Want some (non-made up) ghost stories? Come inside my precious!

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

First one: my best friend owned a home on the M streets in Dallas. Old, old houses. It was a three bedroom, one story house, but she and her husband decided to add a second story to the house and put all bedrooms upstairs, thus increasing the living area downstairs. They completed the work, huge kitchen and living areas and powder room downstairs, and now three bedrooms and two baths up.

I was staying with them and they told me about the footsteps on the stairs. Heard them all the time. Said at first they thought it was the house settling, but no, they were actual footstep sounds. Then my best friend said one night she was half-asleep and felt something near her. She thought it was the cat, so she sort of drowsily looked that way and then realized the cat was on the OTHER side of her, hissing in the direction she thought she noticed something. Nothing and no one was there.

I don't believe in ghosts, so when they told me this, I figured they were putting me on, even though they were quite earnest about it, scared to the point that they were talking about selling the house. Apparently it happens multiple times a night, EVERY night.

So I go to sleep in one of the spare bedrooms upstairs (they have slept in every bedroom and have noted it happening in every one) and (I am getting goose bumps again remembering this) I heard footsteps, clear as day, coming up the (new) stairs. I thought maybe her husband was trying to scare me, so I went out to the hallway, but no one was there. I turned on the light, nothing. For the next hour, I KEPT hearing footsteps go up and down, up and down, until I was so freaked out I screamed and my best friend came running. She was all wild-eyed: "YOU HEAR IT TOO?" Oh my God, her face, that did it. We went running downstairs, turned on EVERY frigging light in the house and stayed up all night, two TVs blaring so we wouldn't hear it.

They were scared even more by the fact that *I* had heard it, so they started doing research the following week. They dug through old property records, talked to old-timers in the neighborhood and finally discovered that a woman who lived there in 1932 was stabbed to death in her bedroom during a break-in late one night in July. They even found people who owned the house before them, but they reported having never heard a thing unusual.

Finally when I was told all this, I COMPLETELY got chills all over. I said "Oh my God, Angie, the bedrooms downstairs are ALL GONE now. All the new bedrooms are upstairs and the old ones have been demolished. Dear God, she's LOOKING for her BEDROOM."

They sold the house. It got to be too much. They had other people over (skeptics) to check it out and every single person heard the sound. Sometimes even while standing there LOOKING at the stairs with all the lights on. It only happened at night, but you could never see who was making the footsteps.

Second one in a reply post, this is already too long.

[texas1928]

1. That one is good.

I have a bunch of personal experiences but someone on here makes fun of me when I post them so I am refraining.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

3. Screw 'em! Tell!

[texas1928]

9. I grew up in a very old house.

We had two ghosts residing there. One was a little old lady and the other was this black shroud that would rush at you at night. I have seen both of them more than once.

The wildest thing that ever happened was when one of them, busted a glass mixing bowl of my mothers. It was on the top shelf of one of the cabinets. The bowl was about 9 feet off the floor. It was stacked in the large bowl with the small in it and some baskets stacked in it. The whole family was over, about 20 people. We were in the dining room eating Sunday dinner, and from the kitchen there was this loud crash. Everyone went into the kitchen and there lay the middle sized mixing bowl busted in the floor. It was out in the middle of the floor like it had been thrown. It made a believer out of my uncle who had always scoffed at our ghost stories.

On Edit:I forgot to mention the small and the large were still on the top shelf like nothing had ever happened.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

2. Second one happened to me

We were living in a rental house about five blocks from here. Crappy little house, that was once quite nice, but not kept up very well.

One day I was napping in the master bedroom in the afternoon and I thought I heard the bathtub faucet running full-force. I woke up and looked in there, puzzled as to why Mr. Moonbeam was home and taking a bath in the middle of the day. No one there, tub dry. Huh. No biggie.

Another day, Mr. Moonbeam is taking a nap and wakes up, wondering why the bath faucet is running. But it's not.

It happens over and over. It was weird, too, it was like an ECHO of a faucet, if that makes any sense. A tinny-sounding echo. And we never heard it while totally awake, it would only wake us up if someone were napping in the afternoon.

Finally one afternoon, I was napping and my daughter woke me up. She said "Momma I thought you were running the bath. I could hear it downstairs." Ok NOW I was freaked out. My daughter heard this DOWNSTAIRS??? No one was running the bath.

We didn't really know what to think of it and honestly don't believe in ghosts (or at least we feel we don't know enough about it) so we kind of let it go and just napped downstairs on the living room couch.

Then one day my husband was doing some yardwork and a neighbor wandered over and started telling him some history on the house.

"Yeah sad story. The couple who used to own it were really cool, married a lot of years, no kids. They had two Great Danes. Anyway, she had cancer, but it was operable. She was really scared she was going to die from it. When she came home from the first operation, apparently she took all of her prescription painkillers with a bottle of wine and got in the bath. She drowned. Just passed out and drowned. They had to fix all the water damage. The husband came home and found the upstairs half-flooded, because the water was still running."

Mr. Moonbeam is a TOTAL skeptic, but he came running in and said "we're moving faster than we thought...find a house to buy, we're getting out of here."

And we did. It explained all the trouble with mold the house had. And the echo of the bath faucet we always heard.

[smirkymonkey]

45. Wow! I love these stories!

More, more!

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

4. Kick

Come on guys you KNOW you want to be scared! And these are REAL stories, not some made-up shit.

[undergroundrailroad]

5. This falls in the category of paranormal science/phenomena.

That's a very good story and, yes, I believe you.

UGRR

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

10. Do you know much about

paranormal science? I have to admit I am not very educated in this area, and like I said was a a total skeptic and now am more like an agnostic, LOL! I simply admit I don't know.

But that experience was one of the scariest I have ever had in my life. Then to realize it might be that woman looking for her bedroom (nothing had ever happened before)....well freaked me out completely. It made sense, too. They think her spirit was at rest in the house and that renovation messed her up somehow.

[flamingyouth]

6. My friends just bought a house in Portland

Gen kept hearing noises downstairs all the time, so much so that she got her husband up to go check around. He would always find nothing.

Then she kept having weird dreams about a guy who looked like Charles Manson, all scruffy with a dark beard. She had these dreams five or so nights in a row, that he was in her house, looking all over for something. She didn't tell her husband for fear that he'd think she was nuts.

Then one morning, he woke up and said, "I had the weirdest dream about this crazy old hippie guy being in our house." She asked him what he looked like and he described him right down to his beard and denim shirt.

Like your friends' house, this had been totally remodeled and had been vacant for a long time. Rooms had been moved, and a whole new second story was added onto it.

A few days later, they ran into a neighbor and asked him who had lived there before the previous owner (who bought it to fix it up and resell it as an investment - she had never lived there). He told them that it had been a grandfather raising his two grandkids alone because his wife had died, his daughter had died, and his son-in-law was in prison, but he had died in prison. By this time, my friends were completely freaked out, but her husband managed to ask, "What did the son look like? Did he have a beard?"

And the neighbor said, "He looked just like Charles Manson, believe it or not."

Anyway, they did some sort of cleansing ceremony with sage and cedar and they haven't seen him since. They think he had come back to see his kids. Who knows. It's creepy anyway.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

7. yeah my friends

had it suggested to them to do "cleansing rituals" and such, but they were so completely freaked out they just sold it toot-sweet and left.

We did the same with the water running house.

[flamingyouth]

8. I don't blame either of you

And frankly, I couldn't live in my friends' house myself, but they are happy there now.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

11. In Poland?

Sorry, couldn't resist...

[flamingyouth]

12. Damn it! I forgot Poland!

When will I ever learn? ;)

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

13. As your punishment you must tell a ghost story

that scares the shit out of all of us.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

18. I don't believe in ghosts but I've had a few weird experiences

which I'm too tired to type. My sister's current house is haunted by the ghost of her husband's great uncle who was a raging alcoholic who died in his sleep. My old apartment was haunted by a child. Both my sisters clain our house was haunted growing up but I never saw or felt anything. :shrug:

When you live in old houses in the Northeast, many have been occupied so many times that it's hard to find history about them.

[Fenris]

14. My mom and my aunt were asked to house-sit for a friend and her family

This must have been back in the early eighties. Anyway, this friend left to go on vacation and needed someone to house-sit and feed their dog. The first time they went over to check on the place, when they got there, every goddamn light in the house was blazing, and the door was locked from the inside. The dog, outside, was absolutely hysterical, barking madly at the house. My mom and my aunt were not completely freaked out, so they simply turned all the lights up, locked the house, fed the dog, and left. The next day they came back to the house and found it brilliantly illuminated by every electric light in the house and the dog once again barking. This happened the entire time they were house-sitting.

Well, when they got back, they asked their friend if they knew anything weird about the house. She said that the house was previously owned by a doctor who had hung himself in the stairwell. The light problem was one of many strange occurrences they observed. Doors would often be locked when no one had locked them, footsteps would be heard, the lantern over the staircase would swing on its own. The strangest experience was when they woke up one winter morning to find all the ornaments lying on the floor around the Christmas tree. This happened every night. After a while, they just stopped bothering.

Then the ornaments mysteriously were rehung on the tree.

Strange stuff.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

15. Shnikies

I think I'd be selling that house, too.

Fortunately besides the water running house, we've never lived in an other that was "haunted."

Eek. For someone who doesn't believe, I find these stories to be pretty creepy.

[flamingyouth]

16. That is so creepy

I don't think I'd be comfortable living in a home where a murder or suicide occurred. :(

[Gothic Sponge]

17. It's a long story, and i don't like to tell it ...

for fear of people thinking i'm NUTS! This was my first encounter.

Here’s some background: growing up I lived on a street with a few miles of woods across from my house. My parents were divorced. When I was a teenager, my mother married this German guy. I hated this bastard! He put me through much mental and sometimes physical abuse.....that’s another story, though. Luckily for me, their marriage only lasted a few years.


One evening, I was on the phone with my friend Bill. He had asked me to hold on a minute (he was bickering with his sister over something). While I was waiting for him to come back to the phone, my "stepfather" told me to do something. He was the type of guy (asshole) that wanted things done the second the order was barked. At that point I was trying to get Bill back on the phone, so I could tell him I had to go. Bill couldn’t hear me over his sibling quarrel.


10 seconds later my "stepfather" attacked me. He had pushed me into the wall while he held my neck. I dropped the phone, and struggled with him. I managed to pull his hand away, but not without him scratching my neck with his fingernails. I punched him in the stomach and ran out the front door. As I ran out I heard my mother yelling at my "stepfather."


I ran across the street into the woods. I didn't go very far, just far enough so he couldn’t follow. I sat on a large rock, sad and angry. My neck was bleeding, but it was nothing life-threatening. While I sat thinking, I heard footsteps in the leaves. They were coming from behind me about 60 feet away. They were not fast-moving. in fact, they were very slow, but they were heavy steps. (This is going to sound dumb, but the steps and pace were like how you'd see Frankenstein walk in old movies.)


I didn’t acknowledge the footsteps at first, but then I started to listen more closely. At that moment, I also heard my friend Bill yelling my name from the street. My mother had told him I was in a fight with my "stepfather" and that I ran out the door. I yelled back to Bill. I went to meet him at the edge of the woods. We walked back in the woods and sat on the large rock. We were talking about the fantastic virtues of my "stepfather," when Bill said to me, "do you hear that?" I told him that I'd heard those sounds before, but now the footsteps were about 40 feet away. We couldn’t see anything, because of the woody brush.


We sat in silence and listened. Bill then said, "Hello?" No answer. The footsteps were still coming closer. We knew it was not an animal, because of the rhythm and weight of each step. We could hear the twigs cracking a crunching under its feet. It was about 20 feet away from us now, and we still saw nothing. We sat in fear and whispered, "What the hell is that?" I could hear my heart beating in my chest. The woods were only lit by the evening sky, so it was hard to see. Whoever, or whatever it was, it wanted to get to us.


At 10 feet, we couldn’t believe our eyes. Something was almost in front of us, but no one was there. The woody brush parted as if someone took their arms and pushed it aside to walk through. We saw the footsteps in the leaves, but there was no figure. Bill and I looked at each other in horror, and ran as fast as we could out of the woods.


It took almost 6 months for us to get up the courage to go back in those woods. When we did, we saw and heard nothing. Years later, I was cutting down some tree limbs for my mother. I would drag the limbs and branches across the street to get rid of them. All of our neighbors dumped their grass clippings and branches in the woods.


I was dropping the branches in the woods when I heard the footsteps again. I could hear the same rhythm around maybe 60 feet away, but I knew those footsteps. Needless to say, I didn’t investigate. Over the course of the years, I heard the footsteps only two more times after that. I had been in those woods dozens of times without a peep.

Now for the really super strange part: I think I found a link between each occurrence. The only times I heard the steps in the woods was when I was cut, or bleeding.


I had cut myself on the saw when I was working for my mom that day, and the other times I was cut as well. (Nothing bad, just some scrapes.) I know this sounds like something from a bad horror movie, but it's the only connection I can think of.

[flamingyouth]

19. Shudder with creepiness!

That's really, really scary! :scared:

[Fenris]

20. That's creepy on many levels.

Thanks for sharing gothic_sponge.

:hi:

[Kire]

21. bravo

great story

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

22. Ay-yi-FREAKING-yi

you brought something out with your BLOOD?

I am one big goose bump right now.

Forget the kids, ADULTS should get together with some drinks and tell these things! Yikes!

[Gothic Sponge]

25. Ha! My friends over the years have insisted we cut ourselves

and go back in the woods to investigate. We never did.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

43. Well, it could be someone who was a healer before he died...

Or someone who liked Blood? :shrug:
Duckie

[smirkymonkey]

48. Very creepy!

Have you ever done any research on what might have happened in those woods in earlier times?

[Downtown Hound]

54. That's one of the best ghost stories I've ever heard

Seriously, that's movie material. And you wrote it very well. Thanks for sharing!

[Gothic Sponge]

23. I've had a bunch of strange encounters

One that always gives me chills is when i bought my house. I was cleaning out the basement when someone/something tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to look, but nothing was there. A few minutes later i felt a really strange "vibe" come over me, and a woman's voice whispered my name in my right ear. I stood frozen for a minute, but nothing happened for the rest of that day.

I don't spend much time in my basement.

[Kire]

24. my best friend's house was haunted

I've heard the footsteps, and I have heard numerous stories from many of our friends who have seen shapes, heard music coming out of nowhere and felt presences literally inches away.

But the most memorable thing about it was one Halloween some of us decided to use the Ouija board. To make a long story short, every cross that was worn as jewelry that night (and there were three or four of them) had been broken by an unseen force.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

26. Ok Gothic has inspired me to tell a story I rarely ever tell anyone

in fact, I think only three people who know me have ever heard it. I don't know HOW you describe it, because the experience wasn't perceived by me as SCARY.

Anyway, I was sixteen years old and had decided to end my life (horribly abusive and alcoholic parents, long story). I went out to my mom's Oldsmobile in the garage, cranked it up, and got in the backseat and lie down.

I closed my eyes and was tearing up a bit, thinking of how I had never really felt loved by anyone, but what did it matter now? I remember thinking it was great that I would just fall asleep and not wake up and I took great comfort in that.

Then just as I was drifting off, a voice BOOMED in my freaking ears.

I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED YOU

I sat STRAIGHT up, totally dazed and confused. I managed to shake off the grogginess (the loud voice did most of it) and turned off the ignition. I jumped out of the car as fast as I could, slammed the door shut, and peered back into the car.

I kept thinking "WHO THE HECK JUST SAID THAT?" I kept trying to figure out if maybe I just heard it in my head or what. I still felt cobwebby, so I went outside for fresh air. I walked around the block several times, totally puzzled, but never once frightened by it.

Only later I realized whatever it was caused me to save my own life.

I tell the absolute truth.

On edit: the few people I have told have suggestd it was the voice of my biological dad (who lost me to stepparent adoption) or, of course, God. I don't know and will never know. I only know it was very real and very very freaking LOUD.

[flamingyouth]

28. That took a lot of courage to tell that story

I've been to that point before myself. I can't explain what happened to you, but I'm glad it did. :pals:

[Gothic Sponge]

30. Wow! I'm sorry to hear about your life growing up

Mine was bad too. That voice must have been so freaky to hear, and at that moment.

I also don't like telling my 1st encounter story because it brings me back to a very dark time in my life.

However, my encounters have changed my life. I was an atheist, but with so many unexplained mysteries, i've become agnostic.

[Neshanic]

32. My experience made me a believer in some things.

1977. In Phoenix there is a large mansion on a hill by the Biltmore Hotel. The Wrigley Mansion. A smaller version mansion was built on the golf course below, and served as an extra guest home. Built in the late 20's, it sat on an enormous lot, with its back yard looking at a spectacular view of Camelback mountain to the East.

It was typical of the time, and had a wing that had a kitchen, butlers pantry, maids room, chauffers room and butlers room off the kitchen. It had those electric number buzzers in the kitchen that would signal by number what the people in the other wing of the house wanted. Spanish colonial, magnificent imported wood floors, a main formal great room. and these rooms then led to the opposite wing.

My wealthy sister and husband bought the home, and moved in. That first summer they did not want to take the heat in Phoenix, and like other Phoenicians left for the summer in San Diego with the two kids. My sister asked if I would house sit, and I needed a place to stay because the fraternity house closed for the summer.

I moved in a late afternoon and set up in the butlers room off the kitchen, the back door service room separated the kitchen from the staff rooms. Watched tv, went to bed.

I woke up. Something was wrong. Awfully wrong. A fear that I do not ever want to have again had me. There was something or someone awfull in the kitchen. The door to the room was open but I did not move. In the darkness I just thought if I laid still the presence, or whatever it was would not come in. I was so scared I did not move.

It must of been thirty minutes and I bareley tilted my head to see the clock. 3:30am. I laid there still, till the sun began to come up. About 5 the dawn light started and got enough courage to get out of the bed. Looked in the kitchen, but did not go into the bedroom wing of the house.

Went to work, came back, and cooked a steak by the pool. Stayed up till 1am watching TV and then went to bed.

Again I wake up. Something is in the kitchen 20 feet away. It was primal fear that I had. I could only see half the kitchen from the bed. But then a noise, a light shuffling, like someone walking. I could not move. It was a primal awfullness that you can only experience. I stay awake again. The time 3:45am.

The slightest light from dawn breaks and I then feel OK. Check and nothing. Go to work.

That night I turn on all the lights. I turn on the TV. I fall asleep on the couch. Awakened by door in the foyer, not the front door, vibrating like it is going to be torn off the hinges. I jump up, run into the kitchen, call 911. Cops come, look at me like I am a moron.

Next morning I pack, and do not stay in the house, but check on it during the day.

Sister and husband come back. A month later, my sister calls and says the maid was walking down the street at night, as they where coming back from dinner. She would not go back in the house. She left. She said she saw a man.

The big floods in Phoenix cause Babbitt to evacuate Tempe. My two roomates and I go to higher ground, and go to my sisters house. No one is there, they have gone on a trip. We camp out in the living room, and there is no problem. The next morning, my one roomate asks, "I thought you said no one was home?" "No one is," I relpied. "Then who was that guy that went through the dining room twice last night?" I choked on my breakfast.

Couple of months later I get a call at the Fraternity house. My sister, she is hysterical. She was walking up the stairs and the door in the foyer started to vibrate, she tought someone was in there and ran and locked herself in the upstairs main bedroom. Cops came. Nothing.

They sold the house, and it was demolished by the new owner, a wife of an Arizona supermarket founder millionaire. A huge repulsive pile sits on the lot there now.

[Whoa_Nelly]

36. This house in Phoenix?

http://www.wrigleymansionclub.com/

[Neshanic]

39. Yes, the other companion guest house was down the hill.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

47. And you're still an atheist?

Damn. That would have made me a believer.
Duckie

[smirkymonkey]

49. I had a similar experience.

Don't want to go into details, but it saved my life.

I kind of wish I would hear it again!

[Red_Viking]

27. I lived in a haunted house in Wimberley, TX

I was 18 and living with my dad and step-mother while I attended college. One morning, everyone else was gone and I was lying in bed finishing my homework before heading into the university. My bedroom was at the front of the house with a view of the driveway and front yard. I heard the front door open and close, and footsteps come down the hallway toward my bedroom. The floors were tile, and I thought it sounded like my dad's boots. The footsteps stopped right outside my door. I sat up and looked outside but my car was the only one in the driveway. At this point, I freaked out and grabbed a softball bat. I'm a chick but I could swing a mean aluminum bat in those days. Before I could do the typical horror flick thing and open the door, I heard a huge commotion from the kitchen, like every pot and pan was being taken out of the cabinets and thrown on the floor. I panicked and ran into the kitchen. Nothing. Not a single thing out of place.

That wasn't the only time we heard weird things in that house. Once, we were all watching TV in the living room and heard a bunch of crashing from a back bedroom. Again, nothing was disturbed. My dad is one of the more rational and skeptical people I know, and even he believes the house was haunted.

On another note, I believed for a long time I had a "personal spirit." He, or she, or it, or whatever, was very mischevious. It followed me for years, wherever I lived. It would steal things and hide them from me. Yeah, it sounds crazy, but I swear it's true. For example, I could be using my hairbrush, step out of the bathroom for 30 seconds, come back, and the brush would be gone. I finally learned to say, "That's OK, I didn't need it anyway," and leave whatever room I was in. The item would be there next time I looked. This happened with an amazing variety of things. Once, I came back from Morocco and had some leather slippers for my nephew. In the process of wrapping them up, I set them on my bed and went to get scissors. When I returned less than 15 seconds later, one of the slippers was missing. I said my incantation and left the room. When I returned, it was there. I'm not the only person who experienced my personal spirit. My ex and I, when we were still together of course, moved into a new house. We had a bag of corn chips we were sharing that we sat on a table in the dining room. We were the only people in the house and we were unpacking. The chips disappeared. So, then I had to tell him about my personal spirit. He thought I was crazy. But I said the incantation, we left the room, came back, and the chips were there again.

I think my spirit got bored with me. It moved on some time ago. I miss it. :P

Thanks for the great ghost stories! I love a good scare.

:dem:

RV

[flamingyouth]

29. I've been to Devil's Backbone with Fenris

We smelled smoke from campfires we couldn't see. It's a beautiful yet eerie area.

[politicat]

31. I don't remember this, but my mom and gran swear it's true.

I'm the eldest grandchild, eldest child, eldest great-grandchild. My mom's one of two, my grandmother's one of three, my great-grandfather was one of four. And I was a twin; my brother died at birth. We still have the "family house" in Indiana, where my great-grandfather lives and where I lived off and on with my grandparents and great-grandparents while growing up. Mom spent time there, too; she's close to her side of the family and my parents had a far from perfect marriage. Except for the technology, my early childhood is far more 1920's culture than 1970s.

According to my mother and grandmother, I had playmates as a small child, until a few years after my sisters were born. (I was 3 and 6 when they were born.) I was also not a tomboy. I was a very ladylike little girl; I would wear shorts but not pants and preferred dresses. I did not climb.

My great-grandmother collected dolls from all of their trips around the country - a little Sioux doll (not Kachina) from ND, a pioneer doll from some place in Missouri, a Pilgrim pair, Amish dolls, dolls in international dress... the whole shebang. No matter how ladylike I was, I was still a 2-3-4-5 year old and not allowed to play with the dolls.

So one summer day, Mom, Gran and Gre-Gran (my great-grandmother) are making chili sauce (a Hoosier atrocity that has no chiles), pickles and probably something else (but not jam, I liked to make jam) and I'm playing quietly in the big, cool bedroom on the first floor where all of the dolls are, up on high shelves under GLASS bell jars. Mom swears I hadmy grandmother's poodle, my dolls - a Gerber baby, a well loved rabbit and a stuffed kitty (these I remember) and my blanket and my tea set and my lemonade and NOTHING ELSE. They're busy, they forget to check on me. I assume I was three, since my second year was not spent in the US and my 4th summer, my sister was around.

Gran comes in and finds me surrounded with all of the dolls - the special dolls. The Glass domes are not moved. Gran asks me how I got the dolls. She said I told her that Anna and Jimmy brought them down and Chris would put them back when I was done looking at them, that I wasn't hurting them, and Anna had made me wipe my hands clean on her handkerchief before I touched anything. Gran went out, got the camera and took pictures. THAT I do remember, and I have the picture somewhere - a little girl in a tidy dress surrounded by expensive porcelain dolls.

I remember that my grandmother brought down one of the bell jars and asked me to lift it; I could not. I could tip it, but it would have fallen and probably broken. I also could not reach the shelf (it was set at 12 feet from the floor; the house has 14 foot ceilings), even standing on the highboy. And I could not get on the highboy. Also, there was a film of dust on the bell jars; when my grandmother and I touched them, our finger marks were clearly visible. There were no other finger marks on any of the other jars, though my mother and grandmother both attest there was dust on them, too. Unfortunately, they didn't have the foresight to photograph those, too...

Anna was my great-grandfather's sister, and she died in the room I was playing in at age 14 of Bright's disease. That was in 1928, and she was the youngest child of the four. Jimmy was my great-uncle, and he too, died in the room I was playing in at age 6 in 1949 after falling off the back of a truck and sustaining a head injury. Chris was my brother.

To my knowledge, no one ever mentioned any of the three of them in my presence until I was eight or nine. It was not considered appropriate to burden me with the history until then. All of the pictures of them were stored away from light and not taken out; no one ever mentioned Chris to me until I was old enough to be allowed custody of my own birth certificate and I saw I was not a singleton birth. But I remember talking about Anna, Jimmy and Chris. They were my "other family" when my parents fought or when my grandmothers made disparaging comments about my father. When I was sick - and I was quite frequently; I had pneumonia several times - my mother says I would babble about going to live with Anna. Very little of this do I remember. I have memories of a girl in a longer dress in my treehouse in the big old oak, but ... I am afraid that it's a memory of a tale told me, told so often that it's become fact.

The only weird memory I have of that time is of being not quite four and wanting to go from my grandmother's house (on the South side of the road) to my great-grandmother (on the North side) and no one being willing to walk me across the road. We lived on a busy country road in farm land and people ran up and down the road at 50 mph regularly. I remember trying to cross that road and a truck cresting the "hill" - the dip that marked the property line for the houses (not the fields.). I also remember being pushed very, very hard into the grass on the north side of the road; basically, being pushed out of the way. My great-grandfather saw the incident.... the one time he talked about it, he said he thought he saw an older girl with me. Perhaps Anna.

When I was 20, I spent the summer in that house. My great-grandmother was very ill and I had just graduated from university (I started at 16). I wasn't yet in grad school so I was the best choice to be the summer helper... By then, the bedroom had been converted into a parlor and my room was upstairs. In fact, Anna's room, before she got very sick. I remember a dream or two of cuddling with a warm body, but that's it, and since I'd lost a very beloved girlfriend only 16 months prior and had a lot of warm body cuddling dreams in the interim, I can't say.

If we have ghosts, they are benevolent. I am skeptical, in part because I don't remember any of this clearly enough to really analyze it, but I also can't see my family making up such a tale. The psychologist in me sees the wish-fulfillment and the rationalization in such stories; Jimmy was very loved and his accident was horrible on my grandmother and my great-grandmother and affected seriously how my mother was raised. My great-grandfather watched his sister waste away and that colored his treatment of all of the girls who passed through his hands later, as well.

Oh, as it happens.... I was named for Anna. My middle name is hers.

Pcat

[amerikat]

33. I have a story and some real ghost photos to go with them

it's late. Remind me tomorrow if I forget.

[texas1928]

38. Please remember to tell us

and shows some pics, I want to see them.

[gardenista]

34. These are such great stories. I'm completely freaked now, as a matter of

fact.

There seems to be a bit of a theme. Most of these events happened to younger people, is that right? From very young to ~20 years old?

Or the younger person is a catalyst and then others begin to experience the phenomenon?

Just curious as to what you all think...

My stories aren't scary, just some paranormal stuff like ESP and premonitions.

My husband saw a ghost once, a shadowy figure without real distinguishing features. She came into the bedroom, where we were both sleeping. She kneeled beside him, and held his hand and looked at him for a while. He said he could feel her stroking his hand. This was just before we got married. I asked if it was scary, and he said no, that she was a good ghost. We have no idea what it meant, but I was mad that he didn't wake me up!

I have friends with an old house, and they hear footsteps sometimes. They've also had one particular door shake and vibrate. Once, this happened in the middle of the day, when they had painters in the house. They all heard it and one of them saw it. They were freaked.

My friends don't seem to mind, they feel that she's a malevolent presence. (They think it's a woman because of the sound of her footsteps.) Because I have a long commute, they've often offered their home to me when they travel, but I could not deal with that!

[Barney Rocks]

35. I lived in an apartment once that

had a ghost--I was the only one who could see her. She would sit in a rocking chair in my bedroom and just rock, and sometimes knit. She was quite elderly (grey hair in a bun) and old fashioned looking. (I don't own a rocking chair--yet I could see the chair and the woman very clearly at times). I only saw her a couple of times, and I had the impression that she was sad about something. I also did not feel any fear from her--I felt as though she was there to protect and watch over me!

At that same apartment, there was a balcony off my bedroom (that could not be reached except through the bedroom--it was several stories up and no fire escape). But several times I heard someone out on the balconey--trying to get into the room from out there. (Unlike the old lady--I was terrified of the presence outside on my balcony). Once I opened the drapes and looked out into the darkness-and I could clearly see a pair of eyes--and the shadow of what seemed to be a large man and I ran away screaming. Later when I went out on the balcony it was clear someone had been there--there were fingerprints on the outside of the glass--and a flower pot had been kicked over.

but--unless a person could fly--there was no way they could have reached that balcony except through my bedroom (shivers). We later found out that a few years before an elderly woman had been murdered in that room. A man had snuck in while she was at the market and hid out on the balconey waiting for her to retire to her room. He attacked her there and killed her--but he was eventually caught--he had left a trail of blood away from the scene--because she used her knitting needles on him in self defense. I think he still hung out on the balcony lying in wait for another victim.

[Behind the Aegis]

37. Fun!!!

This is a neat thread! I am anxious about the presidential race and having no job (16 months now) and then I saw this! I love these kinds of threads!! Thanks for starting it!! Also, a few of these stories made the hair on my arm bristle! YEA!

My encounters have been pretty "blah." Nothing all that scary, sometimes, just odd. My first one, that I remember, was when I was a child, about 7 or 8, and I was staying at my mom's sister-in-law's (my Aunt Becky, who just passed over) place. My aunt had been married to my mom's brother, who was killed in a car accident a week after my birth. I was in a room with my cousins (my younger cousin was born 5 months after her father was killed) and my younger brother. I heard something and rolled over and saw a man leaning over my cousins and he kissed each one, then kissed my brother, then he looked up at me (I was on the top bunk of the bunk-bed). I said "hi" and he said, "You should be sleeping, I just wanted to give you a kiss." And, then he kissed my forehead and was leaving. He turned and said, "Tell your aunt and Sissy (my mom's nickname only used by immediate family), I am fine and I will be watching over them." Then he left. The next day, I told my parents and aunt at the breakfast table that some man came in and kissed us all. They freaked out! Why didn't I call for them? I told them he was very nice and he was checking on us. Then, I told my mom and aunt what he said. They both went pale. They had me describe him, and after I did, they showed me a picture and I said that was the man. Turns out it was my Uncle Mike!

When I was in school in SC, I was washing my face and looked up in the mirror and saw another face looking at me. I was startled at first, but I gathered my thoughts, and looked at the face, it was a confederate solider. I tried to touch the face and it disappeared. Never saw it again.

During a play I was in, the building we were in was supposed to be haunted, especially the green room. There were lots of strange things. I often heard card shuffling, talking, and would often see shadows. It never really upset me, I like freaky things, but there were many people who refused to be there by themselves and some would never go down there. Oh, the space had been used as a temporary morgue during the civil war.

And finally, two years ago, when I was in New Orleans, I was really hoping to see a ghost or something. I was disappointed when that didn't happen! But, I developed my pictures to find a face on a plaque on the tomb of Marie Leveaux, Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. A few weeks later, I returned to New Orleans and told the tour guide I had about the picture. He said he had heard of people having that happen. When I returned to the tomb, there was no "face." It is one of my favorite pictures!!!

Brightest Blessings!

[YellowRubberDuckie]

50. Your story of your uncle Mike made me cry.

What a beautiful story!
Duckie

[Behind the Aegis]

52. Thank you!!!

I am glad you enjoyed it. I was very fortunate that I was born a week before his death. My uncle was a large man, 6'4" and husky. My mom told me how nervous he was when he went to hold me because I was tiny. For such a large and imposing man, he had a heart that was filled with compassion and love. He already had a son and another child on the way. This was all during the Vietnam conflict, so he was losing his friends at a rate of one a week. But he was always there for his buddies' families after they heard the news. He was the rock for our family. As he was driving home from work, a telephone wire had fallen in the street and he drove over it. The wire wrapped around the wheel-well and flipped the car over. He was killed instantly when the car crushed him. He was 20. His death ravaged my family. My mother still mourns his death. My aunt, his wife, never remarried, she never even dated again, as my Uncle was the love of her life. My aunt passed away this past March at 55. My mother was devastated, as were the rest of us. We take solace in that she is finally with Uncle Mike again!

I told you my "ghost" story about him, but other members of the family have seen him from time to time. He was very protective of his family, and I guess after he passed on, he felt he needed to continue to look after us.

I am glad I got to tell you about my Uncle Mike. There are so many great people like him here and "there." They look after us in many ways! :)

Brightest Blessings!

[Logansquare]

40. I've never seen a ghost, but I'm kicking this because I like the stories

[SemiCharmedQuark]

41. No more?

Damn.

:kick:

[ScreamingMeemie]

42. I don't know if this qualifies as a ghost story or not...but here goes...

My father in law killed himself and my husband found him on Father's Day 2000. He did not die in our house, but in a mobile home that I had owned before I got married. When we bought our house we gave the home to him. I digress...

Every morning I get up around 4:30 AM and get my husband up for work. Sometimes he'll sit at the table with me for a few minutes before he leaves. I take the time after he leaves and before the kids get up to drink coffee, read the paper, write letters etc... Some mornings while I am bent over whatever I am doing I will feel like there is someone sitting across from me. So much so that the hair on the back of my neck is up.. When I look up, there is no one there of course. Also, a lot of my father in law's things are still in our basement. My office is in the basement. Many times I feel as if someone is standing over my shoulder. We have a t.v. in the basement and the directv receiver will turn on by itself. Not the t.v., just the receiver...which I have always taken as malfunctioning equipment. My husband thinks his father comes to check on the grandkids. His grandchildren meant everything to him. The last thing he ever said to me was "Take care of my grandkids". I didn't realize at the time that he was leaving us.

[Tom_Foolery]

44. That was a good one...

I live in a 100 year-old house that was built by a horse and buggy doctor. I've been told by several old timers around here that a lot of people have died in this house. We haven't had anything strange happen...YET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Willy Lee]

46. Damn I love October!

My husband and I moved into our house in Illinois about 3.5 years ago. It is in a small, tight neighborhood. Our neighbors told us that our house was built by their great aunt and uncle, we were the 3rd owners of the house. Both Aunt and Uncle died in the house. We have done a lot of projects there, turning the old barn into a bakery, starting a huge garden, painted our doors bright red- the neighbors said that their great aunt and uncle would have really liked us, as we were such "colorful" people. And they were, as we are, great animal lovers.

Well I have 3 dogs, 2 of which are neapolitan mastiffs. The most sensitive dogs I have ever lived with. Aphrodite, the girl I've had the longest, will often go into the study and just bark bark bark. She paws at the ground like a bull and wiggles her butt, barking at a hutch we have in there. It is a happy, playful bark which, tho creepy, is a little reassuring to me. I trust that if there were any bad energy in the house my girl would not be trying to provoke it into play! She also does this in the bathroom, barking and pawing in one particular corner.

My husband has told me twice that he has seen someone walking by, once out by the barn and once in the hallway, walking into the study. A few times, when home alone, I have gone to turn off the stereo before bed only to have it come back on about 5 seconds later. This will happen 2 or 3 times and then the stereo will stay off. Having an imagination that will drive me to run frantically and jump onto my bed when I am home alone (really!) I thought if any of these creepy things ever REALLY happened to me I would be traumatized. But actually it is kinda cool. I don't mind it at all. I think because the dogs don't mind it I don't either.

Now if the dogs ever raised their hackles and started to growl- damn I would be running down the street, pumped up on adrenaline. Lets hope it doesn't come to that!

[Downtown Hound]

51. I've got one that I barely remember, and in fact forgot for many years

I was four years old living in Barrington, Illinois. We lived in a two story house, and my room was down the hall from my parents room. One night my mother woke up and saw the figure of a man standing in her doorway. It had no features, it looked like a shadow. At first she thought it was just a shadow, the street lights from outside reflected off of something perhaps. But then...it moved.

It was clearly a human form, but completely dark, like a shadow that had leaped off of the wall into three-dimensional form. It looked at her, and then walked into her bathroom, which was right by the front door to her room. She lay on her bed not knowing what to do. My dad was sleeping right next to her but she was too afraid to even wake him up. Then, she heard me calling out to her.

As she tells it, I was crawling on the floor of the hallway, which was strange because I was more than old enough to walk, and calling out for her in the middle of the night. And I was approaching her door, right next to the door of the bathroom where the intruder was hiding, fast.

Well, some protective motherly instincts took hold of her (my mom can be quite a badass at times) and she leaped out of bed, ran over to the door and flipped on the light switch. There was no one in the bathroom.

She told me this story years later in California, I had no memory of it. I still don't remember crawling down the hallway and calling out for her, but when she told me the story, these images of a dark, shadowy figure in my room, standing over my bed and looking down at me, and then quietly walking out of my room, came flooding into my mind. I do remember living in that house, and I know there was no reason for me to be crawling unless something had disturbed me.

I have read a little bit about ghosts and parapsychology, and so-called "Shadow People" or "Shadowers" have become something of a phenomenon in recent years. Some are good, some are evil, but the way they are described sounds a lot like what we might have seen that night many years ago.

[Tom_Foolery]

53. The only experience I had is lame compared to all of these...

My sister and I had our bedrooms upstairs in our family home. She was gone one night, so I was alone upstairs. Sometime during the night, I heard footsteps on the stairs. I called out, but nobody answered. The next morning I asked my parents if either had come upstairs. Each said no.

Now I must say that I am an atheist, but I've always had a certain feeling about old places. I can walk into an old house and have a feeling for the people who lived there before.

[Downtown Hound]

55. I'm going to kick this one

to see if we can't get a few more stories out of it.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

56. I posted this on a similar thread

in the past, but I want to do it again because I just have never been able to get over this experience.
In 1976, when I was living in an apartment in Tampa, I suddenly woke up one night to someone calling my name and saw my boyfriend standing at the foot of my bed. He didn't have a key to my place, so I was really freaked as to how he got in. I asked what he was doing there, blinked a couple of times, and he was gone. Checked the clock and saw it was 2 AM. Kinda spooked, I got up and checked the doors (all locked), turned on the kitchen light for "company," and went back to bed and to sleep. Woke up again at the usual time, got dressed and went to work. It was about mid-morning when I got a call from one of my BF's friends. He had been killed in a car wreck at 2 AM.

[smirkymonkey]

57. Kick!

I am now addicted to these stories.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

58. Aww, come on, someone's got to have more stories!

Come on baby, I need this! The most interesting thing in my life is the upcoming odometer reading 123456!

[Tom_Foolery]

59. Kick and here's a site to check out...

if you've become addicted to these stories:


http://www.theshadowlands.net/ghost/

[Behind the Aegis]

60. Very cool site!

Thanks for the heads up! Awesome site!

[NamVetsWeeLass]

62. I have had this site bookmarked for like three years.

It is really a decent site for paranormal people and "Otherside Agnostics" (The people that can't say yes, they are there, or no they aren't with conviction.)

[SemiCharmedQuark]

66. Thanks!

I have become addicted.

[NamVetsWeeLass]

61. My own Personal Ghost

My Dad died when I was 8. Now, he had many remarkable traits, He was a happy-go-lucky kinda of guy, loved to Fish, drink beer, Bowl, drive too fast, LOL being as it was 1979, dad had an Affinity for watching "Solid Gold". He also wore an abundance of Brut Cologne... Let's put it this way, He didn't wear it, He MARINATED in it. Well, He died by his own hand the last part of April. What a Shocker, I mean he was so Laid back. The Odd things surrounding me started happening after that... an Uncle of mine from Scotland stopped to visit and pay respects in like June of that same year... "Uncle Hugh" was a charming guy, Complete with Kilt and Brogue. He called my house one day to ask me to come to my Grandparent's for dinner. I could hear my Mom talking to him, and she said "Don't call her that, she is MY daughter." Odd, But oh well, Mother is like that. I went to Dinner at the Grandparents house and Uncle Hugh took one look at me strolling in through the great room and said "Aye, that is Dougie Jim's Wee Lass, She looks just like him..." The odd thing, I kept smelling my Dad's Cologne. My grandparents all but Forbade anyone to wear it into the house, and after a bit I decided to see if it was Uncle Hugh, It wasn't! He was wearing English Leather (I asked him...) I kept "hearing" my Dad's voice saying "Dougie Jim's Wee Lass, Boy, does he have YOU pegged." I blew it off, I was 8 and figured I had been reading too much or something (I was by this time into Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Series. Great thing for an over active Imagination...) I noticed in later years that anytime I would have really bad times with Mother (Both Physically and Mentally abusive) I would smell Brut after the worst of it was over. I would always "hear" "remember, You are Dougie Jim's Wee Lass, and that makes you tougher than I was, Princess." Again, I blew it off. My thinking was that had he survived, I would have had a different life, Grew up in a better way, not had to deal with as much bullshit as I did, I figured I was just wishfully thinking he was trying to reach out to me. I always was told "You look just like your Dad, Only prettier..." "You act just like your Dad..." "Your Dad used to say or do this..." I just kinda kept it in the back of my mind, until one night--- I was very Depressed about life in general, and again, Wafting in the breeze was the undeniable smell of Brut Cologne... Finally I said, Out loud "damn it Daddy, If you have something to say just fucking say it, would you! I think I am half Crazy here..." The Reply was a like a warm hug. "My Girl" Started blasting from the Stereo... Dad always sang that to me, He told the World that was his song to me. I was in shock, I couldn't react. I smiled and I could just see him sitting there in this Obnoxious blaze orange bowling shirt that he and his team wore one season. I have a picture of him in it, which is why I think he chooses it. My Girlfriend (I was living with her and her parents at the time) came out of her room and asked me first off if I was wearing Brut Cologne, and then asked me why the guy in the Picture I had framed was sitting on the chair looking at her. Luckily, Heather didn't scream. Brenda, Her Mom, came out to get lunch packed for her Husband to go to work and poked her head into the Living room to smell Brut, hear My Girl and see the Spectre of my Dad Sitting in her Chair. She sat down, white as a Sheet. Dad seemed to smile at her, and She said she Heard him say "thanks for taking care of the Wee Lass." Brenda simply said "she takes care of herself." The Stereo shut down, The cologne smell disappeared as fast as it had arrived and I sat there, Troubled by the fact that not only had I saw my Dad, Two others had as well. He has always shown up when I needed him most, Births, Deaths, major Life events. One time he even saved my family's life. I had just had my Baby Girl, she was sleeping beside our bed in her bassinet, it was hot that summer, so we had a Reversible fan drawing cool air into the room. I was awakened at about 4 am by a very loud and insistent "Princess YOU HAVE TO WAKE UP NOW!!!!" I woke up to find our room filled with smoke and I could see flames over near the window. I shook my Husband awake and drug the bassinet out of the room to the hall. Someone had torched a van that was in the Alley right outside our window. The Fan was drawing the noxious smoke into our room. I quickly reversed the fan, and called 911. The Firefighters showed up not three minutes later. The put the Van out, and came over to our entrance (We had the second and third Floor apartment.) to check on us. I had all ready been making sure that the baby was OK,(I am a Nurse) and I asked them to check her Oxygen Sats. She was was satting at 100% and was fine. I had smoke marks on my face, but that was the extent of damage done to any of us. I let our room clear out, gave her a bath and changed her and her bed clothes. I took a bath and we all laid back down. That night I had a dream that Dad, My Grandfather and my Great Aunt (all on the same side) came to see me and the Baby. The Next morning I woke up to my baby giggling, I could see her little arms sticking up out of the Bassinet, like she was holding onto something... My husband and I both watched her for a few minutes. I then picked her up and She absolutely REEKED of Brut cologne. I know it isn't scary, it sounds insane, But it is true... That is why I am "Nam Vet's Wee Lass"

[YellowRubberDuckie]

65. What a beautiful story!!

I lost my dad when I was 16. I know he's around, but it's nothing as powerful as what you've experienced. I too have a mentally abusive mother.
Your story made me cry. It was beautiful. Your baby has some guardian angels, sweetie. And she couldn't ask for a better one in your dad. :)
Duckie

[NamVetsWeeLass]

69. Thank you, Duckie.

I couldn't ask for a better person to watch over my family. He watches over both kids, although my Boy lives in PA with his Dad. (I am the Only one here in WV, I couldn't drag my then six year old boy away from everything he knew and loved......) It's kind of funny, my Ex got so used to Dad being around when we were still married, he doesn't even think about it now, He knows Daddy is going to watch over my son no matter what! He also knows when My Dad is around, Due to the Cologne. I am sorry that you too lost your Dad at a young age, and that you also had to endure an abusive Mother... I look at that in a rather Nietzsche kind of way... It didn't kill me, It made me stronger.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

67. Thanks so much for sharing

Beautiful (I hate to call it a story because it's true but I'm at a loss for words) retelling. Thanks so much.

[NamVetsWeeLass]

68. You're Welcome....

Sometimes I am afraid to tell anything about Dad and his penchant for following me around... But in the end, it boils down to one thing, I am forever Daddy's Girl!

[CiCi the Psychobunny]

63. A couple of less-scary ones . . .

A friend of mine had a cat who always followed her Nana around the house. Shortly after her Nana died, her sister was sitting in the lounger, and a breeze apparently blew open the door. The cat got up off his seat, jumped down, and walked through the door. Her first thought was, "Oh, that must be Nana". And then remembered her Nana was dead.

Also, a friend of mine sees spirits and hears voices. A couple of New Year's parties ago she said she had seen someone who said he was my uncle, and that he was sorry he had never gotten to meet me. I have never met my biological father or any of his family - but when I do I will be asking some questions!

[NamVetsWeeLass]

64. There has to be more so with that I am going to

:kick: this back up to the top. ::Holds up bottle of Brut-- This is for you, Daddy!!::

[RFKHumphreyObama]

70. Here's a few for you

The first story is the stuff of family legend and folklore

My great, great grandfather owned a mine at the turn of the century. One of the employees –let’s call him James- who would have otherwise been on duty at the mine had been very ill for quite a long time and had been forced to take a leave of absence from work. The other employees at the mine were aware of his absence from work and the reasons behind it.

One morning the supervisor comes to the mine and the employees are having an informal chat with him. One of them casually mentions that “it’s nice to see that James has recovered from his illness and is feeling better again”
“What do you mean?” asks the supervisor
“Well, he came around to the mine at 4AM this morning to have a chat with us and he looked very well and in good spirits”
It was then that the supervisor told them that James had passed away at 4AM that morning –the same time that the workers had seen him

My grandfather had his share of ghost encounters in his life –he heard parties in the abandoned house next door and his family used to hear footsteps every night in the house that my great grandparents resided in while my grandfather was very young. My father also heard breathing in the unoccupied bed next to him while staying in a hotel and had a feeling that something bad had occurred near the study of a house that my family resided in before I was born

I myself have had a few unusual experiences. The first involved the house where I spent the first ten years of my childhood. It was a beautiful house and I have very fond memories of it but I am convinced that it was haunted. Every night for quite a while, as we used to lie in bed, I could swear that I heard footsteps outside the bedroom. Everyone in our house was in bed and I could not come up with any other explanation for the noise. And another occasion I was sitting in the family room of the house when I could have sworn that I heard a voice speaking to me. It truly freaked me out

But my real unusual encounter came when I was ten years old and I went to visit my grandmother. We lived overseas when I was younger and, as a consequence, we had only seen my grandparents very occasionally. We were moving permanently to the country where my grandparents lived but my grandfather was very ill due to a series of strokes that he had suffered. My dad had gone back to visit him in July and he had asked “when are you bringing my daughter in law and the grandchildren to visit me?” My dad had told him that we would come to see him at Christmas when we had settled in to our new lives. My grandfather indicated to him in some way that he didn’t think that he would be able to hold out until Christmas

Indeed during that point of time I also had a strong feeling that my grandfather might not live for that long. Of course, we all knew that he was going downhill after his strokes but I just had this feeling that time was not on our side if we wanted to go and see him. Than one August night I remember sitting at our dining table and suddenly thinking about how nice it would be to see my Australian grandparents again. I remarked something of this kind to my dad. Just a few hours later my grandfather passed away

We went down to see my grandmother and spend Christmas with her. To accommodate our family, she had moved out of the bedroom that she and grandpa had shared and into a smaller bedroom. My mom and I occupied the room that she and my grandfather had slept in. We were just preparing for bed –mom was having a shower-and I was alone in the bedroom just quietly playing when I heard a voice coming from near the cupboard –it sounded like that of my grandfather.
“Hello (my real name), welcome to (the city that we were in at the time)”

I was ten years old and petrified. I ran out of the room but then managed to go back in and mom came in and everything was fine

A few days later my Uncle and Aunty (let’s just call them William and Margaret) took us out for a wonderful dinner. That night, I was in the bedroom alone when I again heard the voice from near the cupboard
“Hello (my real name), how was dinner with William and Margaret”?
Again I was petrified. But I gathered up my courage and responded “fine thank you”
The voice responded “that’s good” (which, according to my dad, my grandfather used that phrase a lot). And that was the end of the whole saga

A few years later my maternal grandfather became very ill. One night while he was in hospital, a friend was visiting him and she later said that she saw angels flying around his bed. Some time later, my dad was sitting in his study looking over some academic papers when he suddenly was consumed with a feeling of overwhelming happiness and a sense of great release and peace. A few hours later, my uncle called up to tell us that my grandfather had passed away at almost the same time that my father had experienced this feeling.