Trust Your Instincts

I didn't believe in ghosts ever, until a few years ago. I'm almost 40 now, and until that point I never believed in anything I couldn't choke with my bare hands. But sometimes, as we all do, I had 'creepy feelings' now and then. For example, when you see an abandoned old house and get a scary feeling from it.

I don't fancy thrift stores much either, to much emotional residue or something on certain items. But I never truly, believed in ghosts. Until this incident, a few years ago.

I had just gotten married for the second time, after being widowed a few years earlier. I was moving with my two boys from my previous marriage, into their new stepfathers house. My new husband had rented it out for years, and we planned to renovate it and move in. Boy, did it need renovating. I didn't mind revamping the house at all, but the backyard really bothered me.

This backyard gave me ghastly 'creepy feelings' about the whole layout. Not only wasn't it fenced, everything about it was in horrible shape. There was an old van parked in it, and I could not wait for that to go. An old cherry tree needed pruning very badly and I didn't want any of the sawed off boughs on the property, once they were off I had them hauled far and away. I wouldn't go near the tree or yard, unless I had to during the day, until it was completely finished. I wouldn't go in that yard at night on a dare, and my reputation for being a tough girl is almost legendary in my neck of the woods. Lets just say, if I told my friends about my 'backyard feelings', I was never teased for it!

I, of course, had told my husband how I felt, and he was just a little quiet on the subject. He certainly doubled his job/house work load so the backyard could be overhauled soon and the boys would have a nice yard to play in. I seemed to have a very demanding subconscious schedule for that backyard. I wanted it to look as though a happy, caring loving family lived there. I still can't explain it, but it 'needed to be loved.'

Eventually, this happened, and over time we had a lovely fenced yard with flower gardens, and a playhouse/fort for the boys. I wasn't afraid to be out in it then, regardless of day or night.

About a year later, we were finishing the extra room we'd put on as a addition to the house. My mother was spending the weekend. It was quite late, midnight or so, and she was sleeping on the couch. I was wallpapering, and my husband was doing some drywall work at the opposite end of the room. He told me has he'd left his measuring tape in the kitchen - and left to get it. He was back less than a minute later - just walked back in the room and slumped down on one of the kitchen chairs I was using. My heart almost stopped. His face was dead white and he was drenched in sweat. I thought he'd had a heart attack. I raced to him, and he said to me, ignoring my 'are you alright', "Where is your mother?" "Sleeping on the couch, of course" I replied. " I just saw a fat lady in the kitchen with purple stretch pants and a blue shirt on," he said. I raced to the kitchen, but of course nobody was there. In the living room, on the couch, my mother was snoring, laid out in her white bathrobe. I didn't doubt his story, not the way he looked.

About six months after this incident my girlfriend talked me into seeing a tea leaf/clairvoyant with her. I'd never been to anything like that, but after my husbands encounter I was a little curious. This woman did my girlfriends reading, but I wasn't impressed. When my turn came, she automatically looked at me and said "Oh, you've got ghosts." 'Really,' I replied, somewhat sarcastically. Then she literally seemed to change color in front of me, she turned pink. "Oh yes," she said, "You have a lady in the house, but she's harmless and very curious about all the changes to the house, renovations?" Then without missing a beat,"and you have a male ghost. He lives in the backyard, enjoys being there now, and is a benevolent ghost. He doesn't ever come in the house, he is always in the backyard." Then she was off to her next appointment. I couldn't wait to tell me husband about what this woman had told me. Boy, was I in for a shock when I did.

When my darling husband got home from work that day, I sat him down and told him about the reading. He had a strange look on his face and in a voice full of shock, told me this story.

Ten years before he ever met me, he had rented this house to a man with a wife and a daughter. This man, we'll call him Jack, his daughter had been molested by the man his wife was having an affair with, his own brother. He shot his brother in cold blood, so to speak. His wife and daughter lived here while he did two years in jail. She was not a good mother, and there were many investigations of child abuse. When Jack was released, his wife left him and refused to let him see his daughter. A few months after that, he hung himself from the cherry tree in our back yard. My husband was afraid to tell me any of this as I had such strong feelings about the backyard from the first time I saw it. Also, when he moved the old van he found the whole remains of a dead German Shepard dog.

If you don't believe in ghosts at least trust your own instincts!