4: confirmation
1990
I didn’t have anyone I could talk to about the ghosts and the things I was experiencing, which left me feeling very frustrated. I longed to share these encounters with someone, but who? I’d learned the hard way this wasn’t something you could talk about with just anyone. From my experiences, people either thought I was crazy, or even worse, thought I was lying. Not liking the options, I kept quiet.
Since I never mentioned our ghost to anyone, I was stunned one morning when, during a routine phone call, my sister Wanda asked me if I believed in ghosts.
I remember stammering into the phone. “What … ? What did you say?”
She asked me again if I believed in ghosts. I had to pull up a chair as I tried to figure out where this question had come from. She went on to explain that she’d seen a show the night before about a couple who claimed their house was haunted.
I assumed she was referring to a fictional program. Trying to keep the disappointment from my voice, I asked her if she’d watched a horror movie or something.
She then explained the show was “supposedly” true.
She had my attention! My pulse raced. A real haunting. I tried to act calm as I asked her to tell me about the show.
“They claim,” she emphasized the word “claim” to the point I could envision her rolling her eyes, “that things move by themselves and they can hear people walking around and stuff.”
Refilling my coffee cup, I tried to keep my voice calm as I asked her if she believed in ghosts.
She said something to the effect that she wasn’t sure, but that the show made her wonder. As exciting as it was to hear her say that, it was her next statement that really got to me. When she started talking about these “balls of light” that the show referred to as “orbs,” I had to remind myself to breathe.
Balls of light! I had kept the fact that we had a ghost quiet for so long now, I couldn’t contain myself. “Wanda!” I blurted. “We have one of those! We have this green glowing ball; it’s about the size of—”
“What?” she shrieked.
Wanda, being the older sibling, was not only used to being the protector, but she was accustomed to giving out orders she expected to be followed. In her controlled, don’t-even-think-about-defying-me voice, she demanded that if I was serious she wanted me to “get out of that house … now!”
For someone who wasn’t sure if she believed in ghosts or not, she had quite a reaction. To be honest, she had me a little nervous by this point. I began to wonder what it was they had said on the show about these orbs. Were these orbs evil … or … what?
She told me that, according to this show, a ghost sometimes manifested itself in the form of orbs. She waited for my response. Not getting one, she asked if I had understood her. She clarified by telling me this orb could mean I had a ghost in my house.
Could have? I could tell the idea of me having a ghost wasn’t sitting too well with her, so I tried to calm her by explaining that the green ball had always been here. That didn’t help matters. I reminded her we’d lived here for over six years and nothing bad had ever happened. She didn’t care. Wearing her big-sister hat, she made it clear she wanted me to leave the house immediately.
Laughing, I told her she was overacting and I couldn’t just leave—this was our home. When she questioned me about my kids and told me I was putting them in danger, I regretted ever telling her about the green glowing ball. This conversation wasn’t going at all as I’d hoped and neither did the ones in the following days. She did at least believe me, but she didn’t in any way share my thoughts that there wasn’t anything to be afraid of. After realizing she was truly concerned for our safety, while also knowing there wasn’t anything I could say to change her mind, I tried to downplay it the best I could.
She wasn’t buying it. She still wanted me to leave.
Even though I desperately wanted someone to talk with about the things going on in our home, I didn’t think scaring my sister half to death was worth it. With a downtrodden spirit, I finally managed to choke out the words, “Just forget about it. It was probably my imagination.”
As disappointing as it was to be back to having no one to talk to about our ghost, I had at least learned about the new show pertaining to true hauntings. The show was to air weekly and I not only started watching it, but eventually talked Wes into watching it with me. He still didn’t believe in ghosts, but realizing I wasn’t the only one who did somehow made me seem a little less crazy.
One evening after watching the show, Wes brought up the topic of the green glowing ball we “used” to see at night. Since I was a stay-at-home mom, he hadn’t had the responsibilities of getting up with the children, so he apparently hadn’t seen the green ball since we’d moved our bed into a different room.
Continuing our conversation, Wes commented on how the “nuts” hosting this show would have had a field day if they could’ve seen that ball. He readily admitted how “that thing” had almost driven him crazy as he tried to figure out what it was. Laughing, he said, “I wonder what made that thing finally go away?”
When I told him it hadn’t gone anywhere, and that it was still around, he raised a skeptical brow and dropped the subject. With him using the term “nuts” to describe the hosts of the paranormal show, I knew he hadn’t changed his mind about ghosts, but I couldn’t help but notice his new interest in checking on the children before he went to bed at night.