Tammy and I had lived beside each other for thirteen years but had only recently begun to walk together in the evenings. She’d never told me this story about the man before. I suddenly realized he might be related to someone in their house. Tammy’s home was the original Victorian house on this tract of land, and we were once told that our home had been built beside it for a family member. If this is true, the man in the red plaid shirt probably felt comfortable in either house. He may have crossed back and forth often to visit his parents or whoever lived in the older Victorian house. Tammy and I speculated on different scenarios for a while, but of course we still don’t know for sure. The research I’ve done is inconclusive. I only know that each of us banished our spirits into other areas in our respective houses—away from us!
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18
House-Ghosts
My friend Teri has coexisted with something in her home for many years. The village where Teri lives is picturesque, with a quaint main street crowded with small shops and Gothic churches. I drove through the small town and pulled up in front of her home. Teri was just a few months old when her parents moved their family to the century-old brick house tucked between two downtown buildings.
As I stepped onto the red-brick front porch, I admired the iron Victorian gate, which along with the arched windows, gave away the home’s age. Teri answered the door, a big smile lighting up her pretty face, and ushered me inside. A long, steep staircase climbed the wall just inside to the left, instantly giving off a vibe of something up there. I glanced up at it and immediately made a mental note to ask what happened on these stairs, or at the top of them, as the psychic feeling coming from them was pretty intense.
We walked through the house and sat at the kitchen table, Teri’s friendly cats checking me out the entire time, and Teri began to tell me about her haunted house.
Almost as far back as she can remember, Teri recalls seeing perfectly round balls of light zipping around the hallway outside her bedroom, which was just up those stairs inside the front door. They were about the size of tennis balls, very brightly colored, and hovered and darted through the hall. Teri remembers as a child being fascinated with the balls of light. Later on, when she was still a little girl, Teri would go into the basement and hold long conversations with someone. Her mother would come down to bring her upstairs, but Teri loved her talks and tea parties with the man she called “Old MacDonald.”
Later in her adult life, Teri inherited the home from her parents and brought her own small children along.
One night when her daughter was about three, Teri put her to bed and was sitting with her husband on the downstairs sofa with the baby monitor near them. They began to hear their daughter talking from her upstairs room—and then something began to answer her.
Teri ran up to her daughter’s room and found her sitting in her closet, deep in conversation with this someone. Teri put her daughter back in bed and tucked her in. Almost as soon as Teri returned to the sofa, their daughter could once again be heard speaking on the baby monitor
—in a conversation with someone! Her tiny daughter would talk, and then a strange voice would answer her. Teri ran back upstairs, and once again, her little girl was sitting in the closet, engrossed in a visit with someone only she could see. This brought back Teri’s childhood memories of “Old MacDonald,” her basement friend.
One night,Teri was giving her girls a bath before she put them to bed. When she’d tucked them in, she came down the front stairs and into the living room. Teri’s husband suddenly asked, “What did you need earlier?” Puzzled, Teri told him she hadn’t needed anything.
Teri told her husband she hadn’t come down. He just shook his head. “Then I can tell you for sure that one of our ghosts has blond hair!” He’d been sitting on the sofa when someone with blond hair stuck her head around the corner, as if to ask him the location of something. Then whoever it was left again, as though they’d suddenly remembered where it was. But Teri had been busy bathing the girls and hadn’t moved from the bathroom.
Teri told me it is common for them to hear footsteps that go up and down the hall upstairs when no one is up there. They hear the doors open and close sometimes. The dogs and cats freak out about this; it’s obvious they can hear and see something that Teri and her husband can’t! Then the footsteps usually descend the stairs, but that’s all they do. Teri always assumed whoever it was was going out the front door, and maybe that’s why the footfalls stopped there.
One day Teri was in the bathroom just off the kitchen and her husband was in the next room when she heard the back door open. Teri pointed behind me toward the back door to show me how close it was. Teri and I were seated at her kitchen table, just a few feet from the bathroom. The living room was beyond it, around the corner from where we sat at the kitchen table.
Their dogs heard the back door open too, and they came thundering through the house to see who it was. Teri heard a female voice yell, “Hey,” so she finished up quickly and hurried out of the bathroom, thinking it was their older daughter. Teri didn’t see anyone, so she went to the living room to ask her husband what their daughter had wanted.
Teri’s husband told her their daughter wasn’t there—that no one had been there. But he told Teri he too had heard the back door open and the voice call out. They were both dumbfounded. It took them a while to get over that one!
One day, when their girls were a little older, about five and seven, they were having a huge fight in their room. After arguing back and forth as sisters sometimes do, they came running to Teri suddenly, very scared. In the middle of their argument, a stuffed animal had come flying into their room from the hallway, as though someone had thrown it at them—as if someone was angrily saying, “Knock it off!” The girls were the only ones upstairs that day. Yet the girls seemed to know it wasn’t a malicious act; it was more as if someone had become annoyed at their bickering and wanted them to shut up!
Teri’s father had been a carpenter, and their garage had been his workshop. He always told everyone who came into his shop with a lit cigarette to put it out because the sawdust in the air could spark. This is how Teri’s dad taught them to never smoke around woodworking. Teri and her husband had recently been involved in restoring the house, and one night Teri needed to cut a board, which she’d learned to do herself. She walked into the garage with a lit cigarette and laid it down on the lip of the saw. When she turned back around to get it, someone had stubbed it out. Teri just knew that was her dad.
I asked Teri how her husband reacted to all this ghostly stuff. “He takes it in stride, mostly because he’s had his own experiences,” she told me. Teri’s husband has an old rocking chair upstairs that had belonged to his grandma. When he was in college, this rocker was in his dorm. One night he woke up to go to the bathroom, and the chair was rocking. He thought he could see a form sitting in it, but since he was half-asleep, he sort of blew it off. By the time he got back to his room, he was wide awake, and now he could see for certain that it was his grandma, sitting there in the chair, rocking! Teri’s husband stuck out his hand, wanting to try to touch his grandma, and his hand felt like it went through a cold mist, and then suddenly she was gone; she dissolved, just like that.
Teri taught her girls that they should ask one of the ghosts, who they nicknamed “Gertie,” to bring back anything the girls couldn’t find, the items that went missing. One time, her younger daughter lost her favorite bouncy ball. It was just a small ball, but the little girl loved it. She asked Gertie out loud to find it and bring it to her, and later that day, while she was sitting on the floor watching TV, the ball suddenly appeared beside her on the floor. This would be known as an “apport,” where a spirit can make objects appear out of thin air or move items from one area to another.
Teri and her extended family live peacefully with their spirits these days. As I finished up our interview and said my goodbyes, I made my way through
the iron gate again, giving a backward glance up at the old brick house as I walked back to my car on the street. I had the sense of many eyes watching me go.
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19
Shared Tragedy
I met a woman a few years ago at one of my favorite music venues, and through our shared tragedy—the untimely deaths of our young adult sons—we bonded. Over the years since my own son James’s death, Sandy and I have become good friends. Sandy encouraged me in my new writing career, and we talked often about our sons, the spirit world, and the returns of loved ones. She finally told me about some of her own son’s returns.
Her son Tim was only twenty-one when he died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. Obviously, this was a terribly traumatic time for her. And just as with James, neither Sandy nor I got to say goodbye.
Over the years since Tim died, Sandy has had a few experiences with him returning to her. Amazingly, Tim and James were very much alike; Sandy and I believe they would have been friends if they had ever met. Tim was full of excitement and drive, focused on whatever thing held the top slot of his interest at any given time. He wouldn’t rest until he’d conquered it or mastered it—whether it was skateboarding, motorcycling, getting something he wanted, or achieving some level of mastery over a particular subject. James was the very same way. At some point, to his friends Tim became synonymous with a star symbol. Sandy believes it was from a logo on his motorcycle. James, a professional rollerblader and musician, developed a broken heart symbol, which stood for his extreme rollerblading crew, The Jolly, Jolly Heartbreakers. One day, Tim came home with an open star tattooed on the back of his neck, shaded with lime green, his favorite color. (James came home one day with the broken heart tattoo on the side of his neck.) After their deaths, all their friends each got Tim’s and James’s distinctive tattoos. The similarities between our sons are uncanny. Sandy told me a strange story about the star.
One day at work on her lunch hour, Sandy’s left hand started hurting. It felt like a bruise and when she looked, there was a bump right below her ring finger. She didn’t remember hitting it on anything and couldn’t figure out what caused the discomfort. She went back to work and about an hour later, she just happened to look down at her hand. There was a perfectly shaped star where the bump had been! The blue bruise beneath the skin was shaped like a star—her son’s signature mark. Without saying anything about what she thought it looked like, Sandy asked five people at work if they saw anything on her hand. Without any hesitation at all, they confirmed it was a star. Later Sandy took a picture of it to show her husband in case it started to fade away. Sandy just knew somehow that it was Tim letting her know he was with her.
Sandy also told me she gets a feeling of urgency sometimes when sitting on their sofa facing the door to her hallway. Usually, she’s reading or doing a crossword puzzle, when she feels an intense need to look up. As soon as she does, near the top of the wall is a cloud of white fog, which quickly passes by. Her eyes follow the solid wall between the two doorways to see if the white cloud exits on the other side, but it never does. It’s as though it just disappears. But along with the white cloud, Sandy feels Tim’s presence very strongly each time. She believes it’s Tim, maybe coming to check out his room. Sandy thinks he also wants to let her know he’s still there with her. Each time Sandy has seen the white cloud, it only lasts a few seconds, but it’s enough to leave her with a strong sense of peace and comfort.
Sandy told me that a few years earlier, they’d put in a new kitchen floor. While they’d been talking with the floor installer about the kitchen, they’d asked him about doing the same thing in their bathroom. The installer told them he had a scrap piece of flooring in his truck that they could have, and she and her husband could just pay for installation. Since their bathroom was very small, the piece of flooring would work just fine.
They all decided the installer would come another day to put down the bathroom floor. The day he came, Sandy was at work, but her husband was home to take care of things. When the installer showed up, he told Sandy’s husband he had a different scrap piece they could look at, then decide which one they wanted to use. This new piece was darker than the first one, with squares in shades of browns and creams. Sandy’s husband called her for her opinion, and she told him whichever one he decided upon would be fine with her. Sandy’s husband picked the new piece.
About a week later, Sandy noticed a perfect letter T—the first initial of their son Tim’s name—on one of the squares. Sandy remembered that they’d never seen the flooring before the day the installer offered it to them. She decided to take a picture of the tile. The most amazing part to Sandy is that on the same square with the letter T, there is a face—and it is the face of her son, Tim. Without a shadow of a doubt, it is his face. Sandy has the photo that matches the tile exactly. The eyes, nose, mouth, and the unusual haircut Tim had at that time are all represented. Sandy believes it’s another sign from Tim. She doesn’t understand how these strange things can happen, but they do. Sandy had one more sign from her deceased son.
At the same time they did the flooring, the couple also painted the walls in their entire home. Tim’s room was a bright lime green and had been for years. He just loved that color. They’d surprised him one year while he was gone and painted it for him. He never repainted it. Tim had also put many glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling in all sizes, from very tiny to quite large. I had to laugh as I told Sandy that James also had these stars on his ceiling. Sandy just shook her head at how alike our sons were.
And in addition to the star being Tim’s signature mark, bright lime green was also his favorite color, so Sandy never intended to repaint his room—she was just going to leave it as it was. But after they’d painted all the other rooms in the house, there was some paint left over. Sandy’s husband said they might as well paint Tim’s room because they couldn’t leave it like that forever. He reasoned that since it would eventually have to be done, this was as good a time as any. So Sandy went along with the plan, but first, she took every star off the ceiling. It took a long time because she was careful not to get them all over the floor. Sandy made sure she got every one of them. Sandy even saved a few, just to keep. With that done, she and her husband moved on to the walls.
They had to put two coats of primer on the walls just to cover the green. But as they began to do it, Sandy started getting really sick to her stomach. As they got to the last wall of green, she thought she was going to vomit. It had suddenly hit Sandy—the last remnants of her precious son were gone! She started crying hysterically, saying, “What have we done? What have we done?” Sandy’s husband tried to comfort her, but she was inconsolable. Sandy cried the whole weekend and just felt really sick. All vestiges of Tim’s old room were gone now, the room was freshly painted, and Sandy was emotionally drained.
On the last evening of the weekend, Sandy was stoically cleaning stuff up and getting things ready for work the next day, when she turned off the light in the bedroom. Suddenly Sandy realized there was still a light on in the room. She didn’t understand what was going on at first. Sandy even turned the light switch on and off a few times, because she didn’t get it. Then Sandy realized her shirt was glowing! She looked down and saw the glow-in-the-dark stars all over it! She hadn’t dropped very many, and any that she did, she picked right back up. Tim’s old room was completely clean, and the stars were gone. So how did so many get all over Sandy’s shirt? To her, this was a final sign from Tim, just letting his mother know that no matter what color his room was, he would always be with her, and she would always feel him around her. This was exactly what Sandy needed to know, right when she needed her son to show her.
I look forward to the day when I can finally go to Sandy’s house to see her special bathroom tile. I often wonder about the son who was so much like my own. I hope they’ve met each other by now, wherever they are. I just know they’d be friends.
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20
Get the Baby
I drove to Amish Country after my friend and fellow investigator Darrin Troyer of the Amish Paranormal Society told me what had happened to a woman he knew. Darrin’s friend Lani and her husband own a business in Amish Country. After a few phone calls, I finally scheduled our interview.
I parked across the street from their store and waited in the crosswalk for the light to turn. The town was bustling with tourists visiting the many shops on either side of the street. I had met Lani and her husband the previous October while visiting their store during a Halloween event. The quaint little town had arranged ghost tours at all the participating buildings that supposedly had ghosts. My friend Darrin had set up his group’s merchandise and displays on a table at the back of Lani’s store. Then Darrin gave a short presentation to the customers who made the rounds of the spooky downtown stores.
Lani’s old store held all the ambience of its century-plus years. She greeted me from behind a raised counter made of old wood, which gleamed mellowly under the overhead lights. A pretty, delicately featured woman with dark hair, she smiled at the sight of me walking through the high, wide doors.
I greeted Lani and told her I was glad we could finally find a time to meet. Lani thanked me for not giving up on her, as she had been very busy. Summer tourist season in Amish Country was a sight to behold—you could not tell that anything was wrong with the economy when in Amish Country. People flocked there from throughout Ohio and nearby states. In fact, a rough economy had helped our Amish Country flourish because it is just a short trip away for many, and thus a less expensive adult vacation destination.
Darrin had told me just a little about what had happened to Lani the previous fall.
Lani had been through chemo not long before this event, and her thoughts had turned to what awaits us all after death. A little morbid perhaps, but considering the circumstances, I’m sure many of us would have dealt with the same feelings.
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