Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places [183]
Ghosts That Warned of Approaching Danger or Death.
On June 16, when we stepped out of our station wagon, we kids took one look at the ramshackle house and started to pray that Dad wouldn’t like it out in the country. “The house was big enough. It had six bedrooms, a large country kitchen, and a neat living room with window boxes. The problem was, it was really run-down, and needed a lot of fixing up. Debra and I knew that Mom’s illness had cost Dad a lot of money. And then, of course, there had been the funeral expenses. While the low asking price of the big old house might appeal to Dad’s busted budget, we hoped that he would realize how much money we would have to spend to fix the place up to make it really livable. Paula and little Doug were excited about the large barn, the various outbuildings, and animal sheds. They immediately began to dream about having horses to ride. “While Dad discussed terms with the landlord, the four of us kids set off on a tour of inspection of the sprawling house. We had already decided who got what room, and even climbed the dusty steps to the attic, where we found some potential treasure chests of old clothes and hats that some family had left behind. They would be just great for playing dress up. Finally, only the basement remained for us to explore. Paula protested that she didn’t like basements because they were dark and smelly and spooky. Little Douglas was certain that monsters were living under the stairs, and his large blue eyes grew even wider at the thought of braving the dark unknown. I teased them for being little sissies, and I promised that we would find some neat things that someone had left down there. However, Paula was adamant that she and Dougie would stay upstairs while Debra and I explored the underworld. “‘If we’re going to live here,’ big sister Debra told them, ‘you can’t be afraid to go down in the cellar.’ Paula could not suppress an involuntary shudder.
‘Oh, I hope we don’t have to live in this creepy old place.’ “‘That’s for Dad to decide,’ Debra reminded her. ‘Come on, now, I’ll take Dougie’s hand, and Paula, you take Susan’s hand, and we will all run down the basement stairs together. You can’t be afraid if we are all together.’ Reluctantly Paula and Douglas did as they were told, and we were about halfway down the stairs when we all came to a sudden stop. There at the bottom of the stairs was Mom! “All of us saw a clear image of our deceased mother. Later, when we discussed what we had seen, each one of us described her in the same way. She had on this really pretty sundress with big flowers on it that all of us had loved so much. Her long blond hair was braided, like she often fixed it in warm weather. But most of all, we saw her beautiful smile. She was smiling up at us so lovingly. I will never forget the image that I saw of Mom that day in that old basement.
“We all probably would have run into the arms of our lovely, smiling mother if she had not begun to make motions that we should go back up the stairs, and not continue our descent into the basement. When Paula moved down a couple more steps toward Mom, she frowned and made a motion that Paula should stop. I know that we were all crying and calling out to her, saying that we wanted to hug and kiss her, but she kept waving her arms and motioning us to go back. Just when we were about to ignore Mom’s gestures and run down the steps toward her, the image of our mother disappeared. “We ran upstairs to get Dad, and tell him that we had seen Mom at the bottom of the basement stairs. Since we were all crying and talking at the same time, he could hardly ignore us or argue that we were all seeing things. “When the landlord, an elderly man in his eighties, finally understood that we were talking excitedly about something in the cellar, he became very agitated. ‘No, no, you mustn’t let those kids go down in the basement!’ he said, extra loud because of his partial deafness. ‘There’s an old cistern down there right at the bottom of the stairs. The boards have rotted away, and I’ll have to fix it before anyone goes down there.’ “Dad was shocked that the landlord hadn’t mentioned such a potential spot of danger immediately, but it was easy to see that the elderly gentleman had trouble keeping his mind on more than one thing at a time. And he had quite obviously forgotten long ago how young children want to explore old houses when given the opportunity. “When Dad went to investigate, he found things exactly as the old man had described them. The cistern, an uncovered well about eight feet deep with about three feet of water at the bottom, was right in the shadows at the bottom of the basement stairs. The way that we had been running down those stairs, we all could have fallen into the well and been severely injured, perhaps even killed. At that very moment Dad decided against renting the old farmhouse, and he never once doubted us when we told him that our beautiful mother had returned with her loving smile to save our lives. “‘Because she was the one who gave you life in the first place,’ Dad said, ‘it surely does stand to reason that she would do her best to protect your lives even from beyond the grave.’ Dad got tears in his eyes and added, ‘Now you kids know for certain that love never dies.’”
Running Down Vimy 