Grandma Comes To Visit

In 1979 I was pregnant and living in a mobile home with my husband. We had lived there for about a year and my parents owned it before us. There had never been anything strange there until one summer day.

I was in the master bedroom, doing my make-up. The room had built in dressers that ran the length of the back of the trailer. The top was like a counter top. It was from one wall to the other, with windows above the counter space. In the middle it was cut out like a desk, this is where my make-up table was. There was a part of the top that was made to open and it was like an old school desk, I stored my make-up and hair things there. When I was done I would put everything away in the drawer, close the lid and leave my make-up mirror on top. This is the way I always left the room.

This one summer day after I did my make-up and hair, I went out to do my running around town, shopping and bill paying. When I came back, after putting away my stuff, I decided to take a nap. When I entered my bedroom, my make-up mirror was laying in the middle of the bedroom floor.

The mirror was a small 10 inch plastic one, with a flat bottom, so that it would stand. How had it gotten off the counter top, past my chair and roll across the floor? I put the mirror back on the desk, and laid down for my nap.

Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I felt a hand brush my hair away from my face. But it for some reason did not bother me, I just went to sleep. For the next few days, every time I would go to bed, just before dropping off to sleep, I would feel my hair being moved by unseen hands. After 3 or 4 days I called my mom and told her about what was happening. She got very quite and then said "That's your grandma". When you were a little girl and we would stay with her, she always would check on you before she went to bed. She was never one to kiss or hug, but when you were sleeping she would brush the hair away from your face." My grandma and I didn't get along very well and I didn't know she did that. My mom told me she thought it was my grandma letting me know she was still around me, and that she knew I was going to have a baby. I told my mom I thought it was kind of creepy, since we did not get along when she was alive and she had been dead for 6 or 7 years. My mom told me to get a small throw rug and sit in the dark closet and talk to her. "Talk to her you have to be kidding what would I say?" "Be nice but firm and just tell her how you feel", was all my mom would tell me.

So I sat in the closet and had a heart to heart with grandma. I told her that it was nice of her to check in on me and that I was pregnant. That I was well and happy and she need not worry about me. I didn't need her to stay with me, I wasn't scared and she could still watch out for me from the heavens. And I thanked her for taking the time to try to care for me, but it wasn't necessary. I also told her that I loved her. I didn't like her very much when she was alive but she was my grandma and felt it was something I needed to say, I don't remember ever hearing it from her or me ever saying it to her before that day. And then I told her goodbye. Afterwards I felt light hearted and tired. I laid down that night, and I never felt her hands wiping the hair from my face again.