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"the Kids In My Closet Are Back"

 

In the late summer of 2010, I was working from home as an artist in Greensboro, NC. My daughter had just started back to school and my nearly 3 year old son was home with me full time.

It was a hot and muggy late morning and I left my son in his room playing with his toy cars while I went to the carport to prepare my paints and tools for a project.

Within 15 minutes of my preparations, my son had opened the screen door, leaning on it, with an annoyed look on his face.

I asked my son if he was ok or maybe ready for some lunch when he said, exasperated "No, mom. I'm not hungry, but those kids are back."

Unsure to whom he was referring as we had few young children in our neighborhood and the ones we did have around were in school.

I distractedly asked him what kids, still arranging my tools of my trade when he said "You know, the three kids from the fire. The ones in my closet. They want to play with my cars but I want to play alone."

My children walked and talked very early, so I was accustomed to the luxury of having full, clear conversations with my 2 and a half year old.

Apparently, I did not react to his complaint quickly enough, so he stepped outside and spoke to me as if I was the child.

My toddler walked over to me, took my hand to lead me inside to his bedroom and said to me in a patient voice "Come, on mom. Come with me and I'll show you."

I was smirking at his heavy sigh, limited patience, and his insistence that I look.

We went to his room, filled with sunshine and with his toy cars littered about in mid-play. He released my hand, threw open the accordion closet doors, throwing his hands before him gesturing toward these alleged children.

"See?!" He proceeded to look at me, as if to ask "now do you believe me?".

Looking at the closet and seeing no one in there, I played along.

"Oh, yeah I remember them." I went on to announce to the toys, clothes, and other items in the closet: "House rules are that anyone who is kind may stay and play nice. If you can't be nice you have to go."

My son smirked and shook his head. "Mom,the kids that died in the fire don't want to share." A little spooked, I rallied my thoughts only to feel as if I was staring off into space... Like I'd been daydreaming for 45 minutes in a boring high school class.

Suddenly, a story my mother told me about years ago appeared in my mind's eye. My mother's best friend perished in a fire along with 3 of her 4 young children. It was in New York City in the late 50's or early 60's.

I could see, in my head, these 3 huddled young children barefooted and cowering on the floor of my son's bedroom closet; 2 girls and one boy wearing night gowns and pajamas. They looked dated, as if 1950s or early 60's. I could FEEL their fear, panic, confusion, and even their resentment of not being rescued.

A sadness and understanding washed over me, like I absorbed what these 3 children were expressing: we were so afraid from the heat of the fire and the smoke. We hid together in our closet and huddled close to protect ourselves. We cannot find our way to our mother and we just want to go home... This "daydream" of thoughts and images was suddenly interrupted by my son who said "Mom, they need to go home now. Make them go home, ok?"...

So, I said with tears in my eyes from either sympathizing or actually "knowing" their story, I said out loud: "I am so sorry for how scared you were. I am so sorry that no one came for you or looked for you in the closet before the fire and smoke did. It's ok to be afraid but it's time to go to your mom now. If you want to stay and play nicely for a bit that's fine but then you have to go."

My son looked satisfied with that speech and as I reached for my son's hand to walk him out of his room toward to kitchen to help me make some lunch he said "No thanks. I want to play too and eat later."

I nodded and walked out a bit still shocked from what just occurred. I returned ten minutes later as lunch was ready. I asked him if the kids were playing fairly now.

He looked up and "Huh? Oh them?" He waved his hand and went back to playing cars, "They left right after you did."

The room that my son had used to be my daughter's. She never liked the room, especially the closet and developed night terrors when we moved into the house in 2002.

Something about that closet felt like it let awful things in and out of it, to the point where my son refused to sleep there up until we finally moved from it in 2015.

Moods shifted for the worse, foot steps, smoky figures, and more came and went. Getting away from that house and that neighborhood proved beneficial as we've come to find out that there were suicides, sudden deaths, shootings, and other unfortunate tragedies that occurred to families that lived in the houses that stood directly next to and across from it... My marriage to my children's father was solid until it deteriorated in significant and frightening ways from 2003 on. The family who owned it before us also had a contentious divorce and experienced behavioral issues with their son and daughter.

To this day, I prefer not to go to the city of Greensboro if I can avoid it due to our experiences from 2002 - 2015.

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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, Mermz, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will read the comments and participate in the discussion.

Mermz (1 stories) (2 posts)
+1
6 years ago (2018-04-14)
Hello all. I did not know the children from NY as they had perished 15 years before my birth. I've had nothing but positive experiences in the home I've been in for 2 years now
IsabelleVanP (3 posts)
+1
7 years ago (2018-03-27)
*can't imagine. I can't imagine how frightened they were. And maybe you were able to relate what happened in NYC to what was going on in Greensboro as the closest scenario and it helped you picture what had happened and helped you to place yourself in their postion to help them move on and not be trapped here. That would be my best guess and what I probably would have done in the same circumstance. ❤
IsabelleVanP (3 posts)
+1
7 years ago (2018-03-27)
Hey Honey! Boy can I relate! We live in Boone NC and in fairly new apartments and the vibes out here are the WORST! We moved back in June (it was one of those situations where it was cheap and my husband was starting college in the fall) and ever since then, my own family has been going through some negative changes too. Although we haven't seen anything or experienced any physical manifestations, there is a definite nasty presence about the place and I'm constantly warding the place. (We are looking to move asap.)
I can imagine how frightened those babies were. You are an awesome momma! Isn't it amazing how kids are so in tune with themselves and can just sometimes start conversations with spirits (as long as they are harmless of course!) and connect with them and help us to do so as well? I'm glad you were able to help them out and you got out of there! No one needs to be in a place that's full of negative energy-living or ghost! Go momma! ❤
Mermz (1 stories) (2 posts)
+1
7 years ago (2018-03-23)
Thank you all so much for the support. I've always been sensitive however I believe that the former owner's children of that home may have dabbled in darkness and opened up some sort of porthole... I have so many stories from that home and before. I'm on the west side of Fosyth County now in NC & have had positive spiritual experiences
Darkangel73 (4 stories) (127 posts)
 
7 years ago (2018-03-22)
Hello fellow North Carolinian! Rowan County isn't any better. My apartment complex is haunted we live close to the national cemetery and an African-American cemetery. I heard that our apartments are built over Indian burial grounds.
AugustaM (7 stories) (996 posts)
+1
7 years ago (2018-03-19)
Perhaps that house or section of the neighborhood encompassing your home and the others you mentioned was some sort of a naturally occurring soft spot or portal between one plane of existence and the next or somehow functioned in away to attract energies.

I don't know if you believe in Ley Lines etc - not so sure myself - but many believe that Asheville NC is at the center of a spiritual vortex and from maps I could find, at least one major line that extends from Asheville passes through Greensboro.

Its an idea anyway - there has to be some reason why spirits from children who passed hundreds of miles away would find there way to you child's closet in NC...
Bibliothecarius (9 stories) (1091 posts)
+1
7 years ago (2018-03-19)
Greetings, Mermz.

It is a very tricky gift to be able to know what you do *not* see; people who can see all the time --including one of my students-- begin to question their perception of reality or their own sanity. Those who can identify and can know information without physical sight have a hell of a time convincing anyone else that we "just know" it.

I can't recall having *physically* seen an entity, or group of entities, directly: only a silhouette. A tense chill in my shoulders and in the back of my neck accompanies flashes of insight that are too detailed to be dismissed as pure imagination; there's also the discomfort that I am not happy with specific parts of that knowledge, but I can neither alter nor forget those details for my own peace of mind. Getting that flood of information is similar to reading/hearing/seeing a story unfold in mere seconds while knowing that the spiritual data-dump contains hours of experiences.

Have you had similar experiences to this in the past, or is this the first time you've had to deal with a scenario like this? Was the property inherited from a family member, such as your mother? That would establish a tenuous connection to the spirits being your mother's friend's children who died in New York. If this is not the case, because you have no other connections between the two locations but you sensed a portal or doorway within that closet, it is possible that the three spirits had followed first your mother *then* you around for an extended period? Do you recall any other incidents with these three children?

When you've reflected upon the "bad" reputation/atmosphere in that house and those in the immediate vicinity, does that neighborhood have a historical event that may have triggered supernatural negativity of any kind? I know that Greensboro, N.C., was the last population center on which the U.S. Air Force dropped two nuclear bombs; as they did not detonate on impact, I don't think that counts as a "trigger" event. Was there anything in the house's history, or the history of the neighboring homes, that would qualify as a traumatic or horrible event, possibly involving someone with either "gifts" or a larger-than-life personality?

It seems peculiar to me that the children in question appear to have lingered in fear and resentment for about a half-century without making themselves known prior to this cleansing/banishment. While I have no desire to suggest your narrative is in any way untruthful, there's a detail (even a section of the narrative?) that is missing from this post. Was there anything in the closet that could have come from their New York home? Had anyone informed you of the kids' presence before your son complained? Is there something that you left out as "unimportant" or "off-topic" when you typed and submitted this narrative? I have a nagging feeling that some missing detail or factor here would help illuminate the events you've described. (Did/does your mother have paranormal events occurring often? Did she, or any other family member, mention "the third eye" or a similarly weird-sounding description of psychic phenomena?)

I hate it when I can't quite put my finger on the issue that is obscuring complete comprehension of the events; it's elusive and frustrating.

Please let us know if there is anything that would help resolve these questions.

Best,
Biblio.
RCRuskin (9 stories) (847 posts)
 
7 years ago (2018-03-18)
Kitto: wow. That sounds like quite an event. It annoys me when I watch various ghost hunting shows, and they stake out some unfortunate person's house, taunting the spirits. Not a wise thing to do since the same spirits are likely to get all pissy on the residents, not the ghost hunters.

Have you posted this experience here?
Kitto (1 stories) (1 posts)
+1
7 years ago (2018-03-18)
I'd advise being extreamly careful confronting beings that died tragically especially due to fires. My mother got angry at some spirits and told them to leave. There was an old wood burning mettle stove (?) I'm not sure what exactly to call it. She woke up to the smell of smoke. The fire alarms had been ripped from the wall. The stove was in the living room where me and my brother were sleeping. Something had stopped up the chimney and smoke had poured in. My brother was barely breathing and I was not breathing at all. We both left in an ambalance and never went back. We were 3 and 7.
CuriousDee (8 stories) (631 posts)
+1
7 years ago (2018-03-16)
Great story and great job on handling the situation. It sounds like you're quite sensitive to the spirit world. It's definitely reassuring having a parent that believes you. I'm glad the kids were able to leave. Thanks for sharing, I look forward to more stories!
LuciaJacinta (8 stories) (291 posts)
 
7 years ago (2018-03-16)
Very interesting. I'm also wondering if there is a prequel or sequel.
RCRuskin (9 stories) (847 posts)
+1
7 years ago (2018-03-16)
Hi, Mermz. Your experience sounds like it is a sequel to another experience. Have you shared it?

Also, did you know the children who perished in the fire in NYC?

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