Grandmother

From: katrina (klyn@victoriahagan.com)
Type: Ghost
Sent: Friday, October 06, 2000 4:47 PM
Subject: Grandmother

I have so enjoyed visiting your site, I thought that I would share a story of my own.

About five months ago my darling grandmother passed away and I had the honor of taking care of her during her last days on this earth. Before I begin I would like to give some brief background on my family, or what is left of it. Both my parents and grand parents have passed away and all that remains of them is a house filled with memories, photographs and antique furniture.

Currently, I reside in New York City, but went back to Illinois to care for my grandmother. During her illness she was able to make her own decisions almost until the end. She had named me as both her sole beneficiary and given me power-of-attorney to make sure that her final wishes were made possible.

My friend and I nursed her at home 24 hours a day with the help of Hospice ( who by the way are truly amazing people.). Grandmother suffered from a number of cancers through out her body, primarily her brain. The brain tumor made her prone to hallucinations and moments of bantering or rambling. One thing that I did do was to keep a pad of paper in her room and write down the things that she said, some were uniquely prophetic and some were just nonsense. I did this for the duration of her illness at home and found that when people suffer and are preparing to leave this world they often spend time talking to and thinking about those who came before us and what will happen to those we will leave behind.

The nervous energy was too much for me, so my friend Judy and I spent most of the afternoons and evenings baking and preparing large quantities of food we could never hope to eat. I did make a point of asking grandmother the secrets to her favorite recipes. She of course obliged and we began to cook. We cooked for days making desserts, casserole, anything we could think grandmother would like. (Since she could not eat, we did know that the sense of smell is the last sense to be compromised during the dying process). In a way this gave us some comfort knowing that she possible enjoyed our cooking frenzy.

It was a Saturday afternoon that last day of her life that we finally stopped cooking, but before we did I made this Lithuanian dish that she had so lovingly prepared for me over the years. It was truly amazing, she never made it so good. It was about 3:50 p.m. and the dish was just coming out of the oven. Judy went to make a visual check to see that grandmother was still breathing and positioned properly in her bed. She was and we prepared our plates and went to sit in the den, when we looked a the room monitor and realized that there was no sound, grandmother was not breathing.

She had died within that time period between 3:50 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. It took us a few moments to collect our selves and then we called Hospice who arranged to have the mortuary collect her body. All that time she was in the house (about 2 hours) the smell of the food was intensely strong and so was the scent of her perfume. It seemed to fill the whole house. It was essentially a very assuring feeling but simultaneously sad. It was like I would never smell that perfume again or have that food taste that way again. I haven't, but I have tried. I'll move now the the more engaging part of my story.

We remained in the house for another three weeks after the funeral and during those weeks a series of strange events occurred. My friend, Judy, her son lived with me, Travis stayed in the finished part of the basement. That is where most of the happenings occurred.

Over the years we have accumulated boxes of papers, photographs and old clothes. One night I decided that I would start taking inventory on what we had stored in the basement. I began to move boxes and found grandmothers wedding dress. I immediately opened the box, it was white satin with pearls and lace, very lovely for the 1920's. I hung it up on a hanger along with some other items, an old mink stole and a funky pill-box like hat.

It was the next morning that Judy's son Travis asked it we were downstairs last night trying on clothes, we said no we were out and did not get home until after 2 a.m. and did not go downstairs at all. Travis said that he heard two ladies talking about how lovely the dress was and that the stole was a lovely surprise. I thought how strange and went downstairs. I do not know what came over me but the dress no longer appeared wrinkled, it was smooth, just like it came off the rack and it smelled just like my grandmother. So did the stole, and I do know that these items had been stored in a box for over 40 years.

Travis continued to hear rustling of fabric and the voices of two women talking amongst themselves. Believe it or not, my mother lived in that house up until she married my father, and that was the house that grandmother and grandfather lived in up until their deaths. I did try to leave a tape recorder downstairs but picked up only static and some odd thumping sounds, no voices. From what Travis tells me strange sounds continue to come from the back room in the basement.

The upstairs is another thing entirely. The kitchen seems to be a place where things go missing and then suddenly reappear as if nothing happened. The gas range goes on unexpectedly and the night light that my grandmother always left on for my mother flickers whenever someone uses the oven. Judy and Travis have both "seen" something that seems to float over the counter just after Judy has finished baking. The one thing that we can all agree is that we all have a good feelings and are in no way are frightened. I know that my grandmother loved me and Judy very much and would never intentionally frighten us.

A number of my family have passed away in that house. Both my grandparents, Frank and Pauline, her mother and father and Franks mother. That is a lot of people and leftover energy. I have just recently sold the house to Judy and she tells me that Pauline is always with her, and sometimes when she is alone and quiet in the house she can hear the sound of her slippers in the hallway and smell her perfume.

Thank you so much for proving an avenue for sharing.

Sincerely,

Amy Murawski New York, New York