The Spirit of War - Chau Ta

The Vietnam War inflicted pain on many Vietnamese and American families. Over 300,000 people died during this tragic 20-year conflict. Despite the international treaties established during the Geneva Convention of 1949 against the inhumane treatment of prisoners of war and wartime civilians, the Vietnam War did not abide by these terms. There are many accounts regarding the torture of war captives that were beat with fists, clubs, and rifle butts. This brutality caused the death of many soldiers in prison. Although many bodies were identified after the end of the war, the bodies of hundreds of thousands of soldiers have not been accounted for and given the proper burial. In the Vietnamese culture, it is important to provide a proper burial for deceased family members in order to give the spirit peace. It is thought that wandering spirits that are not given the proper burial will stay to haunt the living. Therefore, Vietnamese culture is deeply rooted with superstitions that dictate the appropriate treatment of the body after death.

Encounter at Campus Village - Jacob Wagner

Only a few days into my stay at Campus Village, I experienced something out of the ordinary. It was my first week at Campus Village; I was walking around the place, checking everything out since I was going to be living there for the next few months. It was late at night as I started walking down a long hallway towards my room when I saw something at the end of the hall. I couldn’t quite make out what it was. It wasn’t a person, but some sort of shadow. It didn’t move or anything, it was completely still. All of a sudden it disappeared.

I was a little freaked out about what just happened. It was late at night and I was all alone in a very long and silent hallway. There was an eerie feeling in that hallway. I hurried back into my dorm. As I went to bed, I was very paranoid; I had no clue what I saw. “What was it”, I kept asking myself,” a ghost, a spirit, or something else?” I ended up deciding that it was just my imagination and that nothing else happened. I didn’t want to keep thinking about it.

Broken Spirits Katie McAfoos

My mother shared a story with me recently about an event that occurred shortly after the passing of her brother. His death was a shock to the family and to this day there is no closure. On Feburary 18^th, 1993 her brother Pat went missing. Almost three months later his body was found in the Mississippi River. His death was ruled undetermined by the coroner and the circumstances surrounding how he ended up in the river are unexplained to this day. His Notre Dame class ring was found in a shed on The Arsenal Island, along with blood and evidence that he tried to enter the shed unsuccessfully. It remains an unsolved mystery, but what happened afterwards makes me believe he wanted somehow to tell them something, or at the least, comfort my mom through her grief.

"Only in the Bakery" - Natalie Kellett

While my mother was growing up, her nuclear family would commute to Nebraska on a semi-annual basis to visit their extended family. My mother’s grandfather (my great-grandfather), Bill NImmich, owned a small bakery in the tiny town of Pawnee City, Nebraska. When her family visited Nebraska, they would all squeeze into the humble living space located above the Nimmich bakery.

As my mother experienced these family get-togethers, she saw the love and dedication her grandfather put into his baking. Her grandfather would faithfully wake up at 4:30 every morning to assemble the pastries. Through his adoration for baking, my mother gained her own fondness for the art. When she turned five years old, my mother started working alongside her grandfather in the bakery. Her passion for baking continued throughout High School where she was employed at the small school bakery. At this informal bakery my mother made cinnamon rolls that were famous school-wide.

Seeing Dead Loved Ones - Jordan Harder

It was freshman year; I was excited to finally be a high school student, ready to meet new people and make new friends. In my child development class I met one of the sweetest boys I have ever met, his name was Josh. We became close friends and hung out a lot; even rode the bus home together. The child development class had a project of taking home a fake baby for a few days. It was supposed to make teens understand what being a parent is like at such a young age. Josh named his Alaska. He made me do most of the work for him but I was fine with that because that meant I got to spend more time with him. As time went on we started to grow apart, we talked less, and I could tell something was different about him. Semester two started off with me trying out for the soccer team.

Silent Phone Calls - Amy Charles

My father had told me a story he experienced in 2006, two months after my Grandmother had passed away. He had always mentioned how close he was to his mother, as well as the tight bond she had with his two brothers. The family was connected, but on a much deeper level. During the time she was alive, she would often call and check up on my dad if she felt something was wrong, or knew he was going through a hardship. She had this “way” of knowing when something was off.

Those two months after she passed away, my dad would have vivid dreams of her, and a strange occurrence during work. A couple times per week during the grieving stages, the phone would ring at his office. Nobody would answer back after he picked up. With the silent calls going on for weeks, it was brought up to my mother, who said it was my grandma reaching out to him. My mother has always paid particular interest in subtle happenings such as these. So she knew without any doubts, this was my grandmother reaching out from the other side.