My Haunted History - Children Are Scary!

I find it hard to deny that there is something different about a child's ability to see extraordinary things. Whether it is imagination or not, it can certainly be creepy to an adult!

As a child I do remember witnessing several things that did not seem normal. My mother would often tell me that it was just my imagination, and refuse to let me talk about it. I think that is why over the years, these instances lessened.

I did however, spend a large part of my childhood alone in a hospital room. When I was suffering and alone, these "ghosts" in the hospital became my only friends. Even though I was instructed to believe it was just fantasy, to this day I wonder what the truth really was. At a time when I was alone and scared, they were my only friends, my only comfort. Did my mind make them up in order to give me something to hold on to, or was I actually having supernatural experiences?

Is it just me or does everybody have a crazy aunt? I remember as a child, my aunt lived in a former funeral home. I was very young and I only remember two things about the house. The first being that it was absolutely beautiful, especially in the winter when enormous icicles hung from the roof of the porch. The second thing I remember is that the inside of the house completely terrified me.

By the time I was in my early teens, she had moved to another house. This one was not a former funeral home however, it was across the street from a cemetery. It was a duplex and I remember the basement had a hole in the wall, just big enough for a small child to fit through, that connected it with the neighbors basement area. I didn't really like basements, but that isn't what scared me the most about the house. Upstairs there was a small room that my cousin used as a playroom. The only window int hat room looked into absolutely nothing. I have no idea if there was another room on the other side or what, it was completely black. There was nothing but darkness through the glass and that freaked me out!

Her daughter was around 5 years old at the time and during the summer my aunt would have me stay with her so I could babysit my cousin while she was at work. I made money from it and got to spend time with my cousin so that was fun, but I preferred to stay in the living room and watch tv. Occasionally however, my cousin would want to go for a walk in the cemetery.

It wasn't a scary place, it was actually quite beautiful. I never really felt uncomfortable there until one day while walking, my cousin wandered over to a grave and sat on top of the ground in front of the gravestone. She then began talking to the air in front of her. She had a full on conversation. Finally I convinced her to get up and leave. I asked her who she was talking to and she told me she was talking to her grandmother. I looked at the name on the grave and did not recognize it.

That night I asked my aunt if she had ever heard of the name on that gravestone. She seemed confused but explained to me that was the name of her and my mother's old babysitter who had been like a second mother to her when she was younger. I asked if my cousin had ever met her and she said no, they had lost touch a long time ago and my cousin had never even heard that name!

My aunt did not seem too concerned when I told her about the events of the afternoon. She only commented that she did not know her old babysitter was buried across the street.

She is definitely out there, and has always embraced unusual things. My own grandmother used to read tea leaves and tarot cards and even though my mother does not believe in that sort of thing, my aunt seems to have inherited a spiritual sense from her mother. When I was young, she often tried to get me interested in that sort of thing and although I was interested I was also very fearful.

Her daughter, my cousin was very much like my aunt. She always seemed to be very sensitive to supernatural things.

Another time when I was babysitting her at the cemetery house, I went to check on her at night when she should have been asleep in bed. My aunt was out late that night and the house was quiet and eerie. I walked into my cousins bedroom and saw her standing at her window looking out into the cemetery.

I stood next to her and looked out the window. I did not see anything at all, just the dark street and the graveyard beyond it. I asked my cousin what she was doing out of bed and she pointed out the window and down to the middle of the road. She then said "I am watching the pretty ballerina."

I looked again and saw nothing but suddenly got chills all over. I dragged her to her bed and laid there with her hiding under the blankets until her mother came home. Again, her mother did not even bat an eye when I told her what happened. That was the last time I babysat her in that house thankfully!

After everything that happened to me as a child and then my experiences while babysitting my cousin I grew up interested but also very much afraid of ghosts and ghost stories. AS I said, my aunt seemed try to help me develop the ability she thought I had as a child however, I usually let fear overcome me instead of embracing what she tried to teach me.

I often found myself with friends trying to have some "ghost hunting" adventures, but the main thing I noticed was that nothing ever really happened when you were looking for it.

I read a fantastic book once called Ghost by Katherine Ramsland. In this book the author investigates hauntings and supernatural sightings. One part of the book explained how she got herself a digital recorder that only recorded when it heard sounds. She explained that she left it on while she was asleep and when she woke up and listened to the recorder, it had captured a voice calling her name. I was very excited by that and got a similar recorder for myself.

One day I was very sick and did not go to work. I woke up early and called in sick. Before I went back to bed to get some much needed rest, I decided to test out the digital recorder and I turned it on. I figured I would only sleep for an hour or two, but being extremely unwell, I ended up sleeping for seven hours. To my surprise, when I checked my recorder, it had recorded nearly seven hours of sounds. I was so intrigued to see what I had caught that I listened to it right away. In the end, my recorder had caught seven hours of me sniffling and snoring in my sleep!

When my daughter was born,s he spent a very long time sick in the hospital. She nearly dies, more than once. For sixth months she was surrounded by death and devastation. She had to have more blood and plasma transfusions than I can even remember. I often wondered if her time in a state like that would make her more sensitive to things, as I believe it did to me.

She never really seemed odd or to notice strange things. There was just one time when she said something to me that really shook me.

She was about 3 or 4 years old and just learning to be potty trained. After spending some time in the bathroom, she came to me and asked who the little girl in the bathroom mirror was. I took her back to the bathroom and showed her the mirror so she could see her own reflection. I pointed and said, that is you honey, that is your reflection!

She then turned to me and said "No Mommy, I mean the other little girl."

Chills!

No, it wasn't Chucky! Honestly, I don't know if this thing was haunted or not. Perhaps it was just malfunctioning, but it terrified me.

When my daughter was little, she had one of those Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Smart Stages Puppy toys. And there is the link in case you want to buy one of these terrifying things for your children! Actually, the toy was cute and she loved it.

One day however, she was taking a nap and I was sitting on the couch doing some work on my laptop. The toy was sitting upright on the loveseat across from me. Suddenly the heart on it's chest lit up and the toy said "Peek-a-boo, I see you."

Now, I am not sure if that is something the toy is supposed to say or not because I had not heard it say that before. My issue was that nobody was near it. My dog and cat, were laying on the couch with me so they certainly didn't bump it. My daughter was across the room asleep in her play pen, so she did not activate it. The fact that the toy spoke when nothing was near it, and of all things that is what it said, was what made me flip out.

I grabbed the thing and threw it in the back of a closet and refused to go get it. I made her father get rid of it when he got home.

That wasn't the end though, at her next birthday, two seperate relatives bought her new ones! I returned both of them. And the next year for Halloween, my daughter entered a costume contest. I am so thankful she did not win because I came to find out that the prize for winning was two of those godawful things!

Thankfully, that was the last time anything weird involving my children or their toys ever happened!