Grandma Says Goodbye

When I was about 7 years old my Mom (who had gotten divorced a few years prior), decided that we should go to live with her parents in Hawaii.  They would help put her through college and help take care of my sister, brother and I.  Being the oldest, I asked a lot of questions.  Being at that age, I often wondered about death, God, and things of a spiritual nature.  My grandmother became my sounding board during those years because she was handy and I considered her wise. 

"Grandma, do you think people go somewhere when they die?"  I asked.  Grandpa kept silent, as always.  He too was wise.  "I don't really know, Cari," she said.  "But since I will probably die before you, I will try to let you know- send a message or something."  This reply satisfied me.  Grandma wouldn't lie, and she had been terribly honest by admitting she didn't know about heaven or things like that.  I could accept ambiguity. 

In the meantime, we were living in Hawaii and there is a rich tradition of ghost stories and little people (menehunes).  Grandma loved to tell us these stories and encouraged us to "get involved" so to speak.  One story said that the menehunes were little people who only worked at  night.  They were kind of magical and could help you find things that you had lost.  In the old days the Hawaiians would visit the menehune at night and bring an offering of chocolate pudding (no, I don't know where that came from!) in exchange for the finding of missing items.   One particular day we realized that several things were missing - I couldn't find my bouncy ball, Grandma had lost her lighter and my sister was missing something else which I can't recall. 

We decided to ask the menehunes for help, and Grandma thought this was wonderful, so we wrote them a note, made up a batch of chocolate pudding, and put it outside our house that night.  The menehunes wrote back (in English, of course!), accepting the pudding and promising to find our lost items.   Weeks went by and the items remained lost, however. 

Then, the unthinkable happened.  Grandma turned very ill and went into the hospital.  After a few days (from what I remember) she passed away.  I was 12 years old, and in my grief I forgot about her promise to send me a message from the "other side".  I also forgot about the missing items.  I was grief stricken, not understanding that she had actually been ill longer than I knew.  Her death had happened quite suddenly to me.

I don't remember how long, but probably several days after Grandma's death, my Mom let me sleep in Grandma's bed.  I don't remember why, just that I was in her bed.  I woke up in the night, and it looked as if the bathroom light was on, but it wasn't. There was just a stream of light, and walking towards me was Grandma, smiling and holding out her hand.  She looked like healthy grandma, happy.  I smiled at her but didn't know what to do.  Then she disappeared and I thought it was funny that the bathroom light had turned off at the same time.  Now I know that she brought the light with her.   That was her telling me that she had gone on and had returned to let me know.

Shortly after that, all of the missing items turned up, on the same day - the lighter, my ball and the third thing too. 

Over the years she has sent me a few other messages.  Let me explain first - she used to take me shopping with her when she lived in Colorado and her store was Safeway.  We used to sing the Safeway song as we drove over there.  When I was very little, perhaps 5 or 6?  I would hear the song "59th Street Bridge Song"  and sing along.  I loved the part "I'm feeling groo-vy" and I would dance along.  Grandma would laugh and clap her hands, she thought that was really funny.  So it was "our song" - every now and then we'd both say, "I'm feeling groo-vy" and dance and laugh.  I really associated that song with her. 

One day I was in a Safeway and thinking about Grandma for some reason, and that song came on in the store - "I'm feeling groo-vy" and I just knew it was Grandma saying hello!  Another time I was up late watching TV and thinking about Grandma and that song, thinking that you never hear it at all and within 5 minutes there was a commercial on with that song.  I only saw the commercial once...

Perhaps there were other messages from her but I did not notice them, or did not know they were from her.  Ten years ago a friend of mine died suddenly and I received many, many messages from him.  At the same time I learned about how the dead communicate and began to notice more "messages" around me.  Things like the lights blinking at certain times or in a particular way, street lights going out, etc. 

There is no doubt in my mind that the dead are usually able to communicate with us and often try, especially when there is a close connection.  For more information about ADC (after-death communication) visit the website: http://www.adcrf.org/index.html.  I am also interested in hearing about your experiences and whether you believe in life after death.  The events that occurred after the death of my friend have convinced me beyond a doubt.

Ghost crash

The ghost, that's what I believe it was, terrorized me as a young girl in Hawaii by walking outside my bedroom window and sitting on the end of my bed a few times a week.  These events happened regularly and often, but what happened one night only happened once or I might have died of a heart attack. 

One moonless night the footsteps woke me.  With my stuffed animals arranged carefully and the covers well-tucked under head, I listened intently.  They began outside as usual, but then they changed direction, coming from the doorway of our bedroom.  Unusually for me, I lay on my back that night.   As the steps came closer fear paralysed me and prevented me from turning over.  My entire body became clammy, breaths came quick and shallow.  The footsteps stopped and I suddenly became  aware that the "man" was standing next to my bed!

The next thing that happened still makes me profoundly afraid to this day.  Unthinkably, the ghost fell on top of me!  I felt his warm breath on my neck, the weight of his body on top of me.  Once he had fallen neither of us moved.  I couldn't!  And then the feeling dissipated.  He did not get up again, he simply disintegrated.  For the rest of the night I lay there wide awake until dawn.

Shortly after that our living arrangements changed enough so that I could be moved to another bedroom in the house and the haunting stopped.  No one sat on my bed in the other bedroom and it became apparent to me, anyway, that the ghost was associated with that place.  Who was it and why did they haunt that place?  I feel that it was a man who lived in the house and had contemplated suicide for months.  The walking and sitting sounded pensive, as if someone were trying to decide what to do.  When the ghost came to my bedside and fell, I think that he was "reliving" his suicide.  It is said that those who commit suicide are locked in a kind of limbo between earth and heaven and I believe that this could be true. 

Later, as a grown woman, my Mom and I talked about the haunting incident of my youth.  Through that whole scary time my Mother had tried to calm my fears to make it seem like everything had a rational explanation.  It did help for her to say those things and she also gave me the tools to think about it rationally at the time (though I just couldn't). But now that I was all grown up she said something that shocked me.  I asked her what she thought it was that had happened to me, and this time she said, "I don't know, Cari, but you sure scared the hell out of me!"

Ghost walking

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   The most chilling and strange thing that has ever happened to me occurred when I was a child of about 10 or 11 growing up in Hawaii.  My bedroom was part of a converted garage and since it was rather large, it had been divided up into three "rooms" using bookshelves as walls so that my siblings and I could each have a space.  My room was at the back next to the backyard, looking out at a patio (called a lana'i).  I am not sure exactly when, but soon after we moved in I began to hear footsteps at night outside my room.  It sounded as if someone was walking in circles on the patio. 

I could hear the scuff of their hard-soled shoes on concrete, the tap of regular steps and then the turn as the "person" circled around on the patio.  The steps were sharp and very clear as  they got closer and then moved further away.  I slept with twenty stuffed animals and the covers over my head at all times.  A small hole in the covers near my head allowed for breathing air while sweat formed everywhere else.  When the steps woke me in the night, the fear paralyzed me for hours while I wondered about the man (I was sure it was a man!) who marched and marched outside my window.

The walking was bad enough, but then something else happened that frightened me even more.  Just as I was about to fall asleep, someone would sit on the end of my bed!   The creak of the mattress, the depression, the weight of a body.... Oh lord, it scared the living crap out of me!  They would sit there for awhile and finally get up.  Somehow, once the person had left, I managed to fall asleep. 

 I can only attribute this to the complex "protection" which I thought would guard me from the ghost, the kind of protection only a child imagines will work.  My piles of stuffed animals guarded me closely, making a wall between me and the thing out there.  When they had been placed just so each night and the covers were pulled over my head and a small breathing hole allowed air to get in, I would read books by the light of a flashlight until sleep took over.  My mother did not know what to do.  She told me it must be a dream, that since the "bed sitter" only came just as I fell asleep, then I probably had fallen asleep and was dreaming.  She had given me the flashlight so that I could shine the light on whatever it was and so prove to myself that nothing was there.  No way could I leave the protection of the covers to reveal myself to the thing.  Not only that, no matter what shining a light at the "sitter" could only make it worse!  Either way, if nothing were there or something was there, it would be awful!

At one time I nearly convinced myself that the footsteps were simply water dripping after the very common downpours that happen in Hawaii.  But no, the steps sounded different than the water, very crisp and definite. 

If the haunting weren't bad enough, one more thing happened to me regarding this ghost.  I will never forget it and to this day I can still feel the sensations from that night.