A Comfort

I have a couple of experiences to share, but wanted to start with my first and most intense.

I was 10 years old, some (cough) twenty odd years ago and going through what I look back on now as a pretty tough time, though that didn't occur to me then. It was just life. My parents had recently divorced and I lived alone with my mam (northern colloquialism for Mum). She had to take on extra work after my dad left and I had recently been given my own key as I was due to start secondary school and she wouldn't be in when I came home. It was a hard time, with never enough money and so much change and turmoil.

I was obviously more anxious about the whole situation than I thought at the time, as my experience starts with a dream. Despite the time that has passed, I remember everything about that night with such clarity, like it was yesterday.

I remember I was dreaming that I'd lost my newly acquired door key at the deep end of the secondary school's swimming pool (I know, deep, right?) when I was awoken by someone sitting on my bed. I was laid on my side, facing the wall and I had a cabin bed, which is a raised bed a few feet from the floor, which was accessed by a small ladder.

I immediately tensed. My mam never sat on my bed when she tucked me in. She had to stand on her tiptoes to kiss me goodnight. She most certainly wasn't going to climb a ladder to sit with me and I just knew it wasn't her. There was no one else in the house, we lived alone.

I could feel the pressure in the small of my back as someone leaned against me and began to run their hands up and down my side on top of the covers, in a comforting way. The way you would when you smooth the covers when you tuck your child in and if you were soothing them off to sleep. It was in no way threatening. Despite that, I was frightened. I laid with my face to the wall and didn't dare move. I kept thinking "don't let them know you're awake" and tried to regulate my breathing.

After what felt like forever, but most likely was minutes, half an hour at most, I heard my mam get up and go to the bathroom. Still facing the wall and not moving, I shouted "Mam, have you been in my room?" She replied, "No, why?" and I asked her to come in. During this, I could still feel the pressure on my back and the weight on my bed, though the movement of hands had stopped. As soon as I asked her to come to me, the pressure eased and disappeared.

She came in and I told her what had happened. As I was explaining, and I was showing her where the pressure was, we realised that despite it being a warm time of year and the rest of the duvet being room temperature, that spot was icy, icy cold. My mam told me not to worry, that it was the living we should be scared of, not the dead. She had no idea who it could be, having not lost any close relatives recently, but we agreed it meant no harm, only comfort.

It never happened again, though I did always get a weird feeling in that room, and never felt wholly comfortable, and in the end I moved into the spare room.

My poor little mam was taken away from me a few years ago after a ridiculously short battle with a very aggressive cancer and I miss her every day still. I wonder why she doesn't visit me, despite us both believing and me sharing that experience with her, but there are many things I don't understand about that kind of thing. A couple of things have happened since her death, but nothing conclusive. I'd love to speak to her just one more time, though I'm not sure the mediums in my area are particularly reputable and I don't want to risk a bad experience on something so important.

I did toy with the idea that the "ghost" which visited me when I was 10 may have been me when I die in the future or even my mam after she died. Surely time has no relevance when you're dead, and I/she wanted to show me when I was younger, that it would be ok in the end. I don't know. I've never shared that with anyone, it sounds crazy when I say it.

Anyway, I'd absolutely love to hear your thoughts on it all. Thank you.