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Read the story below or click on State Folktales to choose a folktale from another state.
I'm All Right
retold by
S. E. Schlosser
We knew right from the start that Johnny was going to be a soldier. Even as a child, all his concentration was on the military. So we weren't surprised when he joined the Marines right out of high school. Johnny excelled in his chosen career. He was so happy to be serving his country. I could see it in his face every time he came home on leave. He was itching to get into some "real action", something that - as a mother - frightened me. He was my only son, and I didn't want to lose him. But he was also a grown man with a wife and a baby on the way. I was very proud of the way he was living his life. Then came the terrible day in September when everything in our world changed. I knew as soon as I saw events unfolding on the television that Johnny was going to get the action he craved. And I started praying: "Please God, keep him safe." Johnny went to the Middle East and I started sending weekly care packages and checking my email several times a day. The tone of his communications was always cheerful, if a little strained. He was in danger many times, but somehow he always made it through unscathed, although he lost a few friends along the way. This deepened him and I saw a new maturity in my son that made an already proud mother even prouder. My relief was intense when Johnny came home. I ran to him and almost knocked him over in my excitement when he stepped out of the car. He hugged me tightly, and then reached into the backseat to remove his little daughter from her car seat and show her off to us. I tried to conceal my fear when he told us a few months later that he would be going back to the Middle East. But Johnny knew me pretty well. On his last leave before deployment, he took my hand, kissed me on the cheek, and said: "I love you, Mom. We'll be together again real soon." I held back the tears until he was gone. Then I wept like a child. Johnny's emails on this trip were sporadic and his tone was grim. Things were tough over there, although he did not say much about it. He just spoke of little things like the rapid growth of his beautiful girl and the many activities of the wonderful woman who was her mother and his wife. One night, late in August, I awoke from a deep sleep, certain that I had heard Johnny's voice. "Mom," Johnny said again. I turned over and blinked in the dim light coming from the streetlamp outside our window. Johnny was standing beside the bed, gazing down on me tenderly. I sat up immediately. "Johnny," I gasped. He smiled and sat down beside me, as he had often done when he was little. He took my hand and said: "I want you to know how much I appreciate you and Dad. It couldn't have been easy, raising a head-strong boy like me, but you did a wonderful job." Johnny's words filled me with a great joy and a terrible fear. Tears sprang to my eyes. He gently wiped one away with his finger. "I came to tell you that I am all right. Take care of my girls for me." "We will," I managed to say, realizing at last what this visit meant. "I love you, Mom. We'll be together again real soon," Johnny said. He leaned forward, kissed me on the cheek, and then he was gone. I fell back against the pillows, too stunned even to weep. My husband, who was a heavy sleeper, woke when he felt the bed jerk. He rolled over and mumbled: "Are you all right?" "Something has happened to Johnny," I said, too grief-stricken to be tactful. "I think he's dead." My husband jerked awake. "What?!" he exclaimed fearfully. I started sobbing then, and told him about Johnny's visit. We held each other close for the rest of that long night, waiting for dawn and the news which would surely come with it. The days following the official notification of Johnny's death -- killed in action in the Middle East -- were mind-numbing. I clung to the words my boy had spoken to me in the moments right after he died. Johnny had said he was all right, and I believed him. My son's body was gone, but his essence, his soul, everything that made him my Johnny was safe and well. And we would be together again real soon.
You can read more California ghost stories in Spooky California by S.E. Schlosser.
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© S.E. Schlosser 1997 - 2008.
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