Encounter With The Past

The year was 1983. It was winter in Ohio. We'd had a lot of snow by this point but the weather hadn't been too terrible for a northeast Ohio winter. It was late in the year. If memory serves, November. It was a very cold Friday or Saturday night. I had met a friend in a local restaurant named Bill. He and I had been friends for many years. His younger brother David was also a friend of mine.

One weekend evening I called Bill and asked him if I could come over and hang out there for a bit. I was about 17 at the time and it was nice to get out of the house occasionally and away from my parents. They tended to argue a lot. Bill and David lived with their parents also in an old farm house just outside of Newbury,OH. Not exactly sure how old the house was but I'd say over a hundred years old. Doors had skeleton keyholes, some of the windows were just solid glass block, couldn't see in or out. The stairway to the upstairs was extremely steep and narrow with one little light bulb hanging from the ceiling. The entire house was dimly lit almost all the time. When I got to the house it was about 10 or 11pm. Bill let me in and we headed upstairs. I asked him where everyone was because the entire living room was pitch black, as well as the kitchen. He told me his parents went out to dinner and a movie,...probably stopping off for a drink afterwards.

Both Bill, Dave and myself were practicing the guitar and we would learn from each other making it easier for all of us to play. A little side note so you are all aware of this before I continue, Bill and Dave's parents were both in their late 60's at this time and their parents had died many years before this. Bill used to comment on his grandmother's cooking a bit as I recall. Well, a few hours went by while we were playing the guitars. Maybe 10 cars passed the house in all this time. Roads were very icy and it was very cold. The house sat pretty much right by the road, maybe fifty feet from it.

It was about this time I asked Bill if I could use his bathroom. He said sure. I didn't know the house very well so I asked him where it was. Then he told me to go down the stairs, turn right and head to the back right corner of the living room.

So I headed down the dimly lit staircase. Got to the bottom of the stairs and as I got there I saw a dim, flickering glow coming from the living room. As I turned right and looked into the living room, I saw that the T.V. Was on with a little, elderly woman sitting in the recliner watching TV. She had a whitish, bluish nightgown on, slippers, and one of those plastic bed caps women used to wear to keep their hair from getting messy while they slept, not a hair net, more like a plastic thing. As soon as I spotted this the woman stood up with a walker and went into the bathroom in the corner of the living room, turned on the bathroom light and closed the door. At the time I wasn't sure If this was Bill and Dave's mother or grandmother, I just wasn't sure. All I knew is that I was going to have to wait to use the bathroom so I went back upstairs to Bill's room. (another little side note to be pointed out here,...Inside this old bathroom there were NO WINDOWS. Simply one 8X8 inch glass block cube that let a little natural light in during the day. It was solid and mounted in the wall surrounded by concrete.

When I got back to Bill and Dave upstairs the both looked at me puzzled... Bill looked at me and said,..."well, that was quick!" Then I told him I'd have to wait because someone was using the bathroom. At this time Bill looked at Dave, and Dave looked back at Bill and they both started laughing! Confused, I asked, "what the heck is so funny?"

That's when it happened. Bill looked me straight in the eye and said,"Mike,we're the only ones here!" I paused for a moment, and then got the coldest chill shooting down my spine I'd ever felt, I flashed back to the moment I'd arrived. I remembered Bill locking the huge deadbolt on the door behind me when I walked in. I remembered the kitchen and living room being dead quiet and dark. The hair on my arms just stood straight up, as it always does when I tell this story. I turned white as a ghost, choked up and told Bill that I thought his grandmother was in the bathroom. I watched her walk in, turn the light on and close the door I explained! Bill then grabbed me by my jacket and stood me up and said, (still chuckling under his breath) "let's go check it out!"

Amazed and confused still, I followed Bill downstairs. Dave stayed upstairs in the bedroom playing his guitar. When we got to the bottom of the stairs I saw that the light in the living room and the T.V. Were now off and the room was pitch black. Except for a small glow of light at the bottom of the closed bathroom door. I was nearly in shock when Bill looked at me chuckling and walking straight for the bathroom door, he simply opened it and said,"You're in good company Mike,...She doesn't show herself to just Anyone!" He then pushed the door open while I gasped!

I said," Bill,there's someone in there"! Bill looked at me and said,"come see for yourself",I walked up and to my shock, the bathroom was empty! Light still on, but no little old woman! She just wasn't there!

Bill explained to me that that was his mothers mother. His Grandmother. She had passed away back in the late 1940's! Why she wanted me to see her to this day is still a mystery to me. Apparently though she had only shown herself to two other people that Bill or Dave knew of. But Bill and Dave had never seen her, or even remembered her. Then Bill showed me the photo sitting next to the recliner. It was of his Grandmother, Elizabeth. And that day,. Was her birthday! Ghosts exist. I will never doubt this fact.