My grandmother believed in ghosts. More specifically she believed in the ghost of my uncle Alec, her only son, who died when he was still a boy of – depending on who you talked to – either membranous croup or an infected needle administered by a drunk doctor. His ghost, or so my mother told me years after my grandmother passed, appeared to her and told her not to grieve. Since I would hear about Alec's ghost over a half century after his sad death, it's safe to say that my grandmother, my mother and her sisters continued to grieve....