Grandpa Zooms Back
My dad was a talented woodworker and carpenter. When he began to have strokes and lost the feeling in his legs, he started to use a three-wheeled motorized cart instead of a wheelchair. He was a crack up. He used the thing like a motorcycle, driving all around in it. It made a distinctive whirring sound as it ran and it had a cute little beep-beep type of horn. We live in a lovely home that my dad helped me design. He didn't do the labor, but I always say he built our house. We could hear him coming up the circular drive and beep his horn whenever he wanted to visit. My son Shaun and he were close, seeing each other nearly every day.
A few months after my dad passed, my son and I were at home, he in his bed room, me in the kitchen. We both met in the entrance hallway, having heard something quite familiar: dad's cart coming up the drive and his characteristic beep-beep! We just stared at the door trying to get up the courage to open the door. Finally I opened it... to nothing. Is grandpa still coming to chat at the house he built? We think so. I have heard him several times, and it is kind of comforting. - by Carolina
Unfinished Business
This occurred sometime in the summer of 1991, when mom was selling our house. My father had died in 1988. He often climbed onto our roof to check the shingles, clear the gutters, etc. My sisters and I had rooms on the second floor, while my mom slept on the first floor. One night during the summer of 1991, all of us were asleep when we were suddenly awakened. We all came out of our rooms and asked if we had heard something. We all described the same noise - the sounds of footsteps on the roof. I had distinctly heard them over my room, and my sisters heard them coming from that same general area. Even my mom on the first floor had heard them. My mom and sisters asked me to go outside to check it out. As reluctant as I was, I went to investigate... but I brought our dog (and my dad's old rifle) with me just in case.
I grabbed a flashlight and went outside, while my sisters and mom turned on as many outside lights as possible. I circled the entire house, flashing the roof and checking the surroundings. There were only two spots from which someone could ascend the roof without help. I found nothing and no one (somewhat to my relief I might add). Plus, the sounds came from the opposite side of those accessible points - we would have heard footsteps well before we did if someone was walking across the roof. "They" would have had to cross over both my sisters' rooms - but my sisters didn't hear anything until the sounds were over my room. Even more unnerving, though, is that the sounds stopped in the middle of the roof - as if whomever was up there just vanished. To this day, we all believe it was dad taking a stroll across the roof before we sold the house. - by Steve S.
Page Four > Voices That Comfort and Save
