More Paranormal Happenings...

While I was writing about the house in CO, I should have also mentioned that I had practically an obsession with making sure the back door was secure. The back door led out of the kitchen thru a little sunporch with another door to the garage, and a short little alley. Not only did both doors lock, but the outer one had a large plank of wood with a V on one end that sat under the door knob and secured it even more. It seemed to me that whoever had caused the trauma upstairs had come in that way, and the victim or next tenant had decided that it wasn't going to happen again. There was a feeling of resolve in the sunroom. It happened and it isn' going to happen again, not on my watch... Also, during this time I was constantly seeing what I called black "cats" out of the corner of my eye. Little darting black shadows, that were always just out of full sight. I had a cat, but it wasn't her that I was seeing. She was always somewhere else when I saw the shadow "cats".
In my mid-twenties, I found myself living w/my parents again for a few years. They had a single wide trailer that had a large back deck that my Daddy enclosed for me to have a room. It was a nice little room and held my stuff quite nicely. I had started going to churc again and there, of course, was turmoil in the church. Why does there always have to be turmoil in the church?? But that is another blog for another day. Things were really dramatic and dragging on with no relief in sight.
One night I was sound asleep in my bed, and my Mom was just around the corner from my room. I woke up suddenly - fully awake, no lag time, wide awake. I was on my back looking up, and at the side of my bed stood this black figure. It was the exact image of the grim reaper. Black robes, tied with a black rope, hood up, no face, just a black hole where the head would normally be. It was horrible! Terrifying! But I called out to Jesus and pled the blood of Christ and after a little while it went away. I went to the pastor of the church, and the reaction I got from him was no help at all. He forbade me to speak of it to anyone again. He was very vague as to why I shouldn't speak of it, but I really expected to get some help and not be treated like I was either crazy or possessed. During the same time, I had been in a church service, sitting in the pews instead of on the platform. It was a worship service and things were as they normally would be. I had had my eyes open and then closed them. I could see angels on the platform behind the chairs where I usually sat. I could see them like they were in photo-negative. They were about 10 feet tall, with an inner glow, white, shining, with wings, silent, observing. You could feel that they wanted to join in the worship but were just to be there, not participate. That was as wonderful as the previous incident was horrifying. Within a year, I had left that church, and I haven't really been back since. I have visited a time or two, but not seriously joined the church since. There was a lot of pain and hurt involved, and I am working my thru that with the grace of God and His mercy.
Things quieted down for a while after that. I would still have a sense of knowing when someone was going to pull out in front of me, or if I drove by an accident scene, I could tell if someone had died in the accident. But no real big events. It was going to come back stronger than ever and sooner than I thought...

How it all started...

When I was born, I was brought home to an old farmhouse on Bingamon Holler. It was a wonderful place and I was blessed with loving, caring parents. We had only two bedrooms, and as my brother - who was 15 at the time - had the one, I slept in my crib in my parents room. The first memory I have is of lying in my crib, trying to go to sleep, and waiting...Waiting for the American Indian chief to come into the room and look down on me in my crib. I remember thinking that he wanted to take me and keep me for himself, and that I held onto the bars of my crib until I fell asleep to keep him from picking me up. He wasn't scary or mean, more curious than anything. But he was big and wore his feathered headdress, and that in itself was different and scary to a baby.
I was moved out of my parents room and into my own room when I was about 3 or 4. Daddy had taken the big room of my brother's and divided it so we could both have a room of our own. I never did sleep well. My Mom always had to come in and hold my hand till I fell asleep and then a few hours later I woud wake up and pace the hall, holding my Tony the Tiger and crying. I didn't know why I was crying, but I couldn't sleep and was uncomfortable and didn't know what to do about it. Finally I would go and get my Mom and she would get me back to sleep again.
Mommy tells me I had an imaginary friend during the time we lived in the farmhouse, but I don't remember her. We traded houses with my brother and his wife when she was pregnant with their first child. Moving didn't help me sleep any better. I was always afraid of the dark and always afraid that I had done something bad. So Mom and I would have all kinds of talks. When we put an addition onto the house, I got a new and bigger room. And Mom broke down and bought me a lamp that hung on the wall above my bed. It burned all night, every night. I always felt like someone was watching me, and developed these little subconscious rituals to ward this off.
Daddy was a preacher, and we visited a lot of "fire and brimstone" church services. I saw demons cast out of a man when I was about 6 years old. My grandmother always had a lot of stories about things she had seen at church, but I was raised very strictly that there is "No such thing as ghosts", except for the Holy Ghost. Mommy started working midnight at a nursing home when I was about 12 and Daddy would get me to go to sleep by telling me stories about his childhood. One night when I was around 13 years old, I was lying in bed, reading my Big Joke Book. I looked up and over the end of my bed by the right corner by my feet up about 7 feet in the air were 3 small, black misty shapes. I was scared to death and closed my eyes, and opened them back up and they were still there. I didn't tell anyone, I just prayed and finally went to sleep. I had a very vivid imagination, and was very sensitive. My feeling always ran deep.
Later, my other grandmother came to live with us and Daddy closed in our big porch and made me a new room. I loved that room. I got to pick out my curtains and carpet. There was just one thing. Something watched me all the time. I kept my curtains shut tight unless it was the middle of the afternoon on a sunny day. When I went to school, Mom would come in and open my curtains and I would come home and close them. I felt constantly watched, scrutinized even the whoe time I was in that room. That was the last room I had until I got married and moved away.