"Pearly Gates, huh?" She sounded skeptical.
"Don't think your old man is worthy of that?" He grinned that big silly grin that always made her smile.
She shook her head, enthralled by his story, like she was a little kid again hearing his tales of adventure, many were even more outlandish than this one.
"So I died, then I was floating up above the world. It was like I was floating into the bright light. It was dazzling. My thoughts kept jumping back to you though and the orb. I started hearing the old man's voice repeating how the orb had to leave this plane and go back albeit briefly to the next plane."
She nodded.
"It struck me as I was floating toward the heavens that I had left the orb on my person, then I reached into my coat pocket and voila, there it was!"
She was still listening.
"I made my way over to the place where souls seem to collect after their lives ended and they could move on. I saw my parents and several friends that were deceased. It was nice for that moment, but it all felt wrong. They say around sipping tea. It felt very posh to me, but I was never one to be posh."
"Truly you don't even know the meaning of the word." She laughed.
He shrugged and continued on. "It was nice enough, but something was missing in my life and realized I needed to see my little girl again and give her the present I'd held onto for those few years." He held up a pamphlet that depicted a stick figure and what she assumed were gates, also a cup of tea.
She nodded. "Very posh indeed."
He sighed, slightly deflated, the pamphlet faded. "Really, it was about missing you. I know I was never around during your childhood and I felt so incredibly guilty that I had to stay."
"Thank you."
"All those years traveling and being away, I know that you liked the presents and the phone calls, but do you still have any of that crap I drug home from my trips?"
She shook her head. "Probably still at mom's."
He nodded. "Good place for it."
"She never did forgive you."
"I know."
"When you died, she took me to see your body at the hospital. You were the first person I saw who was dead. You know what's weird, you were like a doll, sort of just a body with no trace that life had ever been there. When the auntie passed and grandma, it was like they were dead, but you could see a trace where they had been in those bodies. Do souls leave residue?"
He shrugged.
"Well? You left your body did it ever seem like you lost part of yourself there?"
"No, it was more like I knew I had died, right, but then I came to and the world was different. I went for a walk and tried to talk to people, but they didn't see me. So I walked home. When my hand passed through the front door without touching it, I knew that I was dead."
"So no 'idiot's guide to being a ghost'?"
He shook his head. "Certainly not. I had to figure it all out on my own. For a few days I just sort of lingered around the porch, watching you go to school and coming home. That's when it hit me that maybe I could try to talk to you."
"And give me the orb."
"Yes. I had forgotten about it. Somehow it did transition with me. I wasn't really sure what it did. When I handed it to you, I heard a voice explain it's power. So I was then able to tell you. Pretty cool, huh?"
She laughed. "Yes, very cool. It has been nice that you've stayed." She looked down for a moment.
"Daughter?" He asked.
She looked up, a tear was forming in her eye. "Will you leave again?"
Her father shrugged. "I don't know. Ghosts don't exactly have a code or anything to follow."
"What about the ones we saw in New Orleans?"
He shrugged again.
"Some of them were really old!"
"Yes and met untimely ends." The voice of the witch doctor popped into her head.
She sighed.
Her father looked puzzled.
"The witch doctor." She explained to her father.
"Great! Put him on speaker!" Her father had a big grin.
"What? Does it work that way?" She asked.
She imagined the dreadlocks shaking back and forth and a laugh came from behind them.