LITTLE FRANCES ANN

There’s nothing quite like a ghost story to bring out the rebel in me. From the moment when a teller says “Now I’m going to tell you a ghost story,” I start daring that teller to scare me. I do the same thing with anesthetists. They say, “Now you are going to sleep,” and I think, “No I’m not! “Only difference is, anesthetists always put me to sleep, and ghost tellers never scare me. Well at least they never used to.
I can’t say why I don’t have much of an emotional reaction when storytellers go on about dead people appearing in windows, going bump in the night and moving objects around. Instead of getting the creepy feeling that makes you run back to bed after a midnight trip to the bathroom, I tend to just sit there. I listen politely enough. But there are plenty of real life things that scare me -rollercoasters and the cost of housing and speaking to audiences with doctors in them to mention just a few. Perhaps the process of daily living gives me all the fear I need. But then, just when I think I understand myself, just when I am almost certain that I’ve had my quota of life surprises, some unexpected event comes along to shake me up, to keep me interested, to raise my hope for a future of unimaginable discoveries.
Donna Lively was the first—and so far only—ghost teller to scare me. The amazing thing is that the conditions for not scaring me were absolutely perfect. She was telling at the Texas Storytelling Festival ghost story concert. The M.C. had maximized my defenses by making a big deal of being scary. Several tellers had already told stories that entertained but did not scare me. We were approaching the concert’s end. Donna was the last teller up.
Donna’s story made no show of being ghostly. She told us a heart-breaking and all-too-familiar family story about a little girl named Melissa, or maybe it was Maria, who was never quite good enough to please her parents. Her father made the situation playful by routinely comparing her to a mythical model of childhood perfection known as Little Frances Ann. Little Frances Ann would never have done this naughty thing, or that naughty thing. No matter what obstacles crossed her path, she was always polite and clean and considerate. Then one day—and I should say here that this didn’t scare me though it did explain why Donna was able to put this story in a ghost story concert—Melissa and some friends went to play in a graveyard. There they discovered a grave—the grave of Little Frances Ann. Apparently Little Frances Ann was not mythical after all. Our Melissa had an unmentioned sister who had died before her birth. Her parents were grieving a real person. Melissa was no substitute.
With the part of the story that was supposed to be scary now safely out of the way, I settled back to listen for the ending which, I was certain would be coming soon. But the end did not arrive as I had expected. It was farther off than I had thought. We were only about half done. In all sorts of ways Melissa changed her life so that she might follow in the footsteps of Little Frances Ann. She stopped getting dirty. She did as she was told. She was respectful. She was helpful. So successful was she that her daddy began to call her Fran.
Well, life went on and Melissa’s grandmother died. She accompanied the funeral procession to the graveyard, where they filed past the grave of little Frances Ann, but she kept her eyes looking straight ahead. She dared not look, for she did not know whose name would be inscribed upon the stone.

And that’s how the story ended, with a thank-you and an exit and a standing o. I was on my feet in a flash, clapping and cheering loudest of all. Nearly four weeks have passed since I heard that story. In that time I’ve heard a dozen more stories and attended a couple of workshops. I’ve been to a funeral, a volunteer appreciation, an annual general meeting, a training session for nurses on Indian reserves, a palliative care conference, choir practice, a Greek dinner, a strawberry tea and a day for blind people organized by the CNIB. I’ve been to Toronto. I’ve been to Medicine Hat. I’ve done laundry. I’ve bought pillows. I’ve been videoed. I’ve even planted a few flowers. But I haven’t forgotten that story—and I’m still wondering how certain I’ll be about the inscriptions on the stones in graveyards.