From Charles:

About ten years ago I was helping a friend at an outdoor festival being held in a park in New Jersey. As the afternoon wore on, I decided to take a bit of a break and walked out to the front of his booth.

While standing there, a young woman walked up to me and began talking. She was rather attractive in her white blouse and shorts and I teased her about resembling a current female movie actress. We talked about many things, and I noticed that she would remark how her husband “used” to answer the same way as I did to her questions. She told me that her name was “Ann Miller”, this I still recall after so many years. She said that she would like to go look at the lake, and I told her that I was committed to helping my friend, but I indicated to her where she would find the best walking paths to it.

Returning to my friend’s booth I asked if he had taken notice to the young woman I was talking to. He replied that I had been standing alone smoking a cigarette and looking around at the event. Figuring him to be putting me on, I went to the next booth and asked the fellow I knew there the same question. He, too, said that he had seen me standing for quiet a bit of time out in front of the booth, but alone. Since both of them knew each other, I decided that they were just having fun with me and dismissed it altogether.

About an hour later while I was tending my friend’s booth alone, the young woman approached. My friend was a seller of trade beads, so I selected one and deciding to give it as a gift to her.

She said that it was time for her to leave, and had just stopped to say good-bye. I reached out and took her hand to place the bead in it and saw a strange look come to her as we touched. Though it was a very warm summer day, her hand was cold as ice. I had given her my business card earlier, and told her that she might give me a call if she were ever in the area again.

The event was mostly over, so very few people remained. I watched as she crossed the hill to the parking area curious to see what she was driving. Though I had clear view of any vehicle leaving, none did. There was only one exit from the park and that was in clear sight as well. She never left on foot either. I ventured over to the parking area suspecting that perhaps she was having car trouble, only to find the area empty.

The combination of my friend and the other fellow plus an uncertain feeling of my own had me contacting a woman who I considered knowledgeable with ghosts upon my return home. I explained the whole thing to her right up to and including the gifted bead. She told me that she felt that I had encountered a spirit, that sometimes they long for this world and will appear to people whom they feel comfortable with. She also said that she felt that this woman had known me in a past life, perhaps I had even been her husband then. I do believe in past lives, and know that there is much that we don't have an understanding of, so I can admit that it all is a possiblity.

To this day I’ve never seen the young woman again, but somehow feel that when my time comes to cross over, that she will be there to greet me still holding the bead that I gave her.