apparition
The Mysterious Man In The Back Yard
I remember coming out the back door, with a Kellogg’s Pop-Tart in one hand and a seven ounces bottle of 7Up in the other. It was July 13th. It was dad’s birthday and I had to be about nine years old at the time.
The family spent the day at my grandparents’ house to celebrate. More and more guests were showing up, until all the aunts, uncles and cousins were crowding together in the very small back yard.
I then noticed this mysterious man who I had never seen before. He was wearing a trench coat and he had a long beard. I remember thinking that he looked funny to me. I asked my mother who the man was, but when she turned around he was gone.
Later that night, I saw the same apparition again. It happened twice, and every time I saw him he was looking at me in a strange way. My grandparents became curious and asked me about this man I kept seeing. I described him and they seemed shocked.
My grandmother went to get a photo album and showed me an old picture. She asked me if that was the man I had seen and I immediately recognized him. My grandfather then told me that it was his uncle and that he died by falling off a cliff. Foul play was suspected, but nobody knew who might have pushed him or caused his accident.
Later that week, we took our bikes to cycle around a nearby hill. My older brother Mike was riding his bicycle down the hill and he suddenly hit a loose rock really hard. It blew out his front tire and was going very fast, but he was not seriously injured.
My Near-Death Experience
About 12 years ago, right before Christmas, I had a lot going on in my life. I was taking care of my two kids and my brother. My cousin had a three-month-old baby, whose mother was in the hospital with complications due to diabetes. He brought me his new baby and asked if they could stay with us, and if I could care for his son while he worked. He was working the night shift, from around 7pm till 4am. Of course, I said I would help in any way I could.
Between my kids’ and my brother’s schedules, and now this new baby who was colicy, I was exhausted at the end of the second week. Somehow, I also got food poisoning. Never having had food poisoning before, I didn’t know the symptoms and thought I had a touch of stomach flu. Being so tired, I hadn’t realized how sick I actually was. After about 18 hours of fluid loss, I become so dehydrated that I had a seizure. My eyes rolled into the back of my head and I fell down. Apparently, I was clinically dead for around 1½ minutes.
I did not experience all of the typical near-death phenomena. There was not any floating over my body; there was no white light, no tunnel. I was simply here and then I was there. The first thing I remember is walking along a sort of grassy path. I don’t remember turning around to look behind me, but, I just knew that there was a darkness from which I came, back there.
There were two people there to greet me. A woman and a man, the woman spoke to me first, and the man was a little ways behind her. Today, I could not tell you who these people were. But, when I was there, I was so glad to see them. It was like when I had sent my kids to summer camp, and they were gone for all those summer months, and I missed them terribly. It was the same feeling I got when seeing my children for the first time returning home. I had a deep love and bond with these two people.
The next thing I remember is that I was taken to the top of a mountain. There was no journey to get there, I was just there. The only way to describe the mountain is that it was like standing on top of Pikes Peak and looking out. I was so high up that the only thing I could see was blue sky.
The Mystery Woman In My Mother’s Kitchen
I had an unusual childhood as the member of a psychic family. I also grew up in a haunted house, which is something we did not openly discuss in those days.
One particular ‘ghost’ story is something I will never forget. It was one of those unusual instances where my psychic abilities would not provide any of the answers. It was also an incident that would change my family forever.
My mother was terminally ill and shortly before she passed we were sitting in the living room talking to her. She kept referring to this woman she saw cooking dinner in the kitchen. She described the woman as being in her early 60’s, with an apron and light brown hair. My mother was not pleased that this stranger was busy cooking in her kitchen. What was she doing there?
Although we are a highly intuitive family, none of us saw or felt the presence of any ‘woman’ at that time. There certainly was no ghost in the kitchen. If there was, we would have sensed something. We were not sure if my mother’s words were merely a side-effect of the medication she was on, or whether she was getting ready to leave this life, which may have been causing her to hallucinate. None of us really knew what to make of the strange ‘woman in the kitchen’ she kept seeing.
My mother passed away shortly thereafter. About six or seven months later my father announced that he had met a new woman and that he really liked her. Time went by and one day my father told me he was going to ask his new girlfriend to marry him.
I had never met the lady before and not knowing who she was I wanted to be sure if she would be the right person for him. What if she was just trying to take advantage of him? But this time my psychic abilities let me down. For some reason I just could not pick up on who this woman was that my father was planning to marry. This is something that sometimes happens to psychics when they try to read for themselves, or for the people close to them.
A Morning Visitation From My Ancestors
Some of the best times I had growing up was visiting my great grandparents during the summer holidays. It was not only fun, but also spiritual and magical. It really helped me to connect with the higher powers that be.
My great grandma was a very magical woman. Her mother was a psychic who would dream the winning lottery numbers for people. She was known as a wise intuitive and many people were jealous of her for many reasons. Legend has it that she used to make wine for Italian mobsters and even had the infamous Al Capone visit her home a few times. She was a happy little Italian lady, who always did everything and everything she could for her kids.
My great grandfather came over from Italy and he was a very stern, powerful man who only spoke Italian. He also made wine and he was much older than my grandma. I think there was a 20-year age difference.
Often, while talking to my great grandma, the lights would begin to flicker in the house and my grandpa, who was an electrician by trade, would then tell me that spirit connects with us through electricity. I thought it was cool and would try to make contact with my ancestors when I was alone.
Grandpa also promised me that when he died, he would come back to visit me. And he did. I shared that whole experience in a previous blog.
Earlier today, during my daily spiritual practice my great grandparents, as well as my grandparents all came to visit me again. We remain interconnected to this day. It is so great to be able to have these mediumship experiences. I saw their faces, surrounded by a pure white light. I could feel the blissful warmth of their love.
The Old Man And The Christmas Bells
With Christmas upon us I have been hearing church bells every Sunday in recent weeks, just like in my younger years. Going back to those years in my mind, I can remember being very young when my mother was stopped by a man who told her he was the new pastor at this church far from our house. He looked younger than my parents and he asked my mother if we had a church that we go to. She told him we did not and the man gave us an invitation to attend his church.
Since this church was reasonably close to where I grew up, it was fun to walk there at first, but after a while it seemed like forever. But my mother made a promise to us kids that after church we could get a soda pop or an ice cream cone if we were good. Mom knew how to persuade us kids to go to church without a fuss.
When I first looked at the church is seemed big, but it looked very different from the Catholic church across the street. We opened the doors and were greeted by two old ladies who handed out the programs for the service. They also told me that I would meet my mother down here in the same place after Sunday school.
Next I met my Sunday school teacher. His name was Rusty and since I was the ‘new kid on the block’, he introduced me to all the other children. Since I didn’t know any of them, I didn’t know what to think. Then Rusty started with the lesson and once again it seemed like forever for Sunday school to be over.
Later, I met mom downstairs and as I was walking down the hall a older man greeted me. I greeted him in return, not thinking much of it. After we had been seated and the pastor opened with prayer, I remember looking around and noticing that the old man was not sitting in the same pews anymore. He seemed to have left.
We Will Become Whole And New Again
Cleaning out the home of a loved one who has passed is certainly not a task anyone looks forward to. In truth, it is the last thing one would ever want to do. About a year ago, I found myself doing just that for a departed family member.
I oversaw the kitchen and was told that if there was anything that I could use in my own home, to go ahead and put it in a box and take it with me. I did happen to come across a couple of items, including a set of two large, oval-shaped dishes.
Recently, I’m in the kitchen one evening, taking out food from the microwave oven and placing it on this dish. I have done it many times before without any problem, but on this occasion the dish decided to crack. Not only did it crack significantly, but it also made a loud, sharp cracking noise!
Later, as we sat down for dinner, I gave a family member the other matching plate as a base for some food from the microwave, and the same thing happened. It was the same crack, and the same noise, and it seemed rather odd.
I was fairly upset and even made mention that it was a shame, as I always thought fondly of the departed loved one whenever I used these plates in the kitchen.
That night I had a strange, lucid dream about what happened. In my dream we were still eating from the cracked plates, when suddenly, right before our eyes, we witnessed the crack in both plates sealing up in a miraculous way. We could not believe it. The plates looked like the crack had never happened and I remember feeling very relieved, happy and at peace.
The Haunted House From My Childhood
Every year, around this time, I go to the same cemetery to visit the final resting place of my childhood friend. It is located in one of the neighborhoods we would often frequent on our bicycles. It is also where we went trick-or-treating for Halloween. My return visit this year was not only nostalgic as always, but it once again reminded me how important it is to trust your gut when it comes to paranormal phenomena. We live in a cynical, digital age, where adults too easily attribute encounters with the paranormal to the overactive imagination of children, or simply disregard it as ‘old wives’ tales.’
Throughout our childhood years, into our early teens, my friend and I would often stop to admire an abandoned old home in that neighborhood. At the time we firmly believed to be haunted! Well, amazingly, that old house is still there after all these years. It has never been demolished, despite the rumors of what went on there. There used to be talk of a vicious, gruesome murder that took place there. A well-known antique dealer in the community used to live there, and it is said that he received a surprise visit one night from two men with baseball bats, who forcefully entered his home and killed him.
Sometimes, early in the evening, on our way back home on our bikes, we would see mysterious lights flicker inside the empty old house. We always wondered who possibly could be there? There were no curtains, nor furniture inside. At least this is what we were told, when we were cautioned not to go anywhere near the place. There were also never any cars parked outside. The neighbors would take turns to mow the lawn, to keep their street looking neat.
On my recent visit, as I was getting ready to leave the cemetery, I had the idea to drive down that street, to see the old haunted house again. Feeling nostalgic, I slowly turned the corner on the dead-end street and spotted the house right away. There was what looked like a chair, out on the front lawn, and a thick layer of fallen leaves on the grass. As I drove by, I noticed a faint light in one of the windows.