Your True
Tales
March 2003 –
Page 13
Protective
Spirit
by Randy W.
When I was seven years old, my parents moved into a house that was to be my home until the age of 17. The house was located on a short dead-end street that ended at a set of railroad tracks. Rumor had it that the previous owner had committed suicide there, but I never did find out if this was true.
Almost every member of my family had frightening things happen to them over the course of the 10 years we spent in the house. On several occasions, my younger sister awoke in the middle of the night and started screaming. When my father went into her room to investigate, he claims to have seen a dark figure bent over my sister's bed; it would run to the middle of the room and disappear. My mother would actually talk to the spirit. She said it would constantly tap her shoulder or brush by her as she did her housework.
My experiences were limited to just two, but they were frightening enough that it made me a believer in the unexplained. The first event happened when I was babysitting my five brothers and sisters. I had gotten them all to bed and dozed off myself while watching a movie from the living room couch. I woke up suddenly and was quite disoriented by what was going on. The volume on the television was turned way up and I heard what sounded like someone hitting a metal drum with a baseball bat. The sound of the pounded metal, I realized, was coming from the basement of the house and must have been someone pounding on the furnace. I was so frightened that I closed my eyes and lay there frozen with fear. I do not know how long this went on, but at some point I slept.
The next thing I remember was my parents coming in through the back door. I told them what had happened and my father went into the basement to look for evidence of an intruder and for damage to the furnace. He came back upstairs and said that there was no sign of anything amiss and no damage to the furnace. I do not recall much of a discussion after that, but we all knew it was another one of the house's weird events.
The second and last time something happened to me was after my parents had split up. I had moved into a room in the basement. You would think that would be the last place I would have a room, but it was either that or share a room with my younger brother. I think I was 15 at the time. One night while I was sound asleep, my father came to the house after some heavy drinking. He and my mother were in the kitchen having a conversation when he attacked her for no reason whatsoever. I later learned that my mother and sisters had yelled my name over and over, but I did not hear them, nor did I hear the sounds of crashing tables and breaking glass. What I did hear was a whisper in my ear - twice. It was very soft and only one word: my name. I ignored it the first time, but not the second time. I swear to you, it was as real as a voice can be and only an inch or less from my ear.
I jumped out of the bed and instinctively knew that no one was in my room to whisper in my ear. Then I heard all hell breaking loose on the floor above me. I grabbed the first thing I could find for a weapon, which was a glass gallon cider jug, and headed up the stairs. I found my father on top of my mother hitting her over and over again. I told him to get off from her and he came at me. I hit him over the head with the glass jug and it shattered. He and I rolled around in the glass fighting until I asked him in a very calm matter of fact voice, "Are you my father?" At that point he said no. He got a very strange look on his face and walked out of the house in a daze. Remember, I said we were rolling around in broken glass shards. There was not so much as a scratch on my body and some of the pieces, by all rights, should have left me needing stitches.
Some people have told me I had an encounter with my guardian angel that night, but I think it was the spirit that was always tapping my mother on the shoulder. I swear every word of this is true. Even though it is now 20-some years ago, for me the things I have told you still make the hairs on my arms stand up.
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