I grew up in the bluffs of Marquette, Iowa, a very historical place as far as Native Americans and their burial grounds, Lewis & Clark, Ringling Bros. Circus, fur traders and more. I loved it there. We kids ran the hills (yes they were spooky), swam in the Mississippi and generally were all over between Marquette and McGregor - two towns which were split by a bluff. If I needed some "me" time I would walk down to the river to sit on a dock and contemplate...I've always loved the solace of that river. I moved from there after high school and started my life. (I was initially very depressed after moving away from there to go to college. I missed everything about that town, but it was a small river town and I felt, no place for a future.) In 2005 I moved from a big town I'd lived in for 20 years to a small town which is by a small river and lake where I feel content.
This is about my car antics. In 1999, I was a 30's, divorced mom and had bought a brand new 1998 Nissan through our discount purchase program at work. By that time I'd had many unexplained situations happen where I would know things before they happened or something about someone before they told me, but I brushed them off. I was too busy for that stuff. It was about that time I started to change my mind and pay attention to my gut instincts/listen to that voice in my head. Maybe it was just that my little boy was growing up and needing me less so I had more time to consider such thoughts.
Driving the Nissan home one night from work, my electric locks started going up and down by themselves, very fast. My first thought was, "Oh great, what is wrong with this car." Then it stopped and I forgot about it. A few days later, it happened again driving home from work. From there it would happen randomly. Sometimes just as I pulled into my parking lot at work. Sometimes at home in the garage. One day I thought I should try an experiment, "I wonder if it will happen with the keys out of the ignition?" Sure enough that night after I turned off the car and pulled the keys out, up and down they went in quick succession as if in answer to my question. I'm not sure that it matters but they'd also go up and down in no consistent manner. Sometimes 5-6 times in a row and then stop. Sometimes a few times, stop, then go again a few times. I was just beginning to think someone was playing with me and not of the living sort.
Regardless, after the locks did their thing without keys in the ignition, I called Service at the dealership where I bought the car. The technician looked up my car, and I proceeded to tell him about the locks, asking him various questions, "Is there something electrical which could cause car locks to go up and down by themselves while I'm driving?" He thought not. "Is it possible that they could do this when the keys are not in the ignition?" etc. I don't know what he was thinking, but he seemed as perplexed as I was and I felt like he might be thinking what I was thinking. He ended up saying I could bring it in if I wanted, but he had no idea what it could be. I didn't bother. Soon after that when it happened again, I said into the air in the car, "Look, this is cute but I think you better stop before I waste my time in repair." To my utter surprise, it stopped, and never happened again. But there was a new game coming.
Eventually I was hauling my son's friends and their bikes around and going camping with my dog & crate along, and decided to trade the Nissan for a Subaru wagon. The Subaru would later do the same trick I'm going to describe about my Civic.
A friend sold me her old Civic for my older son. He was 15 so couldn't drive it yet but the plan was for when he was 16 and in the meantime, I drove it since it got excellent gas mileage. I left my Subaru sitting in the garage. This car didn't have electric car locks, seats or anything - it was a basic model. However it did have a nice radio she had put in after market. In this case, the car radio audio would go up and down by itself. The first time it happened, I wondered if I heard it right, "Did that just get louder?" (Neither car had the audio volume feature on the steering wheel.) But as like with the door locks, it would randomly happen over weeks and months. It was never too loud or too soft, but definitely several notches one way or the other. I could watch the little audio digital read-out go up and down. After the car lock incidents, I didn't mind if it was indeed a spirit. If it wasn't, I sure wasn't going to spend any time or money trying to fix it. This issue I did tell my son about (didn't want it to scare him if it happened while he was in the car with me - and also by this time he was showing some of his own abilities as well) because up until this time with these events, I was alone in the car.
One day I said to my son, "Hey, maybe the radio will go up and down for you so you'll see what I'm talking about." Within a few minutes, it did just that. And it did it a few more times for him as we went here or there together. And I now had a witness, I felt a little less crazy. During this time I rarely drove my Subaru but it did the same thing with the audio going up and down by itself, though not near as much. It maybe happened a dozen times. This also happened with my eldest in the car. We grew semi-used to it - we'd be talking away, the radio would get louder or softer, and we'd just smile and keep talking. The funny thing was, it never stayed loud or soft - it always went back to something very close to where it started. I kind of missed the fun when it stopped.
There was another single event that had me giggling the day it happened, and I wonder about to this day. My experience with a car is that if something is wrong, it tends to stay wrong until you spend far too much somewhere to fix it. It doesn't just fix itself. My son worked at a daycare about 13 miles away (worked for my brother's girlfriend which was a favor to us as at the time it was hard for him to find a job being he was not yet 16). Daycare hours are perfect for a working mom-I dropped off my son at 6 am and picked him up at 5:30 two or three days a week.
When I was driving down the road in the Civic to pick him up one evening, out of the blue, the windshield wipers turned on. First logical thought is of course, did I hit the switch? Nope it was still in the "off" position. Then, I tried everything to get them off, switching the indicator on and off - nothing. I arrived at daycare, parked the car and turned it off sure that once I came back, they wouldn't be running again. Just in case, I warned my son that, on a perfectly sunny day I had driven down the highway with my windshield wipers on/malfunctioning and was a little embarrassed. I said I was sure they'd be fine when we went back to the car. We jumped in to go, I turned on the ignition - and they started immediately swishing the dry windshield. We drove home laughing about how strange we must have looked (me still trying every switch to get them to stop). A part of me was a little glad I had a witness, too. I hoped very much we wouldn't pass a highway patrol and he'd think it was some kind of cry for help. We did. But the patrol man must not have noticed.
The next morning I wasn't thinking it was quite as funny as the night before and decided - OK they better NOT be running when I turn that car on. I wanted to drive it peacefully to work. Next morning they were off, they did not run on their own that day and they never did again. I realize in this case it could've been something electrical? But given my history with cars doing weird things, and the fact that it never did so again made me believe it could be my spirit friend again. Or a new friend. Who knew.
Somewhere in that time frame, I decided to take a "psychic" college class at our local college to better tune myself in. I had a great teacher and I asked her who was playing in my car. She said it was someone quite young; did I have a young family member or friend who had passed away? After considering this, I realized I did have a sweet little cousin who had passed at age 8 (I was 7). She felt confident that it was him. This was a child I hadn't thought about in many years. He was a wonderful kid, and I loved him very much. We were so close in age, we lived close to each other, and being cousins we were chums. I thought, well if it is him, how nice! He's letting me know he's still around.
This string of events was during a bit of a turning point in my life and I started to realize that "there's more to this life than meets the eye." It felt convincing since it strung out over several cars and several years. Had it just been one thing, I would've surely written it off. At the same time, *information popping into my head* geared up, I had dreams that came true, etc. Today I have a regular job and a regular life. I think there is enough drama in day to day, that I steer away from scary movies and ghost stories. I have my older boy who is now an EMT (just passed Nationals at 100%-I'm very proud) and a little guy who is almost 4. They are my entertainment.
Now that I think about it though, several times my little guy's toys will play by themselves. Every time I mention it to my boyfriend, he says it's just the batteries. Then it won't happen again with that particular toy, which will run fine thereafter. Go figure, it's been going on for years with different toys. My boyfriend dismisses everything like this-until he loses something-then he'll ask me to give it some thought and tell him where to look! I welcome your input as I know some of you have good intuition and if you know who it is or was with the car locks, or if the windshield wiper was indeed a spirit or just a glitch, please share your thoughts.
Sadly, I'm not good at knowing or feeling anything about myself or my family. My mom died suddenly, I've been laid off, all a big surprise. So your help is appreciated.
Geetha, thank you for saying your kind words to spur me on. Indeed, maybe I can learn something and I do love to learn.
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