I know I'm a sceptic, but not totally. I just try to find a rational explanation for as much as possible, and figure maybe someday there will be an explanation for the rest.
But I did tell you about my father and hearing his footsteps, several years after he died.
I've often thought about the concept that hauntings like this are echoes of someone still lingering in some fragmentary way in a place where they were happy perhaps, or spent a lot of time. In the same way that a place we live in changes us in some way, it also will take on some of our characteristics. We choose the colours, we arrange our belongings, we talk to the walls sometimes...
husband lived in a haunted room for a couple of years. The cat would never go in that room. When our friends first moved in to the old Sydney terrace house, the girls in the group sensed an old woman, a friendly person, as if grandma was there and watching them. One night one of the girls was getting a taxi home and the driver said to her, "Oh, I see you live in the haunted house."
The girl went to the library next opportunity and looked up old newspapers and records, finally finding the report of the little old lady axe-murdered there.
They never saw her, neither did husband or I, and we spent a lot of time there over a number of years. But that back room always felt welcoming and friendly.
My sister rented a house from her husband's family, so she knew of the ghost before she moved in. The haunted room was used for storage and always felt cold. I remember being very nervous of that room. I loved the rest of the house, but that one room really bothered me. it bothered my sister, too.
Now it could be argue that there were many reasons to be nervous of that room - the door creaked because the house was old and had shifted slightly. Maybe the floorboards were draughtier in there. Who knows? And maybe the rumour of the house being haunted had influenced the girls to 'perceive' her.
But one thing I do know - when husband & I were first engaged, I became very ill. I had to go into hospital for tests, which involved a general anaesthetic so they could catheterise my bladder and up towards the kidney, so they could inject dye in from that direction to examine what turned out to be a genetic defect. husband had said goodbye to me before the anaesthetic and then left to go into the city to collect some university work. He was a good hour's drive away and indoors for most of the time, he was not to return until evening.
They brought me around from the anaesthetic, so they could have me cooperate and keep still while they took the X-rays. There was a storm outside, I could hear the thunder. There was no window in the room but I could see the clock - it was 4 pm, I had been under anaesthetic for half an hour. I was still feeling groggy while they tilted me on the table here and there, finally turning the table vertical so I was standing up on the end of it. Then they injected the dye - and it was agony. Each time he pushed on the syringe it felt like someone was mashing a crowbar into my insides. I couldn't help moving, I was groaning in pain. Appalling. I would try to keep still but I was almost screaming. The radiologist said, "One last bit and then we take the series while it drains out again - last bit now."
Just then there was an almighty clap of thunder and the power went out. Everything went dark and someone turned on a torch. The radiographer returned from the phone and told us that the hospital power supply had been hit by lightning. The radiologist was swearing.
"What about the generator?" I asked.
"We're non-essential," he told me. He apologised profusely, but we had to wait until the power came back on - another half hour. It was now 4.30 and we had to do the entire series again, only this time I was solidly awake and in even more pain. He was shouting at me to keep still and I just couldn't - I was writing in agony each time he injected more dye. Then he finished and completed the series, apologising again, but I was too upset. Tears pouring down my face, I just wanted husband back with me and giving me a hug.
husband turned up later on, right on time at about 6 pm. "Are you OK?" he asked. "I had this terrible sense that something had gone wrong."
"You?" I asked. He's not the psychic type, I am more than he is. Then he asked me, "What was happening at 4.30?"
I told him.
It's not really happened since - not between him and me - but it WAS pretty amazing.
Marg