Nana
From: Type: Ghost Location: Sent: Friday, June 09, 2000 1:05 PM Subject: Nana
My great-grandmother was killed in a car accident when I was approximately three years old. My brother Nathan had not been born yet. I really don't remember "Nana" that well as I was so very young when she died. My family and I moved into a new house when Nathan was a tiny baby and I was a little over four years old.
I remember sitting on the floor of my new bedroom talking to Nana, playing with a stuffed animal she had given me when I was very small. My mother walked in and asked me who I was talking to. I looked at her like she was crazy, pointed to the area Nana had been standing in, and replied, "Nana, Mama!" Mom calmly pointed out that Nana was not there and I replied, "She was but she's gone now."
I knew that she had come back to see me. Several years later, I went in to my brother's room to check on him (I often did as he would roll out of bed sometimes) and I saw her standing over his bed looking down on him. She looked very happy and at peace. She turned towards me, raised her finger to her lip as if to say, 'Shhh!" and then she just wasn't there any more. I don't know how to explain it--she just wasn't there anymore.
I think she came back one more time to check on us. I haven't seen her again. Those two incidents were my first experiences with ghosts but they were not the last!
When I was eighteen I moved in with another grandmother. Her house had been built in 1881 and had quite a history. We had the traditional "haunted house" stories: footsteps at night on the stairs, lights turning on and off, objects moving around the house...my grandmother was so laid back about it all. She would laugh and say, "The haunts are at it again!" But I believe the "haunts" were friendly. They tried to help out as best as they could.
For example, one night it stormed. My bedroom was on the top floor and I sleep pretty soundly. I had opened my bedroom windows before going to bed. When I woke up, the windows were closed. I thanked my grandmother for closing the windows, pointing out that the rainwater would have ruined the things I had beneath the window. She laughed and said, "Oh, honey, I can't climb those old stairs anymore because of my arthritis! Must have been the haunts!"
Later, I had curled my hair and was getting ready to leave when I messed up my hair. I exclaimed, "Darn it! Now I'll have to curl my hair again and I turned off the stupid curling iron!" I walked back into my bedroom to turn on my curling iron and it was sitting on my vanity, cold but already turned on!"
Four years after that I moved into an apartment in a converted old house. My apartment was the second story and included an attic for storage and another apartment was on the main floor and included the basement for storage. The previous tenant had left in such a hurry that he had abandoned his furniture and clothing and would not come back in for it. I don't know what had happened to him, but he had taken every door in the place off of the hinges and stored them in the attic--even the bathroom and closet doors!
After his belongings had been removed by workers, the doors replaced and the house cleaned, I moved in. I was working in the kitchen at approximately 11:00 p.m. the first night I was there when the clock on the wall slowly floated across the room. I picked it up and hung it back where it was. Again, it floated across the room. I picked it up and hung it on the other side of the room. It stayed there the rest of the time I lived in the house.
But the fun was just beginning! I learned why the doors had been removed. In the middle of the night the doors would open and shut, open and shut. And in the bathroom, the water would turn on and off. My son was three at the time, and the doors opening and closing would wake him up. In desperation one night I got up and yelled, "I love this house. I am not leaving! We have to learn to live together! Please let us get some sleep!"
The doors and water stopped their activity and the house stayed quiet the rest of the two years we lived there. The computer sometimes played solitaire by itself, but other than that there was peace.
I'm sure there are logical scientific explanations for everything that I have experienced, but I believe in my heart that I was experiencing paranormal activity.