Flash, Bang, Boom! (Spring 2022)

I woke up in the middle of the night. It was sudden and I propped myself up and looked around for the sound. My dog was looking right towards the foot of my bed, which is where I had heard my name. It was a male voice that said my name and my dog had also heard it. I said "hello" into the room, but nothing sounded again so I went back to sleep.

The next day I talked to my mom about it on the phone and she brought up guardians calling my name. That it was the time of night when guardians try to reach you or send you a message, because the veil is thinner. I felt more like it was literally just someone trying to get my attention. I always find it strange that things like this happen at night, but all I could work with was that a male voice said my name in the middle of the night.

I decided to stay on high alert.

Not long after, I awoke at 5:37AM to what felt like a bright flash that pierced through my eyelids. I opened my eyes to darkness, but then, a moment later, I witnessed something I had never seen before despite my myriad various experiences. As I pushed myself up on my right side I scanned the other side of the room where it felt like the flash had originated. And then, there it was; a giant ball of light flashed and disappear. My dog barked at the light when it flashed. 

I sat shocked for a few minutes and then got up, thinking maybe a bulb in the track lighting on that side of the room had somehow exploded and I checked them out. I turned them on and off. Then I went downstairs, flabbergasted by the experience. I sat down and told my husband what had happened and then went back upstairs and went back to sleep.

Later that day, I started talking to my husband about the light. I was standing in the doorway of his office and was trying to guess who the light burst was. 

"I started to feel like it was maybe Grandpa Fritz. But it doesn't feel right. I keep feeling my dad. Like it's my dad and I can't let go of the thought that it was him who flashed the light at me."

Chills started to run through my body and I was feeling cold and then I felt a firm touch on my shoulders. Kind of like when you play sports and get that supportive shoulder squeeze on both shoulders from behind. It was very much a my-dad move. Then I started to cry and I embraced, internally and verbally, that it was my dad. I then expressed what was going through my mind.

"I feel like he wants me to tell my mom that he can't do the things she's asking him to do, but to let her knew that he is there for her even though he can't do them."

As I said those words, I felt more and more at peace with the situation and my own thoughts and feelings. The cold and goosebumps went away and I was finally calm.

Over the next two hours, I had this nagging feeling that I needed to call my mom and tell her what I learned. I finally gave in and called her, sharing everything, including the message he wanted me to pass on to her. After the phone call, I felt even more at peace - as if I had completed my mission and was now relieved of duty. No more anxiety or stress. Instead it was relaxation.

I thought that was the end of things, but when I went to bed that night, I just had to get out my divining rods. I was in my bedroom and I had the rods ready and I started asking questions.

"Dad is that you?" Crossed/Yes

"Is Grandpa Fritz with you?" Did Not Cross/No

"Are you the light that I saw flash in my room this morning?" Crossed/Yes

"Were you touching my shoulders this afternoon?" Crossed/Yes

"Did I get the message to mom alright? Was it right?" Crossed/Yes

"You know I love you so much right?" Crossed/Yes

"Okay. I love you dad. Please don't do things to scare me anymore. When you do things before bed or in the middle of the night it really scares me a lot."

The whole time I was getting goosebumps all over my arms and I was starting to cry as I felt him around me. I stopped asking questions when I told him to please not scare me anymore. It wasn't a question. It was a direct statement, because it was true and I didn't need an answer. After all of that, I went to bed.

A few weeks later, on Mother's Day weekend, I was visiting at my mom's house. I didn't bring any of my ghost hunting materials and we didn't have her old set of divining rods because I had taken them home with me. I haven't had much happen at my mom's house in the years following the elevated activity from Grandpa Fritz in 2005, so I wasn't ever freaked out to sleep in my old bedroom. 

I went to sleep, but at around 2:55AM I woke up and heard a knock-knock-knock at my door. It was loud enough to hear over two fans blowing full blast. I was barely awake, so I didn't answer and I went back to sleep. I knew the knocking wasn't my daughter or my husband, but I asked my mom if she had knocked and she said no. I didn't know what to think of it, so I filed it away with the other strange things that had been happening lately.

A couple weeks after that we were back at my mom's to visit. This time I brought all my gear and we intended to make contact with spirits in my mom's house. (See this entry for what happened.) I made contact with my Grandpa Fritz, but I didn't make contact with my dad. I wrapped up the day and got settled into bed.

I was watching television in bed, unwinding before falling asleep, when suddenly a large bang sounded from the other side of the room. It was like someone took a fist and drove it into my dresser. I bolted up, straining to see if my REM-Pod had fallen onto the floor off the dresser, but everything seemed to be fine. The bang really shook me and it took me a while to feel comfortable enough to fall asleep. What I did remember thinking was that it was my dad and he was mad at me for some reason. 

The next day I told everyone what happened, but no one else had heard the bang or was around my room doing anything that would make that kind of noise. I couldn't seem to shake the feeling that it was my dad and that I had done something to make him mad. Additionally, hadn't I asked him to stop doing things that would scare me before bed?

I ended up coming to a conclusion about both of these strange encounters at my mom's house. First, the three knocks was what my dad used to do on my door when I was a child and I feel that it was his way of letting me know that he was now at my mom's house with her. This felt like the right assumption, especially since it was our first visit to my mom's since I had the encounter with him at my own house.  The second encounter, the bang on the dresser, was also my dad and I think he was upset at me for not taking the time to communicate with him using my divining rods. When we visited I briefly put the REM-Pod in my mom's room and when I didn't get a response, I took it away and didn't return with any other communication device. So I never talked to my dad that visit. I think he was expressing how upset he was that I didn't give him a chance to speak that night. 

Granted, these last two experiences are me using my own intuition to try to understand strange happenings. I'm not just grasping at any oddities that happen and labeling them my dad or my Grandpa Fritz. I've dismissed plenty of other weird noises or sights. But I take seriously the feelings that seem to "come to me" with encounters like the above. Lately, a number of weird things have happened that are not immediately explainable, but my intuition is pushing those experiences into another category that has nothing to do with any of my departed family and that hopefully someday I can explain. For now, my dad is here and he is trying to make contact and be heard.

Next Up on My Ghost Stories: The vaults below the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland are still busy.

Gone Too Soon (June 2009)

I don't know where my dad stood on the paranormal. I guess it just wasn't a conversation that ever came up with him. I have a feeling he believed in the things that were happening around their house back in 2005. I knew some of his religious beliefs and practices that he cherished. But I guess it doesn't much matter what he believed before he passed away suddenly in June of 2009, because I've experienced a good bit of interactions with him since his passing.

My dad had been having health problems for a while. In the summer of 2008 he was in a coma post-bypass surgery and had a stroke (potentially more than one). When he came around, he clearly was struggling regaining his typical composure. I'm not going to go into all the details of what happened, but he struggled with staying coherent with reality. I was living in Edinburgh at the time. 

At 2AM on June 19, 2009, I received a call from my mom in the United States. My father had passed away. 

I arrived home in Wisconsin from Edinburgh, Scotland within 24 hours of the phone call. During my flight home across the ocean, in an odds-defying and cruel twist of fate, my grandfather (Grandpa Frank) also passed away from a seizure related to Alzheimer's. Before I had even left Scotland I had a feeling something was wrong with Grandpa Frank and that bothered me the entire flight home. So when I arrived home, I was thunderstruck anew upon learning of his passing.

It was a very rough time for our family. A time that included learning that my grandma's cancer had come back, but this time in her brain and she was going to opt out of surgery. She died exactly two months (August 20) after my Grandpa Frank (June 20). It rocked the family something fierce.

With all of this loss, grief, and pain, came paranormal activity to some degree. I've never had any paranormal interaction with my grandma. I adopted the mentality that she had finished all her business and found her place beyond the veil. I did have a brief interaction with my beloved Grandpa Frank, which I think was him giving me a final goodbye and that he was moving on. 

I had come around the end of the bed to my side of my bed in my room. I looked up and I saw my grandpa standing at the foot of the bed at the other side. He looked at me, acknowledged me, smiled and was gone. It was so quick, but it hit my heart hard. It ached so badly. The apparition looked exactly like him. I could see his facial features and large glasses. He had on his white golf hat. He had a green aura to him, but it might have been because he was wearing his green sweater jacket. I could make out his shirt and pants - all in that quick moment of interaction. And I just knew he was gone. I've never had interactions with him again or felt him around me.

This event happened a few years after his death, when I was living in my current home. My current home used to be a visitation/vacation condo and is positioned right across the street from where my grandparents used to live. It was purchased so that my parents could come up to where my grandparents lived and help take care of them. This condo was for sale across the street, so everyday I am reminded of my grandparents as I watch people live in their old condo. But even though my moment with my Grandpa Frank was well after the day he departed, I had a very powerful interaction with my dad almost a day after I arrived home from Edinburgh.

I was at home at my parents' house. It was pretty early in the morning and there was no one around downstairs. I had gone into the small bathroom off of the kitchen. Before leaving the small bathroom, I opened the door and turned to wash my hands. The one wall opposite the sink is a giant mirror and as I looked up into that mirror I saw my dad, as real as anything, standing in the kitchen behind me at the kitchen sink, bent over, peeling an apple. He was wearing his long-sleeve dark red suede shirt with the cuffs rolled up and a pair of blue jeans. I turned around to see him with my own eyes, but he wasn't there and when I turned back to the mirror he was gone.

It was a heartbreaking encounter, but it felt so real. I didn't have anything else happen at that time that I could remember. My husband did, though. We are convinced it was my dad letting us know that he was on the other side and alright. 

If you read back about the entries with my Grandpa Fritz, you'll know about the faucets. My husband had to fly back to Edinburgh for work after the funeral. Shortly after arriving home, he was in our bedroom on the phone with me when he heard a strange noise out in the flat somewhere. He traced the noise to our bathroom only to discover the sink faucet running inexplicably. In the two and a half years we lived there and the several months before we moved out, we had no other faucet incidents. This is the one and only. We believed that it was dad using a very paranormal message he knew we'd experienced before to reach a skeptic. Why he chose my husband I imagine had to do with that skepticism and practicality, and likely the emotional difference the message would have carried if it had been directed at me or my mom who were in pretty delicate states at that time. 

Over the last 13 years, I've kept his spirit alive in my heart. I hadn't heard anything from him or had any kind of contact since. I also wasn't searching it out. But this past Spring.... that changed.

Up Next in My Ghost Stories: Flash, Bang, Boom! Is that really you?

Savannah, Georgia Vacation (September 2006)

I don't remember how it came about, but at some point my mom talked me into a family vacation. I chose the place and did the planning. For multiple reasons, I was obsessing over Savannah, Georgia. First, it's named one of the most haunted cities in the world. Next, I love Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and it was entirely filmed in Savannah and the locations in the story are, of course, in Savannah. Third, Ghost Hunters had caught shadow people at the Moon River Brewing Co.. Lastly, the car drive from Raleigh wasn't too bad and could be a fun road trip for everyone? 

I'll fess up now... I didn't book a ghost hunt... I booked a haunted pub crawl. Oops. But the pub crawl ended at the Moon River Brewing Co., so that's something, right?

Our vacation, of which I will not bore you with tedious details, was primarily Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil tours to grave sites and houses, a haunted Savannah tour, and just general Savannah tours. We didn't stay very long, but we had fun learning about the surroundings. Except for my husband who hated pretty much the entire trip and didn't hide it from anyone. I always suppress that detail, because I'd like to think he appreciated my effort and the company. Boy, does he hate Savannah, though.

It is in Savannah that I had one of my scariest encounters ever. We stayed at the Best Western Central Inn. They had a pool! My husband and I were in one room and my parents were in their own room. My husband and I had gone to sleep, but I woke up suddenly into the pitch blackness of the midnight bedroom. Then I had an urge to go to the bathroom and, as I looked over towards that end of the room, that's when I saw it: the Shadow Man.  

I found a picture of the room, but it's clearly been remodeled since I stayed there. Here you can get the idea of where the shadow man was. He was standing under the shelf in the nook. From my position on the side of the bed closest to the front of the picture, I could see the dense, solid, black shadow full on.

I reached over to my husband to try to wake him up, but he is like a rock when he's asleep. It felt like the shadow was just staring at me and I was feeling more and more terrified the longer the encounter went on. I couldn't get out of bed. I couldn't move around. I was just frozen in fear. After what felt like an eternity of this encounter, the shadow just vanished as quick as the snap of one's fingers. 

It was another eternity that I laid in my bed processing what had happened. Finally, though, I was able to force myself out of bed to turn a light on so that I could carefully walk to the bathroom. The whole time I was in that area of the room, I was getting goosebumps and chills. It also took me quite a while to fall back asleep, but this time it was with the light on.

In the wake of things, I kept thinking about the type of entity I saw. It wasn't what they know of as a shadow person. My husband pointed out that when we've seen shadow people, they're usually moving or peeking or running or something like that. That they don't usually stand, staring, menacingly. I agreed, then suddenly had a gut feeling that it was some sort of boatman or pirate. We were in a notorious pirate town and it could explain the menacing feeling I had. Perhaps that is a bit far-fetched, but it is, nevertheless, a feeling I had. Regardless, what I encountered that night was not a shadow person as I have come to conventionally understand them. It was just a shadowy man in the corner who emanated a dark energy. I have come to believe that, despite its seeming solidity, that it was some sort of apparition. I wonder if my waking eyes translated a dark aura into the thick shadow wrapped around this figure. I imagine the whole thing will remain a mystery to me.

This event has made sleeping occasionally difficult for me. It's hard to have things in the corners of the rooms where you're trying to fall asleep. I can still see the shadow man in my mind, crystal clear, and it still makes me feel uncomfortable and it happened 16 years ago. It will probably still continue to haunt me for the foreseeable future.

This wasn't the only paranormal experience I had in Savannah, Georgia, though. As I mentioned earlier, we were able to make it to the Moon River Brewing Company. We got a tour of the place, along with ghost stories, and then it was the end of the tour so we could just hang out. Having seen the Ghost Hunters episode where they caught various evidence there, including little shadow people, I was super stoked to get to look around for myself. 

During my time at Moon River, I had two small experiences. The first was in the basement. I saw a light and sourceless shadow move from from left to right as we were leaving the basement. I had looked back to get that one last look before leaving and I saw it move real quick.

Once we made it back to the main floor, it was time to go upstairs to the unoccupied floors where there is a great deal of activity. The place was bare-bones and clearly being renovated, as there was lumber and construction materials all over the place. The two floors had been stripped to the floor boards. I looked around a fair bit and took photos, but I wasn't feeling anything.

Finally, people started making their way downstairs. I was one of the last few left on the second floor. I started to make my way downstairs to the first landing and all of a sudden I heard footsteps behind me. It sounded like boots, they were so heavy on the wood steps. They were coming up on me fast and I turned on the landing so that I could maybe let whoever was behind me by. As I turned around, I saw no one behind me. I did a double-take and looked all around, but the only people behind me were still up on the second floor with the tour guide. 

I was so giddy with excitement over experiencing disembodied steps behind me on the stairs that I went straight to my family and told them what had happened. It was a wild and crazy night.

While Savannah may not have had as many opportunities for public ghost hunting as I had hoped, I was not disappointed with what I experienced. It was interesting and has been a place I've been interested to revisit with a better understanding of how to participate in ghost hunts.

I do, though, have one of the funniest memories of my dad from this vacation. He spilled on his shirt during breakfast and needed to dry it off, so he asked the grounds crew at the Best Western crew if he could borrow their leaf blower and he dried off his shirt.

If you knew my dad, that is like classic my-dad. 

This was also the only vacation I would take with my dad as an adult, not realizing that three years later I wouldn't have the chance. But that didn't stop him from trying to be a part of my life.

Next Up on My Ghost Stories: Gone Too Soon.

He's Still With Us (Spring 2022)

In 2015, my mom was diagnosed with Stage 3-4 ovarian cancer (her different doctors gave different stages). She went into remission after the initial diagnosis and was about to meet her five year clear when the cancer made a return visit on her heart. This time it was no longer a case of fighting to be rid of the cancer because of the type that it is, and instead it was about keeping it at bay and staving off the unfortunate inevitable. As of the writing of this entry, she is still with us, struggling to maintain her preferred quality of life, but fighting like a champ. 

During a visit a few months ago, my mom gave me a new set of divining rods, because one rod from my original pair had been missing for some time. Upon delivering this new gift to me, she presented a personal request. She asked me to perform a question session with any spirits that may be in the house. Not only ask the questions, but she told me to stand in the spot where my father passed away. She said that spot felt like it had energy in it and I would be more likely to get answers. 

So I stood in the spot and started asking questions and I immediately got responses. It was my Grandpa Fritz again. I knew it immediately, just as surely as I knew I was wearing glasses. 

I told my mom that Grandpa Fritz was here answering her questions. She asked if he would be there for her when the time comes and he said he would be. She asked about my dad-- if he was there. Grandpa Fritz said he was near, but that he wasn't directly with us. I asked a few more smaller questions that I can't seem to remember, but I was becoming so overwhelmed with the energy exchange with this encounter and the fluctuating goosebumps that I had to say I needed to stop and step away. During the conversation I was using my mental connection to allow Grandpa Fritz to share with me more thorough answers so that I could explain his simple answers better to my mom. Doing that, though, was draining me, especially since my personal energy stores were low.

What I didn't share at the time, but did later on, was that I saw my dad in my mind. A large white tunnel, like at the beginning of a Bond movie, had my dad's outline standing at the end of it and he was trying to walk down it. He was trying to come to be here for my mom. That is what all the feels gave me while I was trying to commune with the other side.

This realization, that my dad was accessible, would lead to something I haven't had happen in over a decade, but that is another entry for later on, as it really shook me something fierce.

Another visit, but more recently (June 2-3, 2022), I intentionally went down to my mom's place to talk to the spirits in her house. I had just gotten a REM-Pod for Mother's Day and I was really excited to use it in a location where I knew there were spirits. My daughter also was interested in spirits and ghost hunting, so I thought this would be a good opportunity for her to see what we do and I knew the spirits in the house were friendly.

That evening, while the dying light of the day still filtered into the basement from outside, we took my daughter down to talk to her Grandpa Fritz. I went down before everyone so that I could get a feel for the place. I got a brief chill up my spine and knew he was there. Then I went about setting up the REM-Pod in the sitting area by the fireplace (the space where he has passed away). 

I started out with casual conversation with my daughter. My husband and I taught her how to introduce herself to any spirits that might be present. We talked about some of the items in the basement that were collectibles from my Grandpa Fritz, like the bottle of salt from the Great Salt Lake in Utah. I felt him with us, but the REM-Pod wasn't going off. My daughter said she saw something block out the light on the VCR (yes... it's an actual VCR still in our basement). 

We sat there for a while, but nothing happened. I didn't want to break out other equipment at the time. So we took the REM-Pod to the bathroom, which had been remodeled recently, and I thought for sure that we would get some action. We stood in the large bathroom, with the door closed, and started asking questions. Instead of the REM-Pod sounding at all, I felt someone behind me, almost touching my spine and my daughter swears she was getting the creeps from behind her. Something was with us in the dark, but it wasn't interacting with the REM-Pod.

Our little crew left the bathroom and we went into the bar area where there are also glass patio doors leading to the outside. The outside light was still there and it would make it easier for my daughter to see the divining rods once I broke them out. But we started with the REM-Pod on the bar. And I'm sure you guessed it, we got nothing from the REM-Pod. 

On the REM-Pod is a temperature gauge and I decided to turn it on. Slowly the temperature started to crawl up, meaning it was getting warmer. I got out my rods and was getting ready to ask questions as the temperature continued to climb. I had a moment where I thought "he's making the temperature climb, because he doesn't like cold spaces." When I asked the question aloud, I got a positive response. He also confirmed that he didn't want to use the REM-Pod and it was him in the bathroom behind us. 

The group of us exchanged some pleasant queries with Grandpa Fritz and then it was time to move on to our other locations. I wasn't sure how the other two locations would pan out, so I didn't want to exhaust Grandpa Fritz in case he wanted to talk to my mom. I felt, though, that his energy was a bit lower than during our previous encounter. This was just a feeling or a guess... or a thought that was marching through my mind. But it also felt right.

After the basement, we then moved to the living room and put up the REM-Pod to see if someone else would participate and this way my mom could participate as well. She was sitting in the living room with her heating pads and reclining chair. I let her lead the investigation with the REM-Pod, but we received no responses.

I went upstairs alone and put the REM-Pod in my mom's bedroom on the spot where my father passed away and started asking questions. Again there was nothing happening and I left the room, probably more quickly than I should have, but I was somewhat frustrated with the events of the evening. I had really wanted my REM-Pod to work and, upon further reflection, I wasn't being sensitive to the needs of the spirits in the house. This thought was punctuated by a large bang in my bedroom as I was watching some TV and settling in for bed. I'll return to this situation in a future entry, as I believe I've come to understand the root of that matter.

The next morning, my daughter and I went back into the basement and I gave her the divining rods to try to use. I called out to my Grandpa Fritz, "Hi. We're back down here, because my daughter wants to learn to use these rods and I thought you'd be able to help her learn how they work." He crossed the rods. Then I asked, "Have you met her?" (She spent her first two years living in the house and visiting often since then). The rods crossed again. Right after they crossed my daughter started to try to debunk her own experience, even though we both watched it happen and her hands did not make it move. She struggles with experiences, because she is too quick to say it was something else. She self-doubts a lot. My husband and I believe her debunking might also be related to how we helped her deal with strange things she saw when she was little --to look for a logical reason why something might have happened. She's 11 --almost-12-years-old, so I can understand the self-doubt she feels about things. I'm trying to build her confidence, because I've noticed she may possess a special gift, too.

So my daughter gave me the divining rods and I decided to ask just some general questions that my mom had asked the night before and didn't get a response for.

"My mom wanted to know some things from you last night. Did you see the spirit of Jonesy (our cat) when he passed?" - No cross.

"Have you seen Grandma Clara since she passed over? Anywhere on the other side?" - The rods started to cross and stopped right after the very tips crossed. I had a feeling of "I don't know" pass through my mind and I said it aloud so that he could hear.

"Do you mostly stay down here?" - Cross/Yes.

"Are you here to help take care of mom?" - Cross/Yes.

"Is dad here?" -Cross/Yes.

"Does he mostly stay upstairs?" - Cross/Yes.

"Thank you, Grandpa Fritz. We'll be back to visit and I'm glad to know you got to meet your great granddaughter. Thank you for being here for mom."

My daughter and I gathered up our things and went back upstairs. I shared with my mom what happened.

Grandpa Fritz is still with us. His energy isn't as strong as it used to be, but I can still feel him around and I hope he's doing what feels right for him on the other side. 

Next Up on My Ghost Stories: A Spooky Trip to Savannah, Georgia.

My Childhood Home & Grandpa Fritz (July 2005)

In 1992, when I was 11 years old, my Grandpa Fritz moved in with us. He had been diagnosed with cancer of the mouth and throat. The operation that he had to remove the cancer left him struggling to talk and a tube had been placed in his throat. My parents turned our converted basement into a bedroom for him, giving him access to a personal bathroom for himself and just general privacy. In order to communicate with Grandpa Fritz, he had to write on a notepad. I was only a child at the time and while I understood what was going on, it was still confusing and sometimes scary. 

In the spring of 1993, Grandpa Fritz's cancer came back in his throat and closed off his windpipe. He passed away in his sleep in that basement.

In 2004, my brother moved back in with our parents following his departure from the military. I had already moved away to live in North Carolina with my husband in his home state. It was my brother who was the first to notice strange activity in the house. It all started with a faucet.

A sink faucet turned on by itself.

I should probably preface the remainder of this entry by saying that I am very comfortable with debunking and looking for more rational explanations before jumping on the paranormal bandwagon. I was familiar with Ghost Hunters at the time. They had just started airing the year prior on television. Being plumbers, they always made a huge deal about faucets and all things plumbing. I think it actually created a sense of dismissal in the paranormal community of faucets turning on by themselves. That's not to say that Ghost Hunters dismissed it, but it just sort of felt like a common story that became oft dismissed because the guys from TAPS were able to provide some mechanical explanations to why this circumstance might occur. In this situation, know that frequent attempts by the inhabitants of our home were made to rectify the faucet issue. It persisted nonetheless.

My brother's first problem faucet was in the bathroom upstairs that is attached to his room. The bathroom has two sinks and two faucets, but only his turned on. After this instance, other faucets occasionally started turning on throughout the house, from the kitchen to other bathrooms.

What also started happening around this time is what some would refer to as poltergeist activity. As my brother tells it, things in his room would fly around and it would be really cold. His cell phone would turn on in front of him, even though it was turned off entirely. I was not there to verify these claims, so I have no problem recommending a grain of salt be taken with these stories.

However, there may be veracity to the claims. As my mom recounts things, she and my father would be sitting in the living room and would hear loud and inexplicable thumps, like stomping, coming from upstairs in my brother's room. The sounds would be heard through the ceiling in the living room. Then they would realize that my brother wasn't home and wondered who or what was making all that noise.

Additionally, since the first occurence of the faucet turning on, my mom would keep me updated on the strange goings-on in the house when we would talk on the phone. I didn't keep track of all of these times, but it was quite a few. She told me that my dad, who was a handyman among other talents, had checked out the sinks to make sure the faucet knobs were tight and he even replaced one he found suspect. This did not stop the activity. They blamed one of our cats at one point for the kitchen faucet, but after finding snapped rubber-bands that had been securing the position of faucet knobs over and over again, deduced it was something more powerful than a nudge from the cat.

Fast forward to July 2005. My brother was no longer living with my parents. He found himself in legal trouble and was residing in designated lodgings. I had returned home for my grandma's 80th birthday and to spend some time in Wisconsin with my family. I was wiling away the late afternoon with my mom while she finished off some work she had. We were in her bedroom in a private corner of the large room that my mom used for her office. Talk had come up about all of the faucet shenanigans and other activity. I asked her if the faucets had been acting up while we were in New Orleans and she said that no activity had been reported by my dad. 

My mom pontificated what could be going on and I said, quite matter-of-factly as I recall, "It's Grandpa Fritz." I was very adamant about it and right after I made the statement the faucet of the bathroom tub turned on full blast, as if punctuating and confirming my statement. I could see straight into the bathroom from where I was sitting and watched the water turn on full blast. I was stunned.

I called to my husband who joined us within seconds and saw the water blasting. My mom was speechless and actually stopped what she was doing. Then she said, "How do you know that?"

I said, "Because you once told me you knew Grandpa Fritz was awake at night because you could hear the water running in the basement."

"I didn't tell you that," she responded.  Now, to be fair, my mother and I frequently lock horns on the subject of things-said-and-unsaid. However, despite my current belief in some level of psychic sensitivity I may possess, the fact was I had no other source where I can say I got that tidbit of information from at that time. 

It was, in fact, a true statement that my mother thought she hadn't shared with me. And Grandpa Fritz was on our minds, because of the experiences we had in New Orleans. So if he hadn't been active in my mom's house while she was gone, but was active now that she was back, maybe it meant that he was trying to get her attention for some reason.

Having this new knowledge opened up a discussion about the activity. Why would it happen to my brother and then transfer over to mom. I brought up what the guy at the ghost hunt said about activity ramping up due to something big coming. I thought that maybe Grandpa Fritz was trying to warn her about the trouble my brother was about to get into. 

Later that night, I was lying in bed and I felt like something was in the room with me. Against my better judgement, I asked if there was something in the room and, if so, if it could touch my arm. All of a sudden I felt a cold grasp on my arm and I knew, through and through, that it was Grandpa Fritz. It felt heavy, almost like something was holding my arm down and it tingled with goosebumps. 

After locking up with emotion and attempting to process what just happened, I got out of bed and went down to my parents room and immediately told my mom that Grandpa Fritz grabbed my arm. I think she was still a bit skeptical of the realizations of the day and didn't really engage with me over the situation. I, though, had to make my way back to my bedroom and go to bed with the knowledge that something unseen could be watching me while I sleep.

A few days later, after processing everything that had happened, I was home alone and decided to talk to him. I had long harbored childhood guilt about the New Years Eve before his passing when I yelled at him in anger. It was typical dumb tween stuff. I was blasting my music and dancing around and turned around to see he had dared to enter my room and ask me to turn down my music. The truth is he had startled me and my outburst was borne of fear and embarrassment. I carried that guilt with me for so long, though, because the incident occurred not long before he left us and I felt I had been so mean to him over nothing.  The memory had gnawed at me for years. 

So, that day in 2005, alone in my parent's house, I loudly called out to him and apologized for what I had done. As I did this, I felt a soothing relief wash other me and I knew that I had been forgiven for my actions. 

Faucet activity and other things stopped almost immediately after that day. But this isn't the last time I'll interact with Grandpa Fritz and it won't be the last time I experience activity at my childhood home.

Next Up on My Ghost Stories: Grandpa Fritz now. 

New Orleans Vacation (June 2005)

Towards of the end of June in 2005 my mother and I took a little trip down to New Orleans, Louisiana. This trip was really special for my mom, because when she was a young woman, she took a trip to New Orleans with her father who passed away in 1993. She wanted to experience certain things again and do some things that she never got to do the first time around. I wanted to go just because I love traveling and had never been to this legendary destination. 

My mom left the planning of the trip to me. This was really one of the first trips I planned on my own, still in my early 20s at the time. I wasn't sure what all to do at first and there was a veritable panoply of options for tourists from tour buses to guided walks and the like. As it turns out, though, and as I have learned over the years with other trips I have arranged, I have a certain knack for travel-planning and I just relied on instincts or gut feeling to choose our various destinations and activities. 

We went to the Destrehan Plantation where some scenes from Interview with the Vampire were filmed. We sampled the delights of the Cafe du Monde. We even fit in a cemetery tour at the Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1. Most of what we did kept us in the French Quarter. But the places above did not solidify the creepy memories of this much adored city of like three other locations did.

My first paranormal experience occurred at the hotel we were staying at: the Alexa Hotel - now permanently closed. This happened our first night in the hotel. I awoke in the middle of the night and saw, in the corner of the room, near the foot of my mom's bed, a full body apparition that looked surprisingly similar to my Grandpa Fritz (my mother's father who originally brought her to New Orleans). He was a very tall figure, wearing blue and white pin-striped pajamas-- the shirt open to reveal a white T-shirt. The entity had an ethereal quality to it, right down to a blue-tinted aura, yet it was solid enough to block out the lamp and chair behind it. I don't remember feeling scared, but I do remember falling back asleep quickly. There were no feelings of a threat and I didn't feel uncomfortable with having seen the spirit. I also don't know if my mind simply couldn't process the event and it retreating back to sleep was mere reflex. My Grandpa Fritz used to live with us before he passed on, so perhaps my mind even registered the incident as a mundane visit from grandpa. It's easy to dismiss the encounter as a trick of a sleep-addled mind. I know it was not, however, and future happenings would only harden my resolve as to the authenticity of moment. 

I didn't even remember the next morning to tell my mom about the incident. Maybe I was still processing. When it came up later, though, she wasn't happy that I had not immediately told her of the incident. More disappointed, than anything, that she had missed it.

I haven't forgotten this experience since and as I combed through pictures from that time, I found it interesting that the one and only picture I have of the hotel also is the one and only picture from this trip that features an orb of some sort. I, myself, am highly skeptical of "orbs" in paranormal contexts. Nevertheless, I find it an interesting coincidence. And this is what I consider my first official ghost experience, at least that I can recall. There may have been incidents in my youth, but if so, they have not remained with me. This event was perspective-altering, though. Moreso with the events that unfold for me in the summer of 2005. 

My second experience occurred while we were shopping. My mom wanted to go into a voodoo shop, so we found one to explore. Upon entering, passing through a beaded curtain at the store's threshold, I was hit with an inexplicable and gigantic wave of emotion and unease. I began to cry seemingly without reason. I told my mom I'd wait outside and when I left, I started to feel better. There was so much palpable energy in that shop that it just caught me off-guard. The shop owner said that sort of reaction did not happen often, but to those for whom it does, it means they are very sensitive people and can easily interact with the spiritual realm. That was cool to hear, though I took the comment with a grain of salt. That said, I'd been labeled as sensitive by psychics I had visited prior to this trip. This time came with a reaction I simply couldn't explain, though. I shook the event off and we continued on our day.

My final experience was at a house on the fringe of the city that was being renovated. I had wanted to do a ghost hunt and I looked through options before we arrived in the city and I settled on this location. We would get to use equipment provided by the tour company-- a new and exciting prospect for me. We were really looking forward to that night. 

There was a small group of us who showed up to poke around the property. I snapped off some pictures and followed the group, trying to feel something there. The man leading our group said activity had really picked up in the last week or so, almost as if something big was coming. What an ominous thing to say, but he talked about how sometimes paranormal activity can drastically increase before a tragedy. As we looked around, two people started to overreact to things that only they were seeing in the building. When we got to the second floor, this one girl and her boyfriend started freaking out. They'd been told that a woman had killed herself in the bathtub there and they claimed to be seeing her. According to them, there was blood everywhere, and all the other people on the tour were caught up in their experience. My mom and I took this moment to break away from the group and find our own little corner to seek out a paranormal experience. 

Together we went to the front foyer of the house and the person who was running the event gave us divining rods. I was getting goosebumps and feeling emotional again, so we started to ask questions. I'm not going to pretend to remember the questions I asked 17 years ago, but I can remember enough of the responses to say the entity we wound up communicating with was a man who was not from New Orleans. We asked the person who was running the event if there were spirits in this area who matched the information that we received and he said no. He said there was not usually any activity in the area we had been in.  We decided to leave it at that. Shortly after, we left the event and caught a cab back to our hotel.

My mother and I came to the conclusion that it was Grandpa Fritz who had followed us to the haunted house and that he was probably also the person who made me cry in the Voodoo shop. We were purely operating under intuition in that moment and using the information I had already shared about seeing Grandpa Fritz earlier. 

Overall, it was a trip that sparked a thirst for knowledge that would span the next 17 years, including more interactions with this spirit I believe to be my grandfather. It is always a place I remember, even more due to our cynical tour bus driver we had at one point. He was explaining the sites of New Orleans to us and drew our attentions to the levees. "One of these days a super storm is going to come through and break those levees and New Orleans will be leveled." Two months later, Katrina hit. The spirits had been right. Tragedy had been on the horizon.

I haven't been back to New Orleans since, but I would love to go back now with all the knowledge that I have accumulated about the paranormal. I'd like to go on some proper-- less touristy-- ghost hunts, because the prospect of what might happen if I was actually looking for something is exciting considering what I experienced in 2005 just by showing up.

Next up in My Ghost Stories: More Grandpa Fritz and activity at my mom's house.