Greetings From The Other Side

The story I'm about to tell you happened to me when I was very young, about the age of 4.

I know, I know you will tell me "But how can you remember something from that age?"

Well, considering the stories you read here this should be the least of your concerns, but the truth is, it's just one of those things that you never forget it just stick's with you... So here we go!

At that age I was living with my Paternal grandparents in a small rural village in northern Greece. As we did almost every day with my Grandmother she took me with her to the market to do some shopping and we were making our way home when I saw something that seemed strange. One of the houses on our way home had been abandon and had fallen into disrepair many years before I was even born, all of a sudden it was fixed and a group of women of different ages wearing old fashioned Black clothing were sitting at the front porch. Drinking coffee, quilting, one of them was embroidering a handkerchief. Before I continue I have to explain a few things.

1: I have the same name as my Grandmother which is ancient and very rare,

2: I was taught by my Grandmother that "good morning" "good evening" and "good night" are God's blessings and no human has the right to withhold them, not even from their enemy!

Back to the story. As we were walking in front of them they started calling our name but my Grandmother was not responding to them. One of the women called out to my Grandmother: "Why are you not talking to us?" My Grandmother continued walking, no response.

Which was weird (See number 2 above) so I turned to her and asked her why she wasn't responding the greetings of the women dressed in black.

My grandmother looked at me and then looked around and she asked me to show her who was calling her. I pointed at the old abandoned house and told her that the women in black are calling her name. She looked around and told me no one was there but at the same time her face turned pale. She knew that I was not making it up. She grabbed my hand and ran with me as fast as she could to our house. When my father came home after a little while my grandmother begged him to bring me to a priest and told him what had happened. My father dismissed the whole thing and told her to leave me alone and never to mention it again.

Three years later we had moved with my parents to a different house I was about 6 or 7 at the time. One day the phone rang, before my father could reach it I looked at him and told him that his father was dead. My Dad told me to bite my tongue and picked up the phone. On the other line was my Grandma, she told my father to come home so that he could close his father's eyes. My Grandpa had just died.

The look on my father's face still haunts me to this day.

Forward 12 years later. I hadn't been to Greece for many years, I returned to the Village a month after my Grandmother had passed away (Which is another great Ghost story but I will tell you about it some other time) and we were going through some of her stuff when I noticed an old photo album with very old black and white pictures. I called my Father from the other room and asked him if he knew who those people were in the pictures. He said it was the Mother, sisters, cousins and grandmother of my late Grandmother. I started yelling "it's them, it's them! It's the women I saw at that house. Remember dad, grandma was upset and wanted to bring me to the priest..." It took my Father a second to realise what I was talking about and then his face changed, the only thing he kept saying in disbelief was that it is impossible for me to remember that incident, I was too young...

I don't expect anyone to believe me because I have witnessed first hand how fear and denial works and I have been called many names by my own family because of things like this. But it is true. Everything That will be written by me here will be nothing more than the truth!

Enjoy...