They say things come in threes, and that held true for me when I experienced a trio of weird events while living on Florida's Gulf Coast back in 1989.
A lot was going on then: my fiancé and I had both suffered broken marriages before marrying and moving into her old home. A difficult six-month long remodeling process that left us drained and stressed out soon followed. After completion, moving back into our "new", near half-century-old home was hard on us, but it had gone smoothly, and with a planned week off to recharge only a few days away, things were looking up.
I took the two days off prior to our Friday departure to clean up some urgent work, clear my schedule for the week, and cross off last minute to dos for the trip. My planning was sound, but nothing could have prepared me for what was in store.
A little about the house: it was located on a serene, shady, wooded acre at the end of a private road, a gem that was hard to come by in our densely populated county. Stately live oaks and citrus trees made it very special. An old "cracker" cabin that backed up to a stand of mature bamboo stood on the edge of the property. Whomever lived in it back then, surely had led a hard life. The owner/builder had lived in it before he sold it to a wonderful old couple. Many years later they agreed to sell it to my wife-to-be, and she was lucky to get it.
Wednesday Morning: My wife had left for work, and I was having coffee when I heard a familiar knocking. That would be my in-laws, as usual, I thought. They lived in a home adjacent to our property and announced any visit with three knocks on the window next to the side door into our kitchen. This time when I stood up to go let them in it hit me; they had left town a few days before to visit relatives out of state, so who was knocking? I rushed to the door, and was dumbfounded that no one was there.
Wednesday Evening: After my wife came home from work, we went to the mall to buy items for the trip. We then ate an early dinner out, so we could get a head start on packing when we got home. A host put us in a corner booth with only a handful of other patrons around, but nobody nearby. We happily sipped our drinks and chatted about the adventure ahead. Suddenly, I felt three taps on my shoulder, and I swung around to see whom it was. I was surprised to find no one there or even close by. When I turned back around my wife asked what was going on, so I told her about the tapping. She said that my body language fit exactly what my explanation suggested. The thing is, she was facing me and could clearly see that nobody was there.
Thursday Morning: After seeing my wife off to her job, work in my new home office went well, but I ran into a glitch. I desperately needed a certain file to finish up; it was a blue folder, and easy to spot, or so I thought. The file held all my notes and the only copy of a speech I had written for my boss, who had to have it that afternoon. I wrote it over the previous three weeks, and after one final review and edit, it would be finished, but if I didn't meet the boss's deadline, I would be finished. There wasn't enough time to recreate it without blowing our vacation, so I searched feverishly everywhere, but no luck. I prayed to find it, and as a last resort, I knelt to check a shelf under my desk where I found a paper I needed later, but no blue file. Disgusted, I reached up and slapped the single sheet down on the desktop above, and broke for lunch.
When I returned to my office later, I sat down at my desk and decided to call my wife. I was desperate and maybe she knew something about the missing file. I reached for the phone, and got the shock of my life when I did; THE BLUE FILE WAS SITTING IN THE MIDDLE OF MY DESK! An electric charge shot up my spine and my eyes locked wide open searching the room for an answer as to how the file got there. I had a bad case of butterflies, and truly, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. My hands instinctively grasped the top of my head as it shook back and forth in disbelief, and I mumbled "No way!". How did the file get there, and how could the paper I had slapped down on the desktop a bit earlier, be underneath? It was totally unnatural, and scary.
Could these events have simple explanations? I suppose. Even though I swear I heard the sound of knocking at the window, it could have been various random house noises, and my imagination taking over. Could the taps on my shoulder have been nothing more than muscle twitches even though it felt genuinely like a person was doing it? Maybe, but as for the blue file - no way can I explain that! No one knew what I was doing in my office that morning except me, and nobody else was in the house. I did not find, touch, or move any blue file and yet it appeared on my desk. Files do not move themselves, so how could that happen?
For the remainder of time we lived in that house, the area by the entrance to my office always felt colder than other rooms, even though there was no A/C vent nearby, or any other known cold air source.
Maybe the renovation project had disturbed a friendly spirit who wanted me to know they were still around by reaching out, and doing me a big favor to save my job. For that, I will be forever grateful. In any case, we have since moved to another city and maybe the spirit (s) moved on too. Nothing eerie, unusual, or unexplained has happened since then, but if it did, I would not be too surprised. I believe that spirits are around!
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