Maybe They Called Her Mother

When I was three years old, my family and I lived in a small town in the South. My father was a Baptist minister and pastored a church there. I began having, I guess, my first paranormal experiences in that town, but of course I was really too young then to remember.

My sister tells me that I refused to sleep in my room because of "the man" who was there and that the only place I felt safe was the closet. That's very strange because I remember when I was a little older that I had a deathly fear of closets. The one thing I do remember about the town was the church we went to.

This church had been built in the 1800's and was used as a hospital for Confederate troops. Although it has changed with the times, when we were there it still had the blood-stained benches that they had used for surgeries and what-not. And, there was (presumably still is) a cemetery out back containing Civil War era graves.

That church is a big part of my family's history and every once in a while someone will bring it up and it's fun to talk about.

One night recently (I'm now quite a bit older) I had the strangest dream. My father and I and a group of kids had gone back to that church on a sight-seeing trip. As we were looking around, my dad asked if I could see "her". I told him I didn't see anyone, so he asked me to look at the window of the church through a mirror. I did and I saw the most beautiful young woman with black ringlets and a Civil War era dress...I think it was a mauve color with white lace. She was smiling and waving and I thought it was just the coolest thing that I could see this "ghost". I tried to get everyone else to pay attention, but they wouldn't. Then I went looking for my niece (still in my dream) and found her inside the church. She was sitting staring into space. When I told her it was time to go, she said she wasn't leaving and that she was staying with "him". This freaked me out and I grabbed her hand to make her move. At about this time, my friend from the window appeared and it was easier to get my niece away from the room. I dragged her outside and turned to slam the door, but it bounced off of something unseen about halfway and banged against the outside wall.

My father came to help and dragged my niece away with me running behind them, but whatever it was tripped me and I woke up a split second before it would have gotten me.

Well, I'm used to having vivid dreams, but had never had something like this happen before, with every detail perfectly preserved in my memory.

That morning I told my Mom what I had dreamed and she laughed. She never has been one to believe that much in the paranormal, but knows that I do, so sometimes she humors me (smile).

Anyway, I finished telling her about the story and how I had felt such a sense of happiness and safety radiate from the girl in the window of the church and speculated on whether or not she could've been one of the nurses who took care of the wounded in the church/hospital.

After breakfast, I was relaxing with a good book when my mom walked up to me with her cell phone in hand and a puzzled expression on her face. She had just purchased the cell phone and it was one of those pre-packaged jobbies that nobody but the consumer touches. She held it out to me and said "How did you make it do this?". Of course, I hadn't touched her phone, I have one of my own. Across the front of the phone, flashing in all capital letters, was the word "Mother". My first instinct was to check and make sure my brothers and sister were all right (with the reasoning that maybe they were sending a distress signal of some kind), but they were fine and no one had called. They never call her "Mother" anyway, always mom or momma.

Mom walked off and I fiddled with the phone for a while, but couldn't duplicate the word or the flashing. I took it back to her and confessed myself stumped. There was no way anyone could've done it. She laughed and said "Well, maybe it was your friend from the window. Maybe they called her Mother." I laughed and started to walk away, but just as I turned I ran right into a "cloud bank" of perfume. That's the only way I can describe it, it was like a cloud. Now at the time, no one in my house wore perfume or even scented lotion due to my father's (may he rest in peace) illness. The smell bothered him too much. So where did the perfume come from? No one was home but my father, my mother and myself. Could this have been a message from another time in my history, letting me know that she was there and that she was happy someone finally knew who she was? And how could she have reached across a whole state to get to me? I can't be sure. All I know is, I will never forget that day or my "friend from the window".