Your
True Tales
June 2004 – Page
11
The
Man in the Picture
by Jen
There was a beautiful, but aged pencil drawing that hung on the wall in my family's house my entire life. It was a drawing of my grandfather, Johann. Johann died in 1953. My father told me that the drawing was done by a friend of his, several decades before. The drawing was based on a photograph. Johann died 17 years before I was born, so my only memory of him was in the pictures my father had kept. One photo, which was my favorite, showed Johann standing next to my father. Johann was very tall and slender, and wearing a greek fisherman's cap. My father was very short and wearing his army "charlies."
Okay, on to the inexplicable story:
My father had suffered heart attacks before I was born. On January 7, 1995, my father suffered a serious heart attack. It was a night of terror for my mother and me, as my mom tried to resuscitate him and I tried to call 911. My father had suffered brain damage because he had quit breathing. At the end of the night, he was barely alive, and in a coma. I was 16.
My father stayed in a coma for several days. Then one day, he miraculously came out of it. We all got to say our goodbyes. (It was unlikely he would survive, which is what made his awakening a surprise.) I kept going to school, because there was nothing else for me to do. I happened to go to a math team meet that Wednesday night. As the bus pulled back into the school parking lot, the strangest thing happened.
There was a man standing right next to the bus window, looking in. His face was practically against the window. I started. It was Johann, my dead grandfather! I poked the guy next to me and said, do you see the man in the fisherman's cap? He said yes. Two others confirmed that a man in a fisherman's cap and old-fashioned bluish gray trench coat was standing there, staring in the window (but not looking at anyone in particular). I was overtaken with a sense of urgency. I had to get to the hospital. Something had happened to my father. I got a friend to give me a ride, and I rushed into the hospital. My father had at that precise moment lapsed into seizures, and within moments he was brain dead. (Side note: Johann vanished as I got off the bus and ran around to the side to talk to him.)
Things only got creepier after that. Two good friends contacted me that week, describing strange events.
One was Jessica. She told me that she had been asleep Wednesday night, when her dreams were haunted and disturbed by an old man. When she saw the old man, her thoughts were turned to me, and she felt a sense of grief and urgency. She proceeded to describe the man, and it turned out to be Johann! I later brought her the drawing that hung on the wall at my house. She was noticeably shaken. That was the man she had seen. I would have been suspicious, except she had never seen any pictures of my grandfather, and she had never been in the area of the house where the picture hung.
Hang on, it gets weirder.
Another friend, James, had been out with his girlfriend Wednesday night. They were driving along a country road when a man walked out in front of their car. It was an old man in a trench coat and hat. The man met eyes with James. James swerved and went off the road, trying to avoid hitting him. When James and Laura looked back to see if the man was okay, no one was there. James suddenly felt compelled to check on me. Of course, I wasn't home. Being a skillful and accurate artist, he drew a picture of the man he had seen. Then a few days after my father died, he brought me the drawing he had made of the mysterious man. I jumped yet again, and went and got the pencil drawing of Johann off the wall. The two pictures were the same, in almost every detail. James had never been to my house before. He had to get directions from a friend in order to find my house.
I don't understand why my dead grandfather appeared, but his appearance definitely served as a sign that my father was dying. The two people who saw the vision/apparition were the two closest friends I had at the time.
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