If You Could Just Return My Things From The Afterlife, Stop Stomping Around In My House and Butting Into My Phone Calls, That’d Be Great

 

There are two things you should know about me before I tell you of the events of February 18, 2025:

1.       Long ago, I was a hairdresser.

2.       I don’t lose or misplace things. I know where my stuff is 24-7 and am completely organized at all times. It’s a gift. If something of mine is missing, someone took it.

Another factoid you should be aware of is that off and on throughout the years, stuff has gone missing in our house just out of the blue with no explanation. This has happened many times to many family members. Most of the time, the items came back eventually, usually in a weird place. I am not referring to the “Where did I put my car keys?” or “I lost my earrings” or ‘a sibling took your favorite sweatshirt when you weren’t looking’ types of occurrences. 

 I am talking about “I JUST laid (item A) on the table and now it’s not there” types of things----the types of incidents that there is just no logical explanation for.

 When you live in a real haunted house, you can’t call ‘ghost’ for everything that happens. You have to stop and think about what else could have been the cause. You look for all of the explanations and when you have eliminated everything else, maybe ghost is the answer. Lots of times it is.

Every time ghost was the answer, it was written about in this blog.

When ghost was not the answer, I didn’t even mention it because, who cares?

 A few of the more interesting times that ghosts swiped stuff:

The Reappearance

History of the Homestead

When “ghost” was the answer, we usually attributed missing items to the child-ghost, Willie. If you have read the blog, you know Willie lived here in the 1800’s and died in this very house from measles when he was 5 years old. No doubt his funeral was held in what is now my living room. This was very common in the 1800's. We attributed the missing items to his shenanigans because it seemed like something a mischievous little kid would do.

How do we know Willie is a ghost in our house?

Because I have seen him.

In all his ethereal glory.

In the middle of the night.

150 years after he died.

I can’t say for sure he is the one who takes our things. I can’t say for sure it is only him. It could be another spirit entirely because again, if you read the blog, you know we have more than one ghost.

But I can tell you with 100% certainty that many of the times household items disappeared, a ghost was to blame.

Which brings me to the incidents of February 18^th.

I had just gotten up and was about to start the coffee brewing. Shaun had been up before me and came into the kitchen looking for the coffee he just made a moment before. It was nowhere to be found. He literally made a coffee, put it down on the counter, walked away, came back half a minute later and it was gone, mug and all.

This is inconvenient for two reasons: 1) He really wanted that coffee and now has to make another one. 2) I have a huge collection of favorite coffee mugs and do not want any of them disappearing.

 We searched the entire downstairs. No coffee.

The only other living presence in the house is Winston the cat and last I checked, he can’t pick up a coffee mug.

We shrugged it off; Shaun made a new coffee and that was that.

I fired up my computer and put in a day’s work. Shortly after 4 pm, I had planned on taking a shower. Before doing so, I was in our bedroom and opened a dresser drawer I had designated to hold a bunch of old hair-related stuff (curling irons, brushes, and various cosmetic accoutrements).

I know what you’re thinking: the coffee cup was in there. No, it wasn’t but that would have been quite the story!

Anyway, I have always kept a plastic bag in that drawer with some haircutting items in it as I still do the occasional haircut and as previously mentioned, I keep the drawer organized so I know where everything is when I need it.

Sidenote: do not contact me for a haircut.

Imagine my surprise to find the bag missing. A couple of “what the f..’s” later, I was searching every drawer, cabinet, and night stand in the room, even under the bed, but the bag was nowhere to be found.

You might assume that I must have just put it somewhere else after I had it the last time. NO. I put everything back where it belongs every time. For this very reason.

I searched the entire upstairs. Twice. Every closet, room, shelf, nook and cranny and came up empty handed.

I tried to think when I had it last. It was about a month ago to cut my son’s hair. I know I put the stuff back in the bag and put the bag back where it goes. If for some weirdo reason I did not put the bag back in the dresser drawer, within that month, I would have come across it somewhere in this house. Yet, I did not.

Of course, I questioned Shaun. He knows what the bag looks like. It’s probably the last plastic Sobeys bag in existence. He had not laid eyes on it recently or moved it.

I searched the downstairs. Twice. Every room, space, shelf or cabinet you can think of. Behind furniture. Under furniture. No bag.

It is gone. And because the only other person who lives here has not seen it, and again, as you know, the cat has no hands to carry things with, AND based on the previous incidents where we know without a doubt that a ghost confiscated something, I call ‘ghost’ on this one.

So after a few more “What the “bleep”s, Willie? This isn’t funny anymore!”, I gave my son a call to let him know Willie was up to his old tricks again. Scott had been on the receiving end of Willie’s nonsense more than once over the years.

I’d like to interject here and remind you that within the last year, on two occasions when I was talking to Scott on the phone, an unknown voice had interrupted our conversation. Neither of the voices were heard by Scott but they were definitely heard by me and were coming directly from IN the phone.

 The Phone Phantoms

So while talking to Scott that day on the phone, about one minute into our conversation (he on his cell phone, me on my landline), I heard another voice.

These voices on the phone are bordering on ridiculous now.

Once? Okay, ghosts like to use phones to try to communicate. It happened to my mother. It’s happened to many people around the world. Google it.

Twice? Well, since it worked so well the first time, I guess they thought they’d give it another shot.

But THREE times? Come on!

Yet that’s exactly what happened.

The voice said one word, sharply and loudly. It sounded like,” Aaaaannnnnn!!!” It didn’t sound deep, like a man’s voice. It was more like a female or a child perhaps.

I got goosebumps immediately, thinking back to the other times this has happened.

I said to Scott, “Did you just hear that?”

He said, “I sure did. What the **** was THAT?”

I could only venture a guess: another unknown entity getting in on our conversation…?

To Scott, it sounded like it was in the room with ME, yelling out. To me, it sounded like it was right in the phone.

Who was it and what exactly was it trying to say? I can’t say for sure. We heard nothing odd after that and talked for a good ten minutes.

This only happens when I am talking to Scott, and obviously not every single time we talk. It is also not the same phone for all 3 calls. The first time it happened, I was using the kitchen extension. The other 2 times, I was on the upstairs extension.

As discussed on another post, it is not common for lines and signals to get mixed up these days between a cell and a landline.

And even if that were the case, you would think you’d hear more sensible   sentences instead of the shrieks and squawky words I’ve been hearing. (However, the first time it occurred, it was a man saying a clear sentence in a slow voice).

Recently I learned that other voices coming across during phone calls can happen if one user is using headphones or Bluetooth. This was not the case in any of our calls.

I also discovered cordless phones can pick up the frequency of another nearby device (baby monitors, radio signals, etc.) which results in unaccounted-for noises on a phone and it is possible for only one side of the conversation to hear it. However, the voice on this particular day and the incident before it a few weeks ago, weren’t even decipherable. If my phone was picking up someone else’s legitimate voice, one would assume you could understand it. But no, we could not.

Based on this information, I can’t say for sure this is ghost or paranormal-related. But it is a fact I live in a haunted house and it is a fact a spirt has without a doubt made contact with my mother through the telephone once before.

Therefore, I will leave this filed under “Not Sure What This Is” until a deceased person I know calls me and clearly identifies themselves. Maybe Willie could call me: “Hi Rebecca, this is Willie. I have your coffee cup and hairdressing bag. I’ll bring them back when I am done with them.”

THAT would be good but I am not holding my breath. Ghosts never do what you want.

UPDATE: Today is March 8, 2025. The bag containing the haircutting items and the missing cup of coffee have not turned up.

January and February and the early days of March graced us with a few other paranormal events….you know, the usual ghosty stuff:

One day in early January, I was working at my desk. A floral perfume scent wafted throughout my work area, concentrating all around me. It lasted about 2 minutes then was gone. I was not wearing perfume or anything scented. Nothing had been sprayed in the room. I wasn’t doing laundry in the laundry room. There was just no explanation for it. This has happened a few times over the years in the house, to myself and others.

Mid-January, I was home alone again, working. Shaun had gone out. In the afternoon I heard fairly loud noises from the kitchen/dining room area. I assumed Shaun had come back, although the noises did not really sound like the door being unlocked/opened. It sounded more like someone had set a bunch of things down on a table or floor....that kind of general noise. I went to investigate, still   thinking it was Shaun arriving home. It was not. No one was there and nothing was out of place.

Another day not long after that, I had worked all day. Nothing unusual happened all day until around 5:00. I had been upstairs post-shower and when I came down and walked into the kitchen, a terrible smell just hit me in the face. The only way I can describe it is a perfume from 100 years ago was left to rot and go rancid and now it was in my kitchen. I could tell it was perfume but it smelled ancient, spoiled and very old. It was quite awful.

Shaun was home at this point and also walked into the kitchen. I asked him what the heck that smell was. He couldn't smell anything odd. He had a wood fire going in the stove at that point so I asked if he put something weird in the stove. He hadn't. It lasted a few moments then faded away. About 20 minutes later I could smell it again just as strong. Again, he could not smell it at all.

The day before, he had removed some moldings around doorways in the kitchen, as part of the ongoing kitchen reno. I am inclined to believe my very nosy grandmother who died in 1981 but has been seen in the house over the years since her death, may have been around to check out what is going on in her house and she is still wearing her old Avon perfume from 1930-whatever. Wouldn't surprise me one bit. I can't say for sure it was her; I am just venturing a guess here.

I also tend to think she may be responsible for the noises that are constantly heard in the dining room when no one is in there. My mother heard these dining room noises for years. I assume it is my grandmother because she spent most of every day in that room, in her rocking chair looking out the window. Mostly she wanted to see the mailman come and eyeball her son’s house just down the road as much as possible.

I have no doubt I will walk into the dining room one day (or night) and she will be there. It’s only a matter of time. For extra fun, let’s make it around 2 a.m. when I get up to go to the bathroom and the house is dark and she is sitting by the window. Good times.

The last week of January, there were also some unaccounted-for footsteps incidents.

On one particular day, I was in my bedroom upstairs. I heard quick footsteps come up the stairs or go down--I couldn't tell which way. It was not on every single step.. just a few.

I opened the door and looked at the stairs but saw nothing. The cat was asleep in the living room and I was home alone.

On January 31^st, it was around 11:00 pm. Shaun was asleep upstairs. Winston (the cat) and I were in the living room. The house was quiet. I heard footsteps---clearly upstairs but not right over my head so I assumed they came from our bedroom and also assumed Shaun was getting up for whatever reason. The footsteps stopped. I listened to try to figure out what was going on. Since there were no more, I figured he got out of bed for something then went back to bed. A moment later, I heard them again. Same amount of steps, still coming from upstairs in either our bedroom or possibly the hallway. Once again, I figured Shaun was getting up. The steps stopped and I did not hear any more. The next morning I asked him if he had been up around 11:00. He told me he never got out of bed. And while he was sleeping, he also never heard the footsteps. They were pretty loud and heavy, as if made by an adult. They were definitely footstep sounds on an upstairs floor.

Since that occurrence, I have also heard a few more additional incidents of footsteps upstairs when I have either been alone in the house, with the cat accounted for, or Shaun was already in bed and not gotten up (confirmed by me).

The footsteps overhead and on the stairs are becoming common occurrences. It is no use to investigate when I hear them because they usually only last for a few seconds.

Do they bother me? Not particularly. I just find them super interesting. I would love to get a look at the sources, which, in the last year and a half, have remained invisible.

As long as they stay quiet while I am trying to sleep, we’re good.

Additional footnote: Just a few hours ago I was upstairs in one of the spare bedrooms cleaning up. This particular bedroom has a large walk in closet with a door that is closed at all times. There are some clothes and seasonal decor stored in there. I was rearranging some items in the bedroom when I heard a large bang on the inside of that closet door. It was not something falling over (everything is placed in there so nothing could easily fall). It actually sounded like someone banging against the closed door from the inside. 

I don't know why my mind went to Willie, but it did. I told him he was welcome to come out. 

Nova Scotia Paranormal Events Newsletters

How Many Ghosts Have We Actually Seen?

 

The question I get asked the most (besides, “Is that your real hair color?”) is, “Seen any ghosts lately?” Sure, I get the usual, “How are you?” “What have you been up to?” And ..”Where is it you work again?” But the most often asked question is- if I have seen any ghosts recently. In my entire life, I have actually only seen three ghosts in our haunted house (plus two ghosts captured in a photo taken by me). One was in broad day light, another was a cliched middle-of-the-night encounter, and there was also a weird black shadow ghost, which I will recap below. Considering the number of years I have lived here, I, too, am surprised the number is not higher. 

I have heard a lot of unexplained, crazy, ridiculous things starting when I was little kid, and still do to this day, but actual sightings are few and far between unfortunately. 

But I am not alone in this. 

I’ve tried to determine the number of people (not to be confused with the number of incidents) who have either definitely seen or heard a ghost in our house or saw some anomaly happening at a specific moment that could only be attributed to spirit interaction. The magic number is 15.  This includes family, friends and visitors. There could be more that I am not aware of. 

Fifteen may not seem like a lot but it’s not like this place is a Halloween fun house with non-stop paranormal activity. It happens when it happens. You can’t make it happen. You can’t wish it into existence. The ancient Ouija board that we kept in a cupboard with the Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit games cannot conjure up the dead. Well, most of the time it can’t. 

Regardless, I wanted to reiterate that I am not the only one to have seen and heard things. And while hearing ghosts in various areas of your house can be startling, seeing them is on a whole different level entirely. 

My mother, who had lived in the house longer than any other family member is the one who saw the most. We don’t know if she saw the most because she just could, or because she spent the longest amount of time in the house.  

She also often heard unexplained things, saw doors slam shut, saw doors fly open, saw things disappear and reappear in odd places, saw strange lights (attributed to the phantom car—look that one up on the blog if you haven’t already), smelled unusual things, and received a phone call from her dead mother, just to name a few.  We discussed it a lot over the years, examining the topic from all viewpoints of why doesn’t everyone see or hear ghosts and can one person be more susceptible to it than others. We theorized a lot on this topic but of course, could not definitely say one way or the other. Our discussions usually ended with one or both of us saying, “Well, we’ll all find out someday.” 

By the time we find out the real answer to this, we’re already in the afterlife. 

The following is a compilation of actual real ghost SIGHTINGS in our house, in case you have wondered how many times one has appeared. 

The compiled list of ghosts were determined to be REAL ghosts and not something else that could be more easily explained. The witnesses were 100% sane, sober, wide awake, completely alert and sensible. Incidentally, people who have been in the house and were NOT 100% sane, sober, wide awake, completely alert and sensible never reported seeing anything unusual pertaining to the paranormal realm. 

Ghosts Seen By My Mother 

The Doorstep Ghost: One summer day a few years back, she was sitting on the doorstep in her lawn chair. She insists she was wide awake and had not dozed off. Suddenly a man appeared on the lawn a few feet from the doorstep. He just simply materialized out of thin air. He came walking towards where she was sitting and sat down on the doorstep very close to her. She did not recognize him. She noticed he was wearing a red and yellow Hawaiian shirt and a ball cap and was smoking a cigarette. He did not say anything to her but he looked up at her and smiled and shortly after disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. 

The Soldier Ghost:  She had also seen a man dressed in an old soldier's uniform appear in the living room. His uniform was dark blue with a bit of red on it and he also wore gloves. He looked straight at her and smiled before fading away. 

These are two great examples of an “intelligent haunting’, in which a ghost/spirit will directly interact with a person; in these cases, looking at and smiling at my mother, as if to greet her or acknowledge her presence. It is pretty rare as most ghosts stick to being residual, which is more of a playback of a ghost appearing and not paying any attention to you. 

The Ghost Girl in the Pantry:  Another time, while sitting at her kitchen table, she happened to look up towards the pantry, which is just off the kitchen. There stood a little girl with blond hair in a little dress. The child paid no attention to my mother and after a moment faded away. 

The Ghost Lady in the Living Room: One night while watching tv in the living room, a woman in an old-fashioned house dress suddenly materialized near the tv. My mother reported that this lady just stared off towards the wall, again not interacting with her in any way. Like the others, she quickly disappeared. 

As previously mentioned, the girl in the pantry and the ghost lady are classified as residual hauntings. They appear as if you are seeing them in a playback of a time gone by. They may not even see you looking at them and are possibly showing up as if it is imprinted in time. Neither of them spoke or made a sound. 

The Shadow Ghost: Once again in the pantry, my mother watched a large black shadowy mass standing there for a few minutes. It made no sound and disappeared after a short time. These are known as ‘shadow people’ or ‘shadow ghosts’, for obvious reasons. They generally do not have faces and limbs and do not resemble humans very much. They are reportedly common. 

Ghosts Seen By My Son 

Scott’s Great-Grandmother:  When Scott was around the age of 15, he spent the weekend at the house with his grandmother (my mother). He was in an upstairs bedroom using a computer one night when he heard pacing back and forth just outside his door in the hallway. Knowing no living person was walking around in the hallway, he realized what it could be, given the history of the house. He attempted to ignore it but the pacing on the old creaky floor continued. He looked towards the partially opened bedroom door and saw his great-grandmother (Lizzie) standing there staring at him hatefully. She died in 1981. This sighting happened approximately 2010. He described her appearance as a dark figure with a lit-up outline. He had seen enough pictures of her over the years to know who was standing before him. Naturally freaked out, he once again looked back at his computer screen. When he looked back at the door again, she was gone. Shortly after, he went downstairs to inform his grandmother that her mother was upstairs a few moments ago. 

Sidenote: the hallway pacing has also been heard on two other occasions; once by Scott’s girlfriend/now-wife, and once also by me. It’s creepy as heck and tends to go on for several minutes. 

Scott’s Great-Grandmother Returns:   A few years later, Scott was living at the house to help his grandmother out and also because he worked in a nearby town. One particular night, he had worked a night shift and arrived home just as dawn was beginning to break. He pulled his car in and parked it facing towards the house as he usually did. He glanced towards the house and could clearly see a woman in the kitchen standing near the fridge and then she moved towards the pantry. Assuming his grandmother was up, although it would be odd at that hour for her to do so, he unlocked the door and entered the kitchen. No one was there. He checked on his grandmother who was sound asleep in her bed. As the ghost he had seen looked like an older lady, we assume it was likely his great-grandmother (my grandmother, Lizzie) showing up yet again. 

Ghost Seen By My Aunt 

Lizzie Strikes Again: For many years, I had an aunt and uncle who spent their summers with us. They always slept in the spare bedroom. Incidentally, this was the bedroom with the most paranormal activity in it. Such activity included the bed continually messed up after making it and re-making it, bangs on the wall that adjoined to another bedroom, the locked door becoming unlocked, etc. 

My mom always warned my aunt and uncle about this but they didn’t seem to mind sleeping there. They never experienced anything out of the usual until one night, sometime during the ‘80s. My aunt got up one morning and told my mother she woke up in the middle of the night and much to her surprise my grandmother (Lizzie), who died in 1981, was standing by the bed with her arms outstretched towards her. She appeared solid, like a living person and did not speak. She faded away after a few minutes. My uncle slept through the whole thing. 

Ghosts Seen By My Nephew 

Lizzie, Part 4:  One of my nephews was visiting one weekend when he was about 5 years old. I do not think he was aware of anything paranormal in the house as we did not talk about such things around children in the family so as not to scare them. Only my nephew, his father and my mother were in the house. He came down from upstairs and asked my mother (his grandmother) who the old lady was upstairs in the spare bedroom, sitting on the bed petting the cat. My mother showed him a picture of her mother (Lizzie) and my nephew stated that was the lady he just saw upstairs. 

Another Bedroom Ghost: On another occasion when my nephew visited, he was sleeping in another upstairs bedroom. He was about 5 or 6 years old. He remembers he woke up and there was an old lady standing next to the bed. He blinked and then she was gone. 

Sidenote: My grandmother was born in our house in 1891 and spent most of her life in it. She was very adamant about never leaving it, confirmed by the fact that sometimes she is still seen on the premises. 

Ghost Seen By My Brother 

Ghost Girl in the Bedroom: My brother reported this to my mother at the time it happened. He was a teenager hanging out in his bedroom and saw a girl with long brown hair. She did not  interact with him and disappeared into thin air. Of my three brothers, to my knowledge only this one has actually seen a ghost in our house, although the other two have had other paranormal experiences here. 

Ghosts Seen By Me 

Another Shadow Ghost: When I was about 17, I was in our living room and happened to look out into the hallway. It was early evening and still daylight so everything was well lit and visible inside the house. In the hall at the bottom of the stairs, I saw a large shadowy shapeless black figure.  I can’t say what it was made up of, but it looked more opaque than a smokey substance but not solid like a person. It did not have the shape of a typical human. It made no noise and did not interact. It was there only briefly and disappeared after a few seconds. 

Above, in the section of what my mother had seen, she also reported a Shadow Ghost many years after I saw this one. 

Dude in the Upstairs Hallway: Quite a few years ago, I was wallpapering the largest bedroom upstairs. In addition to my work items constantly disappearing and reappearing during that endeavor, I also had the pleasure of a ghost watching me work. On one particular day, I was about to clean up for the day. The door to the hallway was open and I was in the bedroom admiring my work (hey, it looked damn good!) when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. There was a man standing in the hallway looking into the bedroom. 

 Normally this would not be a big deal as I was married at the time. However, my husband was away and only my mother and I were in the house and she was downstairs at that moment. I was completely taken aback and I think I even gasped. The man appeared solid and alive. He was standing staring intently at me with his arms crossed. He had dark hair, probably middle aged and wore a white shirt and dark pants. He made no sound. I looked at him for a few moments and then he was gone. Did he like the wallpaper? I have no idea. 

The Ghost of Willie: We lived here in the year 2000 for a few years and the re-wallpapered bedroom I just mentioned was my bedroom. My son, Scott, slept just across the hall in a   smaller room. He was 5 at the time. Scott’s dad was away for work. This particular night, I had been asleep for awhile when the action of my bedroom door opening awoke me. Thinking it was Scott, I turned my lamp on and asked what he was doing up. In the somewhat dim light, I could see it was not Scott.  

The child in question giggled, turned and ran back out into the hall. Still trying to convince myself it MUST be Scott because no other children lived there, I quickly got up to follow him as the top of the stairs was only steps away and he could go tumbling down in the dark. 

Once I was in the hall, no one else was visible. No children. No giggling. Nothing. I stepped into Scott’s room where he was still fast asleep. And yes, I checked that he was actually asleep and not trying to pull a prank. 

I am pretty sure this was Willie. Willie was an ancestor who died from measles in our house at the age of 5 in approximately 1873, just a few years after the house was built by his father, Simeon Joudrey, my great-great-grandfather. 

So those are our 14 real, actual ghost sightings. My grandmother (Lizzie) dominates the scene as you can see but there were lots of others, most who remain unknown to us. 

When I get to 15, 16, 17 and so on, you’ll be the first to know. 

Nova Scotia Paranormal Newsletters

The Bedroom

The following post has been kindly written by a guest blogger who wishes to remain anonymous. His experience took place not far from my childhood home.

My birth home is located in a port town on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. To be fair, in my sixty plus years, it has never been known publicly as a hot spot for paranormal activity. In fact the only paranormal activity I know of is personal and centered in a downstairs bedroom of my childhood home.

The original house was built in the early 1900’s. A concrete well cover bears the date 1921. An extension was added following World War two. This allowed two extra bedrooms including the one in question. One might jump to the conclusion that a grave may have been disturbed as family plots on private property were common in those days. This not the case here as there is only about eighteen inches of gravel on top of cliff rock where the foundation is.

In the winter of 1963, I was a boy of seven years. I lived in the upstairs apartment with my parents and brothers. It was a typical family scenario of the day with my hard working Dad providing for a growing family with a stay at home Mom. We were typical boys going to school and doing what young boys do best. Mayhem often reined but there were also strict rules because my Father’s mother lived downstairs. That winter something was to happen that followed me and others for years to come.

“Nanny” was a respected school teacher and icon of our local church. A very capable woman in so many ways. Just before my father was born, she lost her husband to a visiting ship borne outbreak of influenza. She found herself working and raising three children by herself in the early 1930’s. She was a very proud woman and refused any welfare or hand-outs. She did everything she could to provide. This included all of the physical labour on the property she herself grew up on. A large tract of land that had two large gardens, an orchard, a very long driveway and lawn. Boy was there lawn. I can attest as I spent many hours behind a power mower cutting it, she used a push reel mower.

She was a well-built woman, not that tall but stocky with a full figure and muscles that belied a lifetime of hard work. As kids we use to get her to make a muscle with her biceps because hers were bigger than Dad’s. Built on top of her physical strength was a pillar of faith. A devote Christian woman that believed as strong as any person I have ever known.

She sang in the choir, taught Sunday school and served on the church council. She was a person not to be challenged on her faith and not much else either. She was very no nonsense but at the same time had a very nurturing and caring side as well. She made sure we always had a wealth of books and activities to keep us occupied. All of our bikes and tricycles were given to us by her as Christmas presents as Dad just didn’t have the money. She also schooled us on her faith at every opportunity.

I paint this picture of my grandmother to help understand what happen that winter and for years to come. I think of that one particular day often. It has affected me greatly in my life’s course. I gave up believing in religion because of it. Instead I started believing in something else. The true core of what makes us humans and individuals.

Early in 1962, Nanny started having health problems. She was stubborn and delayed seeking help as one often does. She was diagnosed with bowel cancer and was then on a voyage to the end of her life. Back then the course was much the same as today. Surgery, chemo, radiation. She ran the whole gambit. I can remember her and my mother joking about her coal black wig they gave her when her hair fell out. She never complained and always declared she was in God’s hands.

Before the Christmas of ’62, her cancer was back and taking a huge toll. Still she dragged herself through all of her usual seasonal traditions. Once it was over she went back into hospital. She was not there long and returned to her home to die. Her bedroom was to be her last place on earth. It was not long after that we were forbidden to even go downstairs to visit her.

Her once robust frame was reduced to a shrunken shadow of the woman she used to be. My Father use to lament about how she was nothing but skin and bones when she passed. This always puzzled me as that young boy because it was not the same woman I saw the day before she died. In fact I still question to this day what it was I did see.

It was a typical winter’s day when we got home for school for dinner. Dad was not home yet and Mom was getting dinner on the table and acting as referee to my two younger brothers who were fighting. It had been months since we saw Nanny. I looked at my other brother and he looked at me. Next thing we were sneaking downstairs and entering her bedroom.

We crawled on our hands and knees. I stopped at the foot of the bed keeping my head down. My brother when right up beside her and started to speak. “Gee you look good Nanny. Are you getting better?” he said. I looked up not quite prepared for what met my eyes.

For there was my grandmother, propped up on pillows with her still well-muscled arms by her side. Her full face and hair were glorious with what seemed a glowing aura around her. I could not remember seeing her looking any better as was immediately puzzled as to why we were not allowed to see her. She was smiling and very much at peace.

She reached over and took my brother’s hand. She replied “I will be much better very soon. Now you better go before you get into trouble.” My brother and I snuck back upstairs unnoticed and never spoke of what we did for fear of punishment. The next day, as I came home for dinner, I met my visibly shaken Uncle on the back steps. “She’s gone.” was all he said as he swept by me.

The story does not end there.

Fast forward to 1975. I had just met a girl from out of town and we started dating. On the day I took her to my home for the first time, I naturally showed her around the place. My Grandmother’s bedroom had been transformed into a music studio complete with instruments stands, amps, speakers, and the whole nine yards. She took one step across the threshold and immediately jumped back with a startled cry.

“What’s wrong?” I said. “I can’t go in there, somebody died in that room”. She was much shaken and required consoling. All the time she was in that house after that, she never went into that room again. In our years together after that she showed other signs of heightened sensitivity but that’s another story. We went our separate ways years later.
Again going forward to 2007, my present wife stayed at what was now my Father’s home. My Grandmother’s room had been switched back into a bedroom and it was the first time for her to sleep there. She described to me being awaken in the middle of the night by someone in the room. In the light from the street light outside she could see a woman standing at the foot of her bed looking at her with a peaceful smile on her face. She described the woman to me. It matched exactly my Grandmother. I had never told her of my Nan or what happened in that room……………..

As I said earlier, I have no faith in religion. What I do believe is that there is a life force in us that makes us the individuals we all are. Set free by death, it reveals itself from time to time. Is there a God? Do we have souls? After I saw my Nan laying there on the bed, I grew older constantly questioning my “faith”.

There were other things that happened to me. I seemed to be receptive to certain happenings which were at first troubling and strange. Today, much older and wiser, I look at this objectively and accept that there must be something other than out physical bodies that make us who we are and probably will be after we die.

                                     

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When Your Grandmother Comes to Visit

Most people like when their grandparents visit them. Who doesn’t love hugs and homemade cookies from their “Nannies”? The problem begins when the visiting grandparents should NOT be there….because they died many, many years ago.

The house described in this blog is where my mother and son now live. My mother was born there. My grandmother, Elizabeth (“Lizzie” as she was known by), was also born there. And so on, back to about the 1870’s. She died in 1981 at the age of 91. However, I am not sure she got the memo about how you shouldn’t hang around your former residence after you pass away. There have been plenty of signs over the years that she is still there.

Firstly, people have seen her. My son was upstairs in a bedroom using a computer when he was about fifteen. Suddenly, he could sense someone peeking in the partially open door from the hallway. When he looked, he saw an old lady standing there, sort of glaring at him. He was stunned and looked back at the computer and then back to the doorway but she was still there. She stood there for several minutes.

Scott looked away from her again and when he looked back she was gone. He had seen enough pictures of her over the years to recognize her. Gathering all his courage, he bolted from the room and flew down the stairs, waking his grandmother with the story of what had just happened.

We suspect this is not the first time Scott’s great-grandmother has visited him from the great beyond. When he was younger and we lived there for a while, he clearly remembers on several occasions, someone creeping into his room after I had tucked him into bed for the night. This “person” would usually sit down on his bed and lay their hand on his back for a few minutes. He was terrified so he never took his face out of his pillow to see what was there but it wasn’t me or his grandmother and we were the only other ones in the house. We cannot ascertain for sure that it was his great-grandmother but it certainly could have been, given her history.

Secondly, my nephew also had a sighting of my grandmother in the house. When he was about seven or eight and visiting for the weekend, he came in the kitchen one day to ask the family about the old lady he had just seen sitting on the bed in the upstairs spare room petting the cat. My mother asked him what the lady looked like and he described Lizzie perfectly. She had been dead many years at this point.

I had an aunt who visited every summer from Ontario and she reported that one night while sleeping in that spare upstairs bedroom, she awoke to find Lizzie standing right beside the bed with arms outstretched, like she was reaching towards her. Again, the woman had been long dead.

She also seemed to manifest herself in other ways. My mother often reported smelling a sweet perfume in certain areas of the house that she associated with Lizzie. And she is quite convinced that Lizzie even called her on the phone one Easter Sunday many years ago. When she answered the phone, she could hear a lot of static and a far-away woman’s voice saying “Hello? Hello?”, which she is certain was her mother.

Lizzie was an interesting old lady, to say the least. She was perpetually cranky, had her favorite relatives and shunned the rest. We moved in so my mother could look after her when I was five years old but she did not interact with us grandchildren the way most grandmothers do. I don’t remember a lot about her but I do know she was rather fussy and set in her ways. always had a crock pot of her homemade wine brewing and she wasn’t the easiest person for my family to live with.

But she loved her house and was adamant about never leaving it. And I guess she didn’t.

(This is not a true representation of my grandmother

but you get the idea)

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