I have been told for many reasons that I am different. Most of which are because of my sarcastic sense of humour, however we’ll talk about that later!
I remember my childhood very clearly, and from a very early age. I can remember being in my crib before my first birthday, being given baths, and the sound of my Poppa (grandfather’s) voice. I remember my mother being pregnant with my sister who was born 22 months after me. I remember the time while my mother was at the hospital and my Grandma stayed with me, until mom and my new a baby sister came home. I was so mad she left me for 2 nights; I hid when she came in the back door!
I have very vivid recollection…and remember that autumn that I fell into the pool with all my clothes, coat and shoes on. My father scaled the deck fencing, jumped in and pulled me out of the cold water, but I was fine. I remember it like I was there watching, but also saw him jumping in from the bottom of the pool, it was odd. Thinking back, I cannot recall if the people started before then…but it was after then that I remember them. Some say it is a near death experience that starts the visits, but I can’t say for sure. Sometimes I speculate, but I don’t have the answer to that and don’t consider myself an authority on the subject…I am learning every day too.
We lived in an old house. It was a semi, and my grandparents and aunt lived in the other half of the semi. My Poppa told me that when they first built that house it was used as a rooming house. Was it? I don’t really know, but from my perspective it was a busy place! I had a “visitor”, who would sit in the chair at the end of my room, and he would laugh for hours. He was an elderly man, thin, partly bald, and sort of…emaciated. He didn’t look scary, but his laugh combined with how he made me feel, was. Some say that that wouldn’t be scary…but I was 4 and it was scary! I didn’t talk much about this man to my Mom; I just went to her room a lot at night saying I had bad dreams. I got the impression (although it was never discussed), that my “visitors” was not something that everyone was going to like…so it became my private thing.
The “people” came intermittently…the old man in my chair was almost always there, even after I moved the chair; the person in the dark that would tickle me, till I almost peed, and the one who used to look in on me when it was nearly daylight. I didn’t sleep much, for I always had the feeling of missing something if I closed my eyes for too long! I acted up/out during my childhood, I guess I was more confused about the subject than I thought at the time, and gravitated towards older people in general as a comfort. The majority of the “visitors” at the age I was then were older people. They seemed like older family members in a way. This began my fascination with elderly people…and I still think they are amazing. I went to the nursing home with my Poppa a lot, to see my Great Grandma, and would keep all the other people in the hallways amused while my Poppa visited his mom.
Maybe that is why I had such an insurgence of elderly “visitors”, I don’t know. They all wanted to see me when they “visited”, and sometimes they talked to me, but none of it was a scary thing, and none of them seemed to need help, like the popular TV shows. I sometimes wonder if what I have came in stages or not…or if I just didn’t understand enough then.
When I was about 6, there was a motorcycle accident out in front of our house, and the rider was thrown quite a distance from where he was hit. He was hurt pretty badly, but he didn’t die; I could feel the death trying to take him. The feeling of what I saw and felt gave me nightmares for a while after that, but I came to understand what it had meant for him, and I saw a difference in the people who came to “visit” me versus the regular people around me. Something that is more of a feeling from the “visitors” than regular people….they seemed much more concentrated. It made figuring out regular people sort of difficult for me at the beginning…but reading or figuring out the feelings that regular people give me now is much easier to interpret, it is just more subtle. I think the “visitors” don’t care anymore, so it’s all out there, but the real people hide it and you have to concentrate a little harder for it.
I had dreams, as a child, dreams that still haunt me to this day. Some not so much bad as upsetting, like the one of my Great Grandpa passing away, and hearing about it from my parents the next day. I responded with “I know” when I was told, and from the look I got, I didn’t say things like that any more. I dreamt of my Aunt Lolly the same way, to the same result from my parents the next day after her passing too. This concludes the majority of what I have told my parents over the years. I was perceptive in their reactions and saw that they had a lot going on in their lives…I didn’t bother them with much if I could help it.
Nightmares for kids that see the dead are a little more like an adults scary movie…so as you get older scary movies hold more reality than thrill. I get scared more I think because I know how possible some of the things are. Poltergeist was the first one for me…a little too close to home I think.