My Personal Ghost III
Sara, Florida, USA
September 2000
I've written previously twice. It's been about a year since my last story about Marc, my personal ghost. A lot of things have changed in my life since my last writings but Marc is still here, and things are still going on.
I've had a hideous time starting November of last year. My fiance died in November the Monday after Thanksgiving, in March two of my best friends were killed, and in April my grandmother died after months of agony from breast cancer. I had to quit my job because she needed 24 hour care, thousands of dollars in income lost. It just hasn't been a good time for months. Things are just now starting to look up.
First of all, I'll start with something unrelated to Marc that happened.
In mid-March, I was driving with a friend down the road that my two close friends were killed on. There's a place of the fence where they died that we've all placed flowers and crosses and various other things. Being as I could only find the time to go that day at night, I wasn't about to be deterred in going then. So with teddy bear and flowers in hand, my friend and I started down the road. There are no street lights, and it's incredibly dark. Whatever moon may be out is blocked out by the giant trees on the sides of the road. The darkness is what caused the deaths in the first place. So we go to the fence area and I get out to put my things down. I sat in the grass for awhile. We had parked our truck so that the headlights would shine on the fence.
My friend and I were sitting, and I was crying quietly on his shoulder holding the bear when both of us heard footsteps, you know when gravel is pushed around? Well we both looked around but didn't see anything because it was so dark. In my teen years I'd walked down this road to meet my two friends all the time and at night it always sort of had me on my toes. Well the footsteps stopped the gravel sound and we heard leaves crunching. We both felt as if someone had joined us and expected a dog to be coming around to us any time, but nothing ever showed up. That sense of someone else being there never left. The strangest thing happened shortly after. We heard tires screeching very close to us. It was so loud it echoed, and we heard a scream from a girl and a man's voice yell. I swear to God after that we heard the bodies hit the truck. Okay hold on. I have to stop crying to finish.
Alright. Well in case you haven't figured it out, my two close friends were hit by a pickup truck while they were walking home.
Well my friend and I are standing there staring at each other and I totally freaked out because there was no car on the road. I had a panic attack and he took me home and I cried for about 2 weeks straight.
Since then, friends of ours have said that they've driven down that road at night and heard the tires and the screams, and neighbours say it wakes them up from time to time. We're all pretty traumatised about it.
So just as I'm trying to get over this, I have the whole ordeal with my grandmother in April.
My grandmother and I didn't get along through my teen years, because I was rebellious and fought a lot with my mother. I wasn't home with my grandmother when she died. My mother, aunt and sister had stayed, the latter two flying in overnight. The doctor said she had about 4 days left, so needing a break I went downtown with a friend to get his tongue pierced for his birthday. At 8:45 I felt an odd feeling inside and told him that we had to go back to my house immediately. The drive back took about 40 minutes, and as soon as I walked through the door my aunt told me my grandmother had died. I asked her what time, and she said at a quarter to 9. I asked what her last words were, and she said that it was hard to make out, but it was something like "I love you all. Marc and Grandpa will take care of me." Then there was a rattle as she took in her last breath and she was gone. My aunt asked me who Marc was because my mother was too hysterical to talk and my sister was busy trying to get her to calm down, so I told her, and she said "He's still here?"
At my grandmother's viewing Krys came along with me. I mentioned her and how Marc didn't like her in a previous story. The viewing was pure torture for me, family all over having come in over the days since Grandma's death that I hadn't seen in years, and I had taken things especially hard because I felt horrid that I hadn't been there when she passed. We went outside about an hour into the viewing to smoke a cigarette and a very old man in a brown dusty suit shuffled up to me and took my free hand, patted it and said "She's alright now, kiddo." His hands were so cold it gave me shivers and he let go and just smiled and nodded to Krys and walked inside. Later I asked my mother who he was because I had never seen him before. She didn't know who I was talking about and I asked all other relatives that had been inside AND the funeral director if they had seen the man. No one knew what I was talking about. I heard a familiar whisper that night while I lay in bed with Krys trying to sleep. It was Marc. He said "Noah" over and over about 5 times. When I got up the next day I asked my mom if she knew anyone named Noah and she said the only Noah she knew was my grandmother's brother that had died somewhere in the northern states a few years earlier. I never met him.
I was cleaning out my grandmother's room a few weeks later after everyone had gone home, and I found a box of old photographs. I recognized nearly everyone until I opened a very old book. Going through the pictures I saw my grandmother's parents and siblings that I never knew and her aunts and uncles. Towards the very back was a newer picture of her in one of her church dresses, standing next to a man in a brown suit. The man's face was instantly recognizable as Noah. The date on the back was January 1997. 2 months before Noah had died.
Talk about being completely freaked out. But somehow after the chills went away, I felt very at peace. Why did I see Noah, though? Why me? Why did everything have to happen to me this year? I've always been receptive to paranormal things, but never like this. Never had anyone, not even Marc, been so real and visible as if it were just any person on the street. I would still insist it were a dream if Krys didn't tell me she saw him too.
Now Marc is the same old Marc he's always been. Constantly pulling of goofy antics and surprising the hell out of people around me. But one thing has changed. I can see him more clearly now, like I could as a child. Still blurry, but not just a shadow anymore, and I can hear his voice. My mother has heard him too, whispering to her things she has no idea what to think of. Mostly things that don't make sense to her. He's told her she should "listen to the notes with your heart, not your head." and she just thinks he's nuts. I've heard him singing on the telephone line very softly while I was talking to Krys, and I see him sitting at my kitchen table like he's bent over paper writing. Why is he coming so clear now? I ask him and get no answer. It seems that the tragedies have brought this on, but is it my need for his support that makes him so easily heard and seen? I feel a nagging need to understand but I have no answers so if anyone can figure that out please let me know.
He's warmed up to Krys, and never gave any trouble to her new boyfriend that I've been friends with for a year other than the usual crazy prank pulling. But the best, by far, is to see him dance through the house.
I'm moving to Oz this spring. My hope is that since Marc has stayed with me this long, he'll go with me there too.
But as always, I wonder why he's here and if that psychic in Casadega was right. Will he be with me for the rest of my life, waiting for me to pass to be with him? I don't know.