A little lesson, it is kind of what I feel like my life has become. Almost like one of those History Channel specials, Histories Mysteries. Haunted History. I have a long history with the paranormal. My family included, but since my great mother passed I seem to be the only one who embraced it instead of treated it like a disease. I guess to understand my ghost stories we have to go back to the start, back to my start.
Funeral homes. They are not just places for the dead, or Hollywood movies like "My Girl" they are real places, and real homes. In fact a funeral home is where I lived the first four years of my life, a funeral home is where I was born. A funeral home in Cleveland Ohio. My grandfather and Grandmother were thrilled that their seventeen year old daughter was going to be having a baby (they were not the usual parents) however my mother did not pick the greatest guy in the world to have a kid with. Nine months passed and my older sister was born and her father was kicked out and quickly found himself in prison. My mother decided to live with her parents (my grandparents) in my grandfathers funeral home. My mother raised my sister there and soon I was conceived there.
It was not long before my father moved in as well. So there they all were living and functioning as a normal family in a very abnormal home. (still with me? Here is where I come in). One day my grandparents decided to go off on a car ride, enjoying their day off. My father went to work at a company called Roll Kraft (no idea what they did) in Mentor and my sister headed off to school, she was now age eight. While all alone in the seemingly normal home my mother went into labor. By the time everyone got home it was too late (I was a quick comer) they took my mother down stairs and I was born next to a young man named David who had passed away from a car accident just a bit earlier that day (keep in mind this is not fiction this is honestly my life).
The basement was split up into two sections the body room, and mine and my sister's play rooms where we spent most the day, and took our naps. It was in that room that I had my very first experience that I can remember. At the age of three. But I will get to that in a moment, there is a bit more you need to know about my history. On my fathers side there were experienced spiritual members of the Cherokee Indian tribe, on my mothers side there were a mix of both Hungarian, and German Gypsies. Most every woman in my family on my mothers side had a strong connection to the paranormal world, however they all treated it like it was something to be ashamed of, a sickness, unholy. My mother had gotten herself blessed at the age of sixteen in a Catholic church, because of this she swore she was the last.
In my sister's years she showed not a single sign of the family baggage. Then I was born. My mother once told me when I was old enough to understand what was happening to me that as an infant I would often laugh at the wall, or talk to people who were not there in baby gibberish. All of the signs that my sister lacked I obtained. This brings me back to my first experience, now that you know my history, I guess here lies the first of my ghost stories.
The bed in the playroom where my sister and I would often sleep was old, comfortable but old. The foot board was rotting and the head board was completely gone. I remember clearly a small space between the mattress and wall. The bed was much taller than I, it took a bit of a climb for me to get in and out. A late bloomer I still slept with a pacifier despite my mothers efforts to rid me of it. It comforted me but did damage to my teeth. One day my sister had gotten permission to stay with a friend, and it was nearing my nap time. I remember my mother picking me up and taking me down stairs. I was lucky in that she was tired also so I wouldn't be napping alone.
We walked down the stairs and my mother placed me in the bed. Being a tired mother it didn't take long for my mother to fall asleep, leaving me in the dark to stare at anything I could see. I played with the pacifier between my fingers and felt it slip away from me, down between the mattress and wall. Ever the fearless child I scooted my head to the crack and peered down to see if I could see my pacifier, but to my horror all I could see was a bright pair of clear eyes staring back at me. I yelped for my mother, shook her, but nothing seemed to wake her. I did what most children do when scared, I threw the blankets over my head and closed my eyes tight. I waited. Unsure of how much time had passed I wondered "why hasn't it got me yet?"
I slowly removed the covers just enough to expose my eyes and saw something. A darkly outlined shape on the bed next to me. I reached for it and there it was, my pacifier sitting right in my hand when it had clearly fallen. I suppose I will never know if this was a paranormal experience, the first of very many to come, or if it was just a child's imagination. All I know to be fact is I laid in that bed until my mother woke, I never napped downstairs again, and from that day on, a child who had never feared the dark formed her fear of not knowing what hides with in it, and up until nearly three years ago that fear had not dissipated. Well that was my history and my first of many Ghost stories. I hope you enjoy reading about my life in the paranormal, this seemed much more productive than a journal. Goodnight.
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