Hauntings

I know this is a bit late for Halloween, but I was thinking about it today (while reading ghost stories), and though I would post something I wrote a few years ago in my old apartment. Enjoy.

I
There is someone on my stairs. I understand this entity is male. I noticed him last September. Just kind of a shadow, some noises going up and down the stairs. When Tyler and I started dating, he came over a few times before he said anything. He asked me if I knew there was something on my stairs. I never said anything to anyone about it before that. We just pretty much notice occasionally, but never really say anything, except an occasional hello.

We hadn’t really noticed him much after my last roommate moved out in January. We thought maybe the ghost belonged with him or something. In August, my friend’s daughter, Katie, was taking care of my dog while I was at work during the day. She would come over and watch movies and hang out. One day, when I was giving her her payment, she asked me if I knew there was a man on the stairs. Now, I have never mentioned this to her or her mom.

I asked her if she was sure that it was a man. She knew. She hadn’t seen his face, but she knew. She said he was nice, and didn’t bother her. Since then, we have noticed the shadow back on the stairs. We have even noticed Mario playing with something on the stairs. We both seem to be pretty respectful of each other’s space. He keeps to him self on the stairs, and we keep to ourselves, as well. Mario seems to be the only one that entertains him.

II
When my dad died, I had not much in the way of ghostly experiences. They have always fascinated me, but I had to live vicariously through my friends stories. While my dad was dying, he had some interesting conversations with – well, we don’t really know. Sometimes, we could tell he was talking to his dead brother, sometimes we really couldn’t even tell what he was saying. One of my favorite conversations – from his side was when he was talking and suddenly said, “George, George, George… you bulbous bastard… George W. Bush.”

Anyway, after my dad died, some weird things started happening around the house. He did die in the house. And it would make sense for him to hang around, since he had lived there for almost 30 years.

The first thing that happened was when my grandparents came down to stay for the funeral. My parents had slept in separate rooms for several years because they both tended to snore and kept each other awake. My dad slept in the master bedroom, and my mom had moved into my old room. The master bedroom was the only room with a bed big enough to hold two people, so my grandparents stayed in there. The first night they were there, my grandparents turned off the lights around 11 and went to bed. About 2 in the morning, my grandma woke my grandpa and yelled at him for not turning off the light that was over the dresser. The light switch was at least ten feet away, by the bedroom door. My grandpa remembered turning it off. It was on, and shining brightly.

The next couple of days, a few other things happened. I don’t remember the exact order of everything, but I do remember what happened. We were all standing in the kitchen, which backed up to our large family room. The family room had one light in the corner by the kitchen. I happened to be facing into the family room, when I noticed three lights flash in the air over on the other side of the room. The family room is over 20 feet long, and it was in the back in the house, so there was no chance of it being a car going by.

My dad brewed his own beer. We had cases of it out in the garage. He hadn’t had any in months, and neither had anyone else. My grandpa had one bottle while he was visiting and threw the bottle in the trash. After he left, we found an empty bottle on one of our pantry shelves. It is still in my mom’s pantry.

As I have said before, my dad almost always wore red 49er shirts. He NEVER wore undershirts. My mom was doing laundry and found my dad’s undershirt that had been on the bottom of all of his clothes in the bottom drawer of his dresser, in the laundry basket. We have no idea how it got there.

My dad was a gardener, and he knew my favorite flower was gardenias. I had a skirt that had giant gardenias all over it. One day, I put on the skirt to wear to work. Suddenly, I smelled gardenias. Where there weren’t any. For the entire ride to work. And for about 2 hours at work, until I asked someone if they smelled it as well. No one else could smell it. It suddenly went away.

We had trouble at some point remember what my dad looked like when he was well. I think that sometimes my dad communicated to me through my dreams. I actually had a billboard in a dream that kept saying not to worry, that he loved me. Mom slowly had him show up in her dreams. First, as a floating head, then, slowly his body would start materializing.

The best and perhaps most “chilling” story happened to my mom when she got home from work one day. My mom promised my dad that she would retire from work once he died. She couldn’t do it quite yet. So she went back to work. My dad would always be waiting for my mom and call out to her, “Hi! How was your day?” Almost before she could even make it to the door.

So, she gets home a few weeks after he died and the phone is ringing as she walks in the door. She answered it to a lot of static, like a cell phone with bad reception. For some reason, she felt she should stay on the line. She said hello again, and heard “hi.” Then she heard amidst the static, “where have you been?” She told the phone that she had been at work. The phone didn’t say anything back for a while. Then it said, “I miss you.” She said it back. Then it said, “I love you.” She said it back. The phone faded to more static and then went dead.

She called me at work to ask if I had called. Nope. She tells this story better than me and gives everyone chills when she tells it.

The only other thing I can think of is when we were getting ready to move. We had a gate that locked from the inside and outside. The day before we moved, the “doorknob” fell out of the gate into my hand. The people that were moving into the house, were a woman and her kids after a bad divorce. She wanted to be able to keep her husband out and the gated opening was a good selling point. We were able to replace the doorknob before she moved in. She told us that she has felt a protective energy ever since she moved in.

We haven’t really had many “dad” experiences since moving, other than little dreams, and the hummingbird incident. But he is still always on our minds, and we hope he has moved on but is still watching over us.

III
About 10 years ago, a friend of mine passed from drowning. We hadn't spoken in a couple of years, but we had been really good friends for a while before that. A mutual friend of ours was in the Air Force, working on Air Force One. He lived just outside DC and a couple years later invited me to come and visit him. It was the first time since the death of our friend that we had seen each other. We were both really excited.

I flew out to see him, with my best friend – because he worked for the airlines, so I was able to get first class. He got back on the plane after he got me there. I met my friend a few minutes later. We went back to his town home and he introduced me to his girlfriend at the time. We stayed up and talked for hours that night. His girlfriend worked the graveyard shift and he worked early in the morning.

The next morning, I heard him leave for work. A few minutes later, I heard knocking on the wall next to the bed I was sleeping in. On the other side of the wall was an office-type room with only a couch and a computer in it. I thought my friend had maybe forgotten his keys and couldn't get back in. I moved toward the stairs and the knocking stopped. I went back to bed, and the knocking started again, this time right on the window of the room I was in – on the second floor.

When his girlfriend came home from work, I told her what happened. She said that similar reports have happened from other people when they have stayed there. There was no “real” explanation. They ended up telling me about some other weird stuff that had happened in their house – mostly in the kitchen, involving the lights.

The second night, I could have sworn that I heard our deceased friend talking to me, and being quite prominently in my dreams. I told my friend about this the next day, and he said that happens to him quite often.
When I went home, I felt like I had taken this entity with me for some reason. A few strange things happened at home. I would be sleeping and I would wake up to use the restroom in the night, and the bedroom door would just magically be closed when I got back. When I opened the door, the radio was on. Then I heard a voice say, “Hi, Jen. How ya doin'?” I am pretty sure that was the extent of it, but it was weird to me.

IV
My mom tells me this story: When I was a baby, she was pretty sure that we lived in a haunted house. I would be in my crib and she would hear me talking (baby talk) for about an hour before she got up. She swore that I was talking to someone. She would come home from work at midnight and my dad would leave for work at 4 am. After he would leave, she said the dog would start hiding under the bed and whining. Then the bed would start to move across the room. Not far, but it moved enough to freak her out.

We all have weird experiences, but who knows what they really are? Electro-magnetic impulses? Dead people in limbo? I don't think anyone knows for sure, but it sure makes for interesting conversation.

Near Death Experiences

My mom wonders how I am still alive after all these years. With all of the things I have been through, it is kind of a wonder.

When I was little, I almost drowned at least twice. One time, I fell in to the pond in our back yard. I thought my dog went in and rescued me, but mom told me he was afraid of water, so I don’t quite remember how I got out of there. When I was even younger, I fell into a pool in the back yard of some of my parent’s friends. The oldest of the kids there (who was barely older than me) could not get the drunken parents to pay attention to me, so he went in and rescued me. (Turns out there IS a reason that I don’t like water that I can’t see the bottom of – it was a black bottom pool).

Right before I started first grade, there was a big hole by my house. It was close to ravine size to a kid of my age and size. They were building a park, and did not have this fenced off. It had been raining, in classic California style, rained for a couple of days and pretty much filled this giant gaping hole. A friend and I were playing near there (this was a halfway point between our houses – she lived across the street, and I was a house away). I fell in. I did not know how to swim (I certainly learned soon!!!) – and just went down. It was probably about 4 feet deep, but I was pretty little – around 5. I was fished out by my soon to be crossing guard (she was the nicest lady) and taken home. I told my mom that I “whimmed like a fish,” as I was shivering and my teeth were chattering. My mom put me in the bathtub, to get the stench off of me, warm me up and wash the filthy water out of my braids.

My mom told me of a story, I can’t remember the exact details – but she ran out of gas or the car stalled (it was an old VW bug), and she forgot the parking brake. The car started going down a hill, with me still in it (I was just a baby). By the time she got to the car, I was screaming. In happiness. I wanted to do it again.

Until I was in probably 6th grade, my mom worked the evening shift at work. 4-midnight. Dad worked in the morning. So, at night, dad was in charge. At that point, there were a lot of parties that dad took me to. I think partly because it gave him so much attention with the ladies, and partly so he wouldn’t have to get a babysitter. Well, I can’t tell you how many times he drove me home drunk. I remember going on a freeway onramp and being only on two wheels. Running over things, crashing into them. Luckily, I wasn’t with him when he finally crashed into the light pole in our neighborhood and totaled his car. Somehow, he ended up driving the car into the garage, and going to bed. He did finally get caught and got thrown in jail for a night with a DUI. So, at least he stopped drunk driving. Stoned driving is a completely different story.

Not a lot happened in the following years that I remember. Until I was in my 20’s. I wasn’t in any car accidents that could have been really fatal. I was never on any rides at Disneyland that I would have been thrown from. I was never in a plane that almost went down. I didn’t have any major illnesses. Once I was in my 20’s, though… I had a couple of accidents and a couple major illnesses…

My accidents – the first one was in the Renault Encore – my second car. I was driving to work at Target, and I pulled in to the parking lot – well the employee parking was on the right side, so I always went in with the right lane. Well, today, a guy in a big truck (one of those big ones from the 70’s) with a camper shell on it decided to make a right turn from the left lane – without signaling. Right into the drivers side door. He tried to blame me and say that I was going too fast. I went in the building (after crawling out of my car from the passenger door), told the manager what happened – the manager sent out the cart attendants to go get the guy’s license plate numbers, etc. and they proceeded to protect me the rest of the day. Turned out the guy didn’t have insurance, so he wanted to settle it out of court. I was refused repair because the car was considered totaled.

Ok, the second one was in my ’74 Bug. I was having a particularly bad night at work at Disneyland, and happened to make the comment to a co-worker that I would probably get in a car accident on the way home that night (I learned my lesson that night). It had been raining. And if anyone knows the brake life on the old bugs, they know that even in the best of situations, you cannot slam on brakes in those cars. Well, when I was driving home from work, a semi (at the time, it was a Lucky Grocery store truck) decided to make a lane change 1. in the middle of an intersection, 2. Without signaling and 3. Without looking. To avoid hitting him and becoming a smooshed Pepsi can, I swerved into the next lane. I hit the small Mazda truck next to me. Filled with a Hispanic family. Since it was late at night, I did not know it was a family. I was in a prime gang area. And that was exactly what I thought was pouring out of the truck. Until the grandma got out. I started bawling. She put her arms around me and told the man (her son, I assume), that I was scared and to take it easy on me (yes, en español).

I narrowly avoided several accidents. On the freeways of southern California, I would be nearby when cars would hit the center divider and cement pieces (large ones) would spray everywhere, but none would even come near my car. I had some minor things happen, hitting poles that were too low to see out of my rear view mirror, backing into curbs that were too high. That kind of thing. It wasn’t until I had my Saturn that I had the really bad accidents. I had not even had the car for a year when a kid that had probably just gotten his license pulled out in front of me. I was driving south on Beach Blvd. In Huntington Beach – also known as highway 39. The speed limit was 50. Which is what I was going. He made a left turn out of the McDonalds that clearly said (I think there are at least 4 signs) No Left Turn or Right Turn Only. I luckily had 3 witnesses. I slammed into that boy. He wanted to settle out of insurance. He was afraid that his insurance would get canceled. He took too long to get back to me. As soon as my car was done getting fixed, we had to move.

I wasn’t in another accident until the rear-end by the semi a couple of years ago. If he had been going any faster, I may have been killed. Not to mention Tyler and Mario. ‘Course, Mario was the only one of us that didn’t have a seat belt on, so who knows….

Then there are the weird ones… I had a knife pulled on me in Garden Grove, CA when I was driving home from Work in Disneyland. I saw this new truck that looked really cool. It was bright yellow, which I had really liked. I was taking a look at it when I was stopped at a light. The girl driving obviously took offense to this, and climbed out of the truck and came toward my car with a knife flashing in her hand. She came to my window and asked if I had a problem. I told her that I really liked her truck. As she came closer to me, the light turned and I took off.

We were on the 10 fwy in the Pomona area when we accidentally cut some guy off (ok, it wasn’t accidentally, but I needed to get off on that exit and the guy wouldn’t let me over). Well, my dad thought it was funny, and smiled and waved at him. The guy pulled out a gun and started waving it at us. Luckily, we made it off the off ramp before he started shooting.

I was somewhat physically abused by a roommate that I had in 1993. I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was a tweaker. He smacked me around. He chased me around with a giant knife. He slashed my things when he couldn’t get into my room. The final straw was when he smashed a beer bottle over my head. I didn’t find out until years later that he was on speed.

Probably the last one I have to mention that is probably the most surprising that didn’t take my life and probably should have – you guys all know it – Cancer. And all the things that went along with it… The chemo almost killed me – especially the wrong one. The staph infection should have killed me. Instead it gave me a Myocardial Infarction (heart attack) that should have killed me. The stem cell transplant and all the procedures that went along with it could have killed me. But somehow, and with a positive attitude, I did not die.

Never thought I would make it to my 25^th birthday, much less my 35th. I didn’t mention all the depression; all the times I have attempted suicide. Those are just SOME things why I thought I wouldn’t make it to my 25^th. My mom thinks that there is a reason I am here – I have some sort of purpose to fulfill before I am allowed to die. Maybe this is true. Maybe I just have to find fulfillment in my life and be happy with who I am and who I can be before I am allowed to die. Maybe I have to produce offspring. Maybe I have to make a fortune. Maybe I just have to make someone else happy and fulfill a promise that I made in a former life. I don’t know.

All I know is that I am another year older, and even though I probably SHOULD be dead at this point – I’m not. I lived to tell the tale, and I am happy so far. Hmmmm… weird…

The Hummingbird

I haven't posted this on any of my public blogs, only on my myspace blog. From some things I have been reading lately, I think it's safe to post here and maybe some fellow bloggers will read it and enjoy it, even understand it. :-) Enjoy...

When my dad was dying, I was taking a class about guided imagery. If you don’t know what guided imagery is, it’s basically a way to get into your subconscious through imagery that is controlled by another person telling you where to go – kind of through a meditative state. A person (in this case the instructor), would sit at the front of the room and guide us through a place – say, starting at the bottom of a mountain – and he would guide us up the mountain while we were to picture and see, feel, hear and smell our surroundings. At the end of the meditation, we would write about our experience. Then we would try to interpret it.

One evening, we were asked to picture our parents as animals. I don’t really remember how we were asked to do it, or how we got to that point. Usually, several people in class would be crying at the end of their meditations. This time, I believe I was the only one. I understood it. I saw my mother as a doe. Gentle, kind of puzzled, and somewhat stuck in the headlights of an oncoming car. I saw my father in our plumeria plants that we had on our patio, as a wounded hummingbird. His wing was broken and he couldn’t fly away.

When I got home that night, my dad asked how class was. He was always interested in what happened during my day. Probably because he was a very social person, he lived for when I came home and told him all the gossip from work. So I told him the subject of our evening. He laughed and said that I must have pictured my parents as pigs. He always thought I had no respect for them and bad mouthed them when they weren’t around. I was kind of taken aback and told him, no, that wasn’t what I pictured. He looked closely at me and asked what I say mom as. I told them both what I saw. He understood that. Then he looked at me again, and said to me (almost with a tear in his eye), “You saw me as a bird, didn’t you?” My dad never really read me before that I knew of. This was amazing to me. I explained the visualization. I could tell he was touched, but he moved on. Within a month, he had passed away.

When people in my dad’s side of the family pass, we often see animals who remind us of them – generally starting on the day they pass. When my grandfather died, my grandma saw a frog in her garage – next to the passenger door of her car – where my grandpa always got in. She associates frogs with grandpa now. When my uncle died a few years before that, she saw a skunk – she had always called Uncle Larry a skunk. Now, when dad died, everyone associated him with the hummingbird story. It was weird, because when things needed deciding, or we were having trouble concentrating, suddenly a hummingbird would appear right outside the window. At times of celebration, there was a hummingbird – even if it wasn’t the right time of year, and in an area that was totally not hummingbird friendly.

A few things about my dad before I tell you the rest of the story. Every day – my dad would wear a red 49er t-shirt. He had loads of them. For what seemed like years, he would also wear red sweat pants. My dad was fond of trying to make decisions for me, even though he knew that most of the time I wouldn’t follow them. He was fond of giving advice and trying to help me figure out if a guy was suitable for me. He was more often right than not. But like most people my age, I needed to make these mistakes on my own and learn from them.

In late October, Tyler and I were sitting on the patio of my apartment early one morning. It was very cold out. I think we had just started scraping ice off of our windshield in the morning about this time. I was watching for Mario while he was running around trying to go potty. As I looked in the direction that mar usually doesn’t go, a hummingbird with a red chest came right up onto the patio and into my face. He just flew there for a minute. Then he flew over to Tyler – about 6 feet from me, and then back to me and away…. At first I just gasped. I don’t believe I have ever had a hummingbird so close to me. I just kind of looked at Tyler. I think Tyler felt that he had just met my dad. I realized how perfect it was when Tyler said – “You know, he was wearing his 49er shirt.” I think I was finally getting approval from my dad about my choice of men.

I miss my dad a lot, and I am sure that I will miss having him physically at major events in my life, but I know that the hummingbirds will always be there to show my dad is there in spirit.