22: Blind Eyes
2007
Talking to Bryan about Albert made me a little uncomfortable, but once I got used to the idea of not having to make excuses for our ghosts, it was quite appealing. I still wasn’t comfortable bringing the subject up, but I’d decided if anything else were to happen, whether at the shop or even in our home, I’d let people draw their own conclusions.
In the past, if our guests witnessed paranormal activity, I had a list of “explanations” I’d fall back on. I usually blamed noises and the opening and closing of doors on the house settling. If a light turned off and on, that, of course, could be faulty wiring. The shadows were a little harder. Depending on the time of day, I sometimes blamed them on a moving branch outside the window. Even though I chose my words carefully, using phrases like “it could have been” or “maybe it was,” I felt dishonest.
I was happy with my decision to let people come to their own conclusions and it amazed me to see just how many things people were willing to ignore. Seeing this time and time again has caused me to believe many people experience paranormal activity without ever acknowledging it.
I witnessed this mindset a couple of times when I was remodeling my bedroom. This project was supposed to be a simple one. I was going to repaint my walls and ceiling—that’s all—period. Trying one of the new faux techniques on my walls, I accidently spilled half a gallon of paint on my carpet. This, of course, blew my budget. We had to purchase a new carpet. Trying to make it as cheap as possible, we made a deal with the carpet store. They said they would give us a discount if we emptied the room of all furniture and took out the old carpet.
With the furniture and carpet gone, we waited for the carpet installers. Day one, they never showed. Day two, they at least called to say it would be the next day before they could make it out. Even though the contents of my room were strung throughout the house, Keshia decided to invite a girlfriend over.
As the three of us sat in the living room and talked, we heard a crash and the sound of breaking glass come from my bedroom. We jumped up, weaved our way around the bedroom furniture and went into my room. A candle in a glass votive had fallen off a shelf and crashed onto the uncarpeted floor. We cleaned up the mess and went back into the living room. About thirty minutes later, we heard another crash. As before, the three of us went to my room. When we walked in, we saw the matching votive broken on the floor.
If this had happened only once, we probably wouldn’t have thought too much about it. But happening twice, for no apparent reason, caused Keshia and I to exchange knowing looks with one another. Her friend didn’t necessarily believe in ghosts, but she knew we did. Seeing the look that passed between Keshia and me, she shuddered. At first, she tried to come up with reasons as to why these candles would have fallen. Not believing the reasons herself, she chose to “just forget about it.”
The next day when the carpet installer came, Wes took him to our room. As they stood in the center of the bedroom, one of the kids’ bronzed baby shoes that was on a shelf came flying across the room and landed on the floor. Wes said the man jumped, but then just went right on with the conversation as if nothing had happened.
Letting people come to their own conclusions about the activity at our house not only took the pressure off me, but it also allowed me to see the many different viewpoints people had concerning ghosts. Most of our company consisted of friends of the children, who in actuality weren’t children anymore. By this time, Keshia was in college and Troy was a senior in high school.
Keshia had chosen a college close to home, which allowed her to live with us while attending school. This was the perfect arrangement except for the fact that her fiancé, Stephen, lived three and a half hours away. Wanting to get to know the young man who’d won our daughter’s heart, Wes and I had no problem with allowing him to spend some weekends with us. Thankfully, Keshia had already approached the subject of ghosts with him. Stephen believed in ghosts, but hadn’t had many experiences himself. That, of course, was about to change.
We had a large sectional sofa in our living room, which served as Stephen’s bed when he spent the night. He’d gotten in the habit of sleeping on one end of the couch. Where he lay, he could see down one of our hallways. Apparently one night after everyone had gone to bed, Stephen saw a light in the computer room turn on. As he lay looking down the hall, he watched it go off, back on, and back off.
The next morning he told Keshia what had happened. She assured him this type of activity wasn’t unusual for our house. The next night as he prepared his bed on the couch, Keshia noticed he put his pillow on the other end. When she asked him why he was switching, he told her he knew we had ghosts, but he didn’t have to watch them while he was trying to go to sleep. On another one of Stephen’s visits, Keshia and the ghosts decided to have a little fun at his expense.
Since they didn’t get to see each other often, they would stay up talking most of the night when Stephen did stay over. At some point after Wes and I had gone to bed, Keshia heard whispers coming from our room. At first, she thought we were still awake, but then she heard Wes snoring. Deciding to ignore it, she continued talking to Stephen.
It wasn’t long before Stephen noticed the whispering as well. When he commented that her parents were up later than normal. She pretended not to know what he was talking about: Keshia pointed out that Wes was snoring. Stephen then asked who was whispering, and my sweet daughter told him that he was either crazy or hearing things.
Soon the whispering moved into a different part of the house. When Keshia insisted she didn’t hear anything, Stephen got up to find the source. After allowing him to search for several minutes, she finally admitted that she’d heard the whispering all along, and that it was probably just the ghosts. Satisfied that he wasn’t going crazy, Stephen sat back down, and soon afterward, the ghosts got bored and left them alone.
Upon hearing the story the next morning, I knew Stephen would fit into our family just fine.