Is a certain 'place' important to feel a loved one's spirit ?

The first time I heard mention of someone who felt the spirit of a loved one being around, we were at a friend's house for dinner. It was many years ago. I think I was about 30.

Our friend Elaine was preparing platters of wonderful Lebanese food to serve, and she said: "As you know, my brother died recently." Her closest sibling had died of a heart attack. "I know his spirit has come to be around me, to visit me," she continued.

I was a bit taken aback but think I managed to say something like, "That's wonderful, how do you know?" She said, "Oh, I can just feel it."

Well, I don't think this crossed my mind for many years, but now I know what she meant.

And Pearl Buck, the Nobel Prize winning writer, wrote: "Was he still hovering about the house, at home, the essence of himself, and were I there would I perceive his presence? … I fought off the mighty yearning to go in search of him, wherever he was. For surely he was looking for me too. We were ill at ease, always, when apart. But where are the pathways?"

This brings up the question of place. Must we be in a certain place to have the spirit of our loved one - whether partner, spouse, child, parent, sibling or friend - be around us?

I've thought of this many times about why I stay in my house. Yet I really don't think our home as the place we shared is the only factor. I think it's more a matter of relationship. And I recently came across a couple examples of what I mean.

One is that a friend told me she heard a radio interview where a woman was saying she left their house and traveled far south to scatter her husband's ashes off a mountain as he had requested. She was on the mountain with a friend. It was a rainy cloudy day. As they scattered the ashes, the sun burst through the clouds and there was a rainbow. It only stayed a few minutes. Then it was cloudy again. She knew her husband was there with them. So it was a "place" but not their home. Home is not the only place she felt his spirit.

In another case a woman went walking and met a new, very friendly neighbor along the way. They talked for a while. His wife had died a few months earlier and their wedding anniversary was coming up. Turns out the new neighbors had the same wedding anniversaries. These things happen.

Now, on Pearl Buck's question about a "pathway." All I can really say is we figure out how to cope with and manage grief, and we do find a path. A path for how to live after the death of a beloved. The best reference for how finding a path to cope is a book I've mentioned before, "The Way Through the Woods," by Long Litt Woon, 2019.

The point is: In my experience "place" matters but that's not all that matters. Probably this whole spiritual aspect of grief and healing is rooted in the nature and strength of the relationship between the people involved.

Still, I feel better staying in our house, but it's still nice to know it's not all dependent on a single place. When one of my kitties starts meowing on the bookshelf and looking out into space at night, I always say, "Is Baheej here? I hope so."

• Susan Anderson-Khleif of Sleepy Hollow has a doctorate in family sociology from Harvard, taught at Wellesley College and is a retired Motorola executive. Contact her at sakhleif@comcast.net or see her blog longtermgrief.tumblr.com. See previous columns at www.dailyherald.com/topics/Anderson-Kleif-Susan.