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Great-grandfather's Visitation

 

This experience happened when I was 8 years old and was my first experience with death, and I remember it like it was yesterday. I haven't shared this experience before because most of the people I've been around would have thought I was crazy, wouldn't have believed me and then made fun of me, and some of them believed that anything even remotely paranormal was "evil."

I knew my great-grandfather (whom we called Papaw) was very sick and in the hospital, but I didn't know why. Because of our young ages and inexperience with death, my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother didn't tell us what was wrong or that he was dying. We weren't told until we were a bit older. They were just trying to protect us from any possible trauma.

It was back in the '80s when I was 8, and the show "Knight Rider" was hugely popular. I watched it every Friday night. This particular Friday night was Good Friday. My mother and I were at my grandmother's house. I was watching "Knight Rider" as usual and Mom was upstairs making Easter eggs for an Easter egg hunt the next day for the kids at the Baptist church we attended at that time.

I was laying on my stomach watching television, and I felt a tapping sensation on my shoulder. I turned over and looked up. There stood Papaw. I wasn't afraid because it was him, and didn't think I was seeing a spirit, although in hindsight I know I did.

Papaw always gave all the kids a dollar every time we saw him, and always told us to save it. He stooped down on the floor where I was, and by then I was sitting straight up. He went through the motions of giving me a dollar and said, "Save your money, J. You'll always have plenty of money if you save it, and when you need to spend it, do so wisely." Then he said, "Well, I have to go now. I love you and you be good." I reached up, thinking I could hug him, but he quickly vanished.

Immediately the phone rang and my mom answered it upstairs. A few minutes later, she came downstairs and told me that she needed to talk to me. I sat down on the sofa beside her and she said, "Honey, Papaw died a few minutes ago." I was too shocked to say anything to her, especially about the experience I'd just had. I just started crying, and my mom told me to go to bed.

I haven't seen, heard, or felt his spirit since. I know he's in a good place and knows that I'm okay. And I still live by the common-sense financial advice he gave me as a child.

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Comments about this paranormal experience

The following comments are submitted by users of this site and are not official positions by yourghoststories.com. Please read our guidelines and the previous posts before posting. The author, JavaJenn, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will read the comments and participate in the discussion.

JavaJenn (1 stories) (4 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-09-05)
Andrea22, nobody that I know of in my family has been visited by him. But then, discussing the paranormal is a huge no-no in my family and I know the only answer I would get from my relatives would result in a heated argument, unfortunately. So I will never really know for sure if he visited them too.
JavaJenn (1 stories) (4 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-09-05)
[at] marti11013, ritwik, & Lakota73, no it wasn't an actual dollar, but the motions of reaching into his pocket & passing it to me. The dollar I saw was not an actual dollar, more of an illusion of one.
marti11013 (3 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-08-30)
Its a beautiful story man. I love stories like these, but did you got this dollar?
aussiedaz (19 stories) (1566 posts)
+1
12 years ago (2012-08-29)
I enjoy reading these stories and I sometimes wonder if there's a little divine intervention behind them and what I mean by that is, I wonder if perhaps an Angel who was taking your Grand dad through the light gave him one more moment with you, because it was a goodbye call, he knew this was his only chance of saying goodbye?...as it's not so easy for them to just come across like that in such a profound way, it is something you should cherish because it don't happen that often, our loved ones can come back and interact with us and do, but usually those circumstances are different to yours, thank you for sharing a nice story we could do with more of them. 😁
ritwik (16 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-08-29)
dear javajenn,

That's simply a touching experience. I only want to ask that, when he acted to give you a dollar, did you actually got it?
sds (14 stories) (1436 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-08-29)
Well that's a moving story indeed. Your great-grandpa, before departing, came to you to offer some good advise that would, definitely, be useful for all the times to come. Well, as Lakota said, you can't discuss these encounters with your family, but with some of the persons of your age then or some close relatives, you can discreetly investigate.

Thanks for sharing and any further information, please do write.

Regards and respects to you.

SDS
Lakota73 (5 stories) (108 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-08-29)
What a touching story.

Papaw sounds like a selfless man who put others before himself, even in his last moments. Before he passed, he had one more job to do, and that was to give you the good advice he offered.

He knew he couldn't provide the dollars once he'd passed so instead he provided you with a few words of financial advice to last forever.

I know it is difficult to discuss what happened with the people around you but it would be interesting to find out if any of the other children in the family had a similar visit, but have held back from revealing.

Hope you don't mind me asking but, as he gave you a dollar in spirit/passing, was it an actual dollar that you could hold? What I mean to say is: when you realised he'd passed, were you able to still hold/see the dollar he gave?

Again, you may feel you can't dicuss paranormal encounters with your family, but at least you are related to people who are willing to put themselves out no matter what.

Thanks for sharing this moving story,

Lakota73 😊
Andrea22 (5 stories) (65 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-08-28)
Wow I loved reading your story! Sounds like he was a really sweet guy to give you good advice before he moved on. Has anyone else in your family ever experienced a visit from him?

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