other venues. A former Peace Corps volunteer (Morocco) and high school English teacher, she lives in Portland, Oregon. Read more of her writing at katehaas.com.Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at [email protected] THAT's The Difference Between A Ghost And A GhoulPeople Are Just Realising The Voice Behind Ghostface In Scream And I’m StunnedNetflix And Chills: 17 Best Halloween Films And TV Shows To Stream On The Platform This Spooky Season

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