My 14 year old daughter, Alexandra, has been visited by spirits all of her life. It has been happening more frequently in the last couple of years. And even more often this last year. I chalked it off as overactive imagination, bad dreams, effects of a bad divorce... But a couple of months ago I had to face the fact that this was real.

Last Halloween, an angry one came into her room. It breathed to get her attention, and rustled her homework papers on the floor. She got out of bed and ran out of the room, and then it slammed her door behind her so loudly that it woke me up. "What is going on?" I asked her, afraid her and her brother had too much sugar and were up fighting. "There is something in my room. I am going to sleep with my brother." As she often does when she is visited.

She cannot usually see them. They make breathing noises to get her attention and it is very frightening to her.

The next day we were talking about it. I asked her if it had left. She was sitting on the floor holding our little dog. A spirit touched her bare foot. She moved her foot, then it touched her foot again. A very cold feeling. She started crying. The next night I was about to go up the stairs and I heard her scream. I entered the upstairs bathroom (she was dying her hair in there) just in time to see the shower curtain being pulled so hard that the rings were popping off. Okay, I SAW it happen. I am really beginning to freak out.

The next day I was home alone doing the dishes. I heard a very faint knocking sound coming from the top of the stove. I looked outside thinking maybe it was windy and the wind was somehow coming in from the hood. No, perfectly still and sunny Arizona day. I walked over to the stove (pretending to be brave) and knocked back at it. It stopped. Weird. Later that night and for the next couple of days it kept coming around my daughter. She called it the knocker. It knocked all night long. She wasn't getting any sleep. It followed her to school and started lightly knocking on her desk in Social Studies. It went into the shower with her. Okay, now I am really getting scared. What is always around my daughter? It never occurred to me that this might be a family member. Raised as a Christian I didn't think this happened. I mean they die, go to heaven, and then meet you at the gate when you die, right? In the meantime I am talking to my Mom (who lives 800 miles away) and she is telling me there is no good ghost. I need to tell Alex to read the bible and tell it to go away. It is an evil demon trying to take her over. But then,to my surprise 2 days later I get a phone call from her. "This ghost thing is going around!!" she said. Her Dad appeared in front of the door to her room 2 days in a row. He was in his wheelchair, looking like he did before he passed away from Parkinson's disease 10 yrs earlier.

My Mom had just been diagnosed with a rare lung disease. It is not fatal, but at that time they weren't really sure what it was. "No Daddy, I am not ready to go with you." she told him. Thinking he was there to escort her to heaven. I asked her how many pain pills she was taking! None, she said.

The next morning I was up early making the kids oatmeal for breakfast and glancing towards the pantry door. It closed by itself. I walked over to the pantry door and reopened it. Just then, I felt the spirit pass through me. My hair moved as if I had suddenly came into a gust of wind. Right in the middle of my kitchen! It took a few minutes to sink in what had actually just happened. "Oh know! Alex's ghosts are now coming to me!"

The next morning I was on top on the stairs when I heard Alex call me. "Mom, are you in the kitchen? I hurried downstairs to hear the dishes in the sink being banged together! I lost it at that time! "Leave. Leave now. I demand that you leave! You are scaring my daughter! You are dead. Leave! Leave!" My heart was pounding so fast. "No, Mom. What you are doing is wrong. Stop it!" Alex was crying. She did not want me to tell it to leave. She knew it was wrong. She had already developed a relationship with this spirit. Go figure. Here I am just trying to protect her.

I searched online for a medium. I have never had anything to do with psychics. In my Christian upbringing I have been told they are evil. Not to trust them. But somehow I was drawn to one. She looked so kind and had gone through extensive testing at the university near my home. I emailed her and told her a little about what was going on. She emailed me back immediately and told me it was my Grandfather from my mother's side! I remember what my Mom had told me. She said she was going to call me the next morning and not charge me for her time! Wow! Sure enough she called me. My Grandfather talked to me through her. He said he showed himself to my Mom to let me know who he was. He said he has shown himself because Alex is psychic and she needs him. He is so happy because it is a chance to have a relationship with her he would not have had a chance to have. He promised me that he was always going to be there to protect both of my children. "Oh, you must have a son, too?" the medium asked me. There could have been no way that she would have known that. After that conversation I told Alex it was my Grandpa. "I knew it was a Grandpa, Mom. I just didn't know it was your Grandpa." was her reply. Wow!!! My Grandfather was a very kind man who loved his grandchildren. I wasn't very close to him since he lived far away and had another family. He was very religious and Debbie says he is very strong. My daughter can communicate with him through her thoughts. For example, she was cold when she woke up a couple of nights ago, the space heater in her room was suddenly turned on. She says in her mind, "Grandpa if you can hear me knock 3 times." He does. He hasn't came to me since I have found out his identity. He probably knows it freaks me out! But I know he is here often.

I have 2 little dogs who stare at nothing and start barking. Alex tells me about him. Sometimes she feels him standing over her while she sleeps. No more scary spirits coming to her in the night. She seems more peaceful. The medium says she will be able to see spirits once she develops her abilities. For now, she just needs to be a teenager. That is hard enough. And she can test her abilities with Grandpa, because that is safe. She also said that she knew it was a "grandpa" because she can see with her "third eye". A brilliant white light when she closes her eyes and the outline of the spirit in the middle of it. I asked Alex, and sure enough, she was right.

Thank you for reading my story. This experience has deepened my faith. I know there is an afterlife. And I know how important the ties of family are, even in the afterlife.