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?