My story took place in 1975, while staying at my mother's home in Carmel, CA, for the weekend. There had been unexplained incidents prior to this, but we didn't give them much thought. Things such as doors that were locked when we left, found open and unlocked when we returned and cupboard doors opening by themselves. I was still a non believer.

One night while my husband, young son and I were visiting my mother for the weekend, we met a friend of my mother's, who was into the paranormal. I told him that I was a non believer, and when he left, we retired to our bedroom which was in a separate part of the house. The room had two twin beds and unlined drapes. The outside light was always left on at night and a dim light filtered into the room. My husband and I were in one bed and my son was in the other. I was awakened in the middle of the night by a cool feeling in the room and the feeling of someone grasping my right ankle and shaking my leg. I opened my eyes and I saw an old woman standing at the foot of our bed. She had an aurora around her, like you would see over the hood of a warm car. She was dressed in a heavy wool coat, her gray hair in a flip with an elastic head band and a purse with a short handle. She just stood there and looked at me. I reached for the light on the night stand that was between the two beds, that I had turned off when we got into bed. I turned the switch over and over again and it wouldn't turn on. The only other light was across the room and since I until that time was a non believer, I wasn't getting out of bed! I asked my husband to go turn on the light, but he was too sleepy to get out of bed. I told him that there was a ghost at the end of the bed and he told me to go back to sleep. I put the covers over my head and cuddled very close to my husband. I waited several minutes and thought that I would look again. When I lowered the covers to take another look, her face was about 1 foot from my face. I let out a scream and hid under the covers. About 5 minutes later I heard my two year old son say, "No mommy, no!" When I looked, I couldn't see her anywhere and my son was fine.

I told my mother about my experience the next morning before we headed home, and she was skeptical about my story. Later in the day, she was outside watering her garden when her neighbor who had lived there for many years, came over to talk to her. My mother described the woman, that I told her about, to her neighbor. She told my mother that she had just described the woman who had died in the house, before my mother bought the house. The woman was elderly and was being taken care of by a live in nurse. The nurse had moved the owner of the house into the back bedroom and taken over the entire rest of the house. Now it all made sense.

Since then, on several occasions while staying there, I've tried to contact the ghost, but with no luck. I am now a believer!