So often television shows portray hauntings as terrifying and evil but that is not the common truth. Yes, there are some very terrible hauntings but most people do not encounter them and I am glad for that. What I hear and see much more often are family hauntings and hauntings where people become attached.
I’d like to share a story that came to me years ago and I have long loved this story that was told to me directly by the granddaughter who lived in the home with him. Because the family still lives in my local area, I have changed their names but the story is very true.
When Rainie’s parents split up, her mother took the kids and went back to her parents’ home. Grandma and Grandpa were happy to welcome them all, even though there were four children and their daughter. Grandpa loved kids and so he quickly became a most important figure in the children’s lives. Their father had dropped out of their lives as he pursued his own life and did not want to bother with the children. Grandpa filled that void and the kids all adored him.
Only four years after the family moved back home, Grandpa passed away. His loss was felt keenly by every family member. Grandma slept downstairs because she could not walk the steps and she spent her lonely nights missing her husband. The kids felt the loss, too. Gone was their friend, the fellow who laughed and played with them and surprised them with treats. Grandpa had been a big kid himself and oh they missed his laughter and joy.
Grandpa’s room had been upstairs and Rainie’s room was next door to it. At night Rainie and her sister who shared the room would hear the squeaky springs in Grandpa’s room screeching as if someone was on the bed turning and tossing but they knew that no one was there. On a couple occasions the girls even went to the room to be sure that someone else was not sleeping in Grandpa’s bed. They never found anyone in the room.
Eventually they talked to their mother about the sounds and about the footsteps that sounded like Grandpa’s footfalls in the hallway. Mom confessed that she thought Grandpa was haunting the house, too. But she explained it beautifully by saying that Grandpa loved them all so much that he had not left them yet. He would never have hurt them in life and he would not hurt them now either.
The family moved on with life but Grandpa was still part of things. The footsteps in the hall, the bathroom door opening and closing by itself, the feeling of him in the house were part of the fabric of the family.
One night Rainie’s mom heard Grandma moving downstairs in the middle of the night and went down to see if she was alright. Grandma was putting water on for tea and the two women talked for a few minutes. Grandma had been restless and could not shake the feeling that Grandpa was in the house moving around. The mother and daughter talked as they sipped tea until suddenly Rainie’s mother grew suddenly silent. She looked past her mother’s head to the doorway that opened to the stairs that led upward. On the landing she saw her father and he was motioning passionately toward the window on the landing. Rainie’s Grandma turned and saw her husband, too. He gestured toward the window frantically and then faded away. Rainie’s grandma got up and struggled up the four steps to look out the landing.
Grandma saw lights on in the house across the street. She could see the neighbor woman pacing back and forth holding her newborn baby.
Grandma hurried across the street and knocked on the door. The young woman answered it and Grandma could immediately see the situation. The woman’s baby was very ill and the new mother was trying frantically to find someone to take her to the hospital.
In an instant Grandma marshalled the situation immediately. She hurried back to the house and instructed Rainie’s mother to get the car. They needed to get this baby to the hospital. The kids were roused and given instructions. Grandma and Mom went to the hospital with the baby and the very frightened mother.
At the hospital the two women sat for hours while they waited for word on the child. Eventually a nurse came out and told them that the baby’s father had arrived and they could go home. “It’s a really good thing you got them in here so fast,” she commented. “The baby’s fever was way too high. It’s doubtful he’d have survived long if he had not gotten to the hospital. That baby is very lucky.”
Rainie’s mother and Grandma knew how lucky that baby really was. Grandpa had come back from the dead to alert them that a child needed help.
I have long loved this story that took place in the late 1970’s. Who you are when you are alive is exactly who you are when you die. Thankfully most folks are good and decent people.
My Supernatural World 