When I approached my fabulous friend and critique partner about posting a ghost story one sizzling Saturday, I expected the elegant prose and engaging style that is typical Sharon Clare. A lover of romance (is there a pun in that descriptor?), I suspected Sharon would carve from her memoirs a bittersweet tale of lost lovers, separated by circumstance in life, and longing to reunite in eternity.
I did not expect my heart, or my bladder, to overflow with fear!
Carve another notch on Sharon’s writing belt. This one’s a scorcher!
~*~
Last week, Carole St. Laurent told a two-part ghost story, part one can be found on Carole’s blog, and part two was featured on Romance & Beyond. Her story unearthed a memory of mine, an occurrence from twenty years ago, one I’ll never forget.
I don’t think it’s easy to share real ghost stories. We live in a world of skeptics. If we can’t devise a scientific study for a group of n = a decent number of subjects with controlled variables than we can’t prove anything. I love science. I have a science degree, but I still believe in immeasurable things, things many of us aren’t built to perceive or understand.
But that’s neither here nor there. I have a ghost story to tell.
Actually I don’t even know if it’s a ghost story. I have no idea what visited me the nights my babies came home from the hospital. I accept something happened, but I don’t understand what.
I just want to say, I swear I know the difference between asleep vs. awake, and will swear I was not dreaming. Nor was I sleep deprived since my babies were only a few days old. I was in mother-mode. If you’ve had babies you understand. You don’t wake in the night to a hungry, crying baby, you wake before that, when the baby starts to fuss just a little.
It was my first night home with my second beautiful daughter. She was asleep in her bassinette beside my bed when I woke. She wasn’t fussing, but something woke me. I was instantly alarmed. My body buzzed from head to toe, actually buzzed is an understatement. I don’t know how to describe it. Like an internal earthquake. My teeth felt like they might break.
I couldn’t move.
I felt a hand on the top of my head. I knew it was a hand because I felt the press of five fingers. I was beyond panic. I had nothing to draw on to understand what was happening. It took all my strength to turn my head toward my baby.
(Oh man, 24 years later and I have goose bumps. Okay, carrying on.)
I saw a tall figure in the doorway of my bedroom. It was immersed in light, leaving the room.
The earthquake inside me stopped. The figure vanished. I checked my sleeping daughter. I woke up my husband. You can just imagine that conversation.
I had no way to file this experience in my brain other than in the unexplained, really freaky section, the vault that stays closed for the most part. Until Sherry asks for a ghost story and Carole prompts me with a shaking bed.
I didn’t think of it as related to the birth of my daughter until I brought my son home from the hospital and was visited again. The experience was the same. Same earthquake, same panic, same paralyzed feeling. I don’t remember fingers on my head, but the room was full of light.
Maybe science has a logical explanation for it. I don’t know what it was. I know there’s a mechanism that paralyzes us when we’re dreaming to keep us from trying to fly off rooftops and other such maladies. But I was wide awake—twice.
All I can say about it now, is that maybe it will find its way into a greater story one day.
~*~
For more Sharon Clare, visit her webpage, subscribe to her posts on Romance & Beyond, and follow her on Twitter.
Raving reviews for Sharon’s paranormal romantic fantasy, Love of Her Lives, can be found here. For my unbiased opinion, click here.
To treat yourself to a copy, click here.
Visited twice. Both times on the night you brought home your newborn?
You’ve done it, Sharon.
I’m speechless.
[Stop high-fiving Sharon, Sherry.]
It’s true tales like yours that convince me it’s not wise to close our minds to any possibility. And yes, I’m sure you’ll find a way to weave that experience into one of your books. I hope you do, but I won’t be reading that tale before bedtime.
Just in case…
It’s not something I’ve thought about in a long time, but you’re right, Gloria, I can’t have a closed mind about these things, even though I have no idea what it was. It just doesn’t seem like a trick of the mind
Gloria Richard. Speechless.
I stopped reading after that. Pretty sure the world stopped spinning, too.
KA-snort!
Spooky indeed! This would make an excellent story. Maybe even an excellent movie
Hi Maggie, thanks for stopping by. I will have to let this experience simmer for a while and see what comes. I could see it as a cool opening scene.
Hey Maggie! Welcome to my humble blog!
Sharon, any scene with an adaption of your tale would be spectacular.
Gloria said it–I’m speechless, Sharon! As I read it to my two-feet-on-the-ground husband this morning, both of us were incredulous. And I think that the wise among us know not to pooh-pooh such things. There are so many possibilities on this earth (and off!) that we just have to realize maybe we don’t know everything.
Doesn’t it make for great writing and reading, though?
It does, Elaine. I’m braver now. I wouldn’t have put a story like that in print twenty years ago, but that’s the nice thing about getting older and feeling like it’s okay to share despite the pooh-poohers out there.
Yes, does spark the imagination in all sorts of story directions.
Elaine, you are so right, we don’t know everything. Possibilities, like imaginations, are endless.
Eeek! I try to reason out too much sometimes and I’d be forever puzzling over the connection of childbirth and this occurrence.
I went through years of trying to reason this out. Honestly, it sent me on a spiritual quest that’s a whole other novel. It was scary and I didn’t want to be receptive to anything errrr dark. I didn’t want it to happen again and it never did.
Brinda, I’d be making some therapist rich if this had happened to me!
Sharon, I was delighted with the story of your grandfather … perhaps because I thought it was he shaking the bed to vanquish what was giving you nightmares … the sense of calm, his way of telling you he took care of what gave you the nightmares.
Perhaps there is no logical explanation, no way to know what the connection was between the birth of your children and a visitation. It doesn’t matter. But like so many others, I believe we are visited at certain times. Maybe it’s someone you knew, or a spirit that traveled from the afterlife to deliver your children safely into your loving arms.
I believe in the spirits of the afterworld and that they often visit, and in thousands of places they remain. Thanks so much for sharing. I hope you find a way to weave these into a story one day
I should mention that the grandfather story was Carole’s, not mine.
Thank you for giving this a positive perspective. When this happened, it only scared me. I wasn’t in a place where I could see it as something safe and perhaps beautiful. I did reach that place eventually after much meditation, and then my experiences were very loving.
I learned that some of us are receptive to energies around us and we can raise our consciousness so we attract higher levels that aren’t scary, but incredibly beautiful. (Is that too much information? lol)
Will definitely have to weave all this into a story one day.
Sharon, that was freaky! I know of someone who woke up to an old woman standing at the end of her bed and she swears she wasn’t dreaming either. The woman said nothing and then walked away. And her little boy would often say when playing downstairs, “Who’s that lady?” I’ve never seen anything like this, thankfully. It would terrify me. Interesting blog!
I’m with you, Carol, that would definitely freak me out, although I have seen a few unusual things over the years. My daughter, who was 2 at the time, may have been receptive to the same incident. That’s another story now that I think about it. She said it was daytime in her room (at night) and a man asked her if she’d like to go with him, but she said no, she was going to go see her mommy. She was in our bed in the morning, and that was the story she told. Gave me shivers.
In the spring I blogged about another incident that nearly made me pee my pants.
Carol, thanks for the visit, and thank you to all commenters showing my guest, Sharon, so much blog love.
Do you ever wonder, what (or who) do babies stare at? They seem so absorbed sometimes. Cats and dogs do the same thing, and you just know they are looking at SOMETHING, when all we think there is, is NOTHING.
Okay, that was creepy. Like, it’s one thing to have a relative come back to see a new baby, but the scare factor is huge since you didn’t recognize who it was or know what they wanted. There are definitely things in this life we can’t explain. Thanks for posting!
Seems like a strange blessing, doesn’t it, Liv?
Yes, Liv, it was just creepy to me. I wonder if I’d had a different attitude at the time, if it would have felt different. Who knows, and I’m not inviting it back to find out.
Sharon,
Very creepy. Although Love of Her Lives is not creepy. Love of Her Lives is a stop-right-now-and-read-this story. I loved it!
-R.T. Wolfe
http://www.rtwolfe.com
Black Creek Burning (Crimson Romance, September 2012)
Thank you R.T.! No, I’ve not written anything too scary, mainly because, well, it’s scary! Maybe one day when I’m feeling brave.
‘Stop-right now-and-read-this-story.’ Could not have put it better. Thanks for the visit, RT.
That gave me the shivers. And now I’m going to be thinking about your story all day, Sharon. And probably all night, too. Eek! I wonder if you were somehow more receptive to seeing/encountering that sort of thing because your body and had just gone through childbirth. Just a thought.
I’ve only experienced something like that twice (other than the unplugged antique radio/record player in the living room playing music along with sounds of a party going on in the middle of the night). Once I had felt the sensation of someone sitting down on the end of my bed. I sat up and looked around. No one was there. (And no, it wasn’t my cat because the bedroom door was closed and he was on the other side of it.) The second time, I woke up because I felt like someone was watching me. Of course, no one was there, but I was absolutely certain of it. It didn’t freak me out, though. There was something about whoever it was that made me think he or she was more protective than there to scare me.
I wondered that too, Tami. I think child birth is very much a spiritual experience. The birth of a soul.
It’s great that you felt protected by whatever presence you sensed. I have also had those experiences where whatever energy I felt, was very loving and leaves me feeling blessed and fortunate for the experience.
Only one thing to do when the party starts, Tami. Request Pink!
Glad you shared an experience that was filled with a positive, protective angle. Love is more awesome than fear.
I saw my grandmother after she died – before I knew she was dead. I was six and didn’t think it was frightening or peculiar. When my mother woke me in the morning with the news, I told her I knew.
I often felt the presence of something there that I couldn’t see but there are only two other times that I was sure it wasn’t my imagination.
Once was when my now ex started living with me. I was sure that I was being visited by his mother — being checked out. She died of bone cancer before I met her son.
The other time was unmistakable. I was at the funeral of a friend and had an internal conversation with him about the arrangements he had made. Several people felt his presence, but he was talking in my head. Since I’ve had no other cases that might suggest I was schizophrenic, I’m going with ghost.
Good thinking, Alison, and you must have given this friend comfort and/or felt comforted.
I’ve had that experience too, feeling groups of people around me. When I went for a past life regression session, the therapist told me how to see these people (in my head, during the session) It worked amazingly well. Another story!
That’s a story I’d be interested in reading, Sharon.
Those are the coolest stories, IMHO, Alison. The ones where the visit beyond the veil seems commonplace.
Loved your story, Sharon. Was it a blessing, a healing, a reminder that we have people who love us around us from all dimensions–who knows, but I am not afraid of these kinds of stories–they are signs of love to me. And this was beautiful.
The only reason you might have been afraid at the time, was you never experienced any thing like it before. If it was a dark spirit you would have been visited again and again to make you afraid. This was associated with your giving birth and appears to have been a blessing of some sort. The earthquake feeling is sometimes an indication of changes in your consciousness to come, and sounds like they came (if your new perspective on all these things is any indication).
I definitely think this will go in a story one day.
I love your take on this Cora. Yes, I am now in a different place where I may be startled by these things, but not afraid. I feel blessed to experience them. This experience was the impetus for me to open my mind to the possibility that there is so much more to our existence. I spent years meditating regularly and had so many incredibly, loved-filled experience. I can only kick myself for not getting back to it.
Well, you’ve left me speechless. This is the stuff of fiction, and that’s what makes it even scarier – that this actually happened. I’m not sure I’ll sleep tonight, knowing this. But I’m fascinated nonetheless. It took a lot of guts to share that story – for telling it and for scaring the crap out of me! There are times I’m convinced we’re not the only ones here, and to me this is proof.
Terri, you’re right. It’s fascinating. That’s how I like to see it. It scared me at the time, but I don’t think that was the intent, if that makes any sense.
And you’re right, it’s not easy telling these stories because I truly hate having to defend what happened to me to non-believers. Oh and then there’s the tease.
I love being a writer though because the imagination can go in so many directions with this. When I wrote Love of Her Lives, with past lives, I fictionalized the time between lives, the way the ‘Upper World’ may interact with us here, but there was so much more I could have said about it that never made the book.
I can’t wait to meet you in person one day and share stories! I am savouring your book on a past life experience, In This Life. I don’t want it to end.
Terri, thanks for visiting Sharon while she visits on my blog. In This Life sounds enticing. My TBR pile toppleth over.
Eerie. At first i thought it was maybe sleep paralysis, which I’ve experienced and it is very similar, but I didn’t see an image. You did. I’m just glad you haven’t seen it anymore since!
I know, Jess, I wondered about sleep paralysis too. It’s just odd that it happened with the birth of my babies and has never happened again in 26 years.
Oh Sharon, that must have been so scary. And with a newborn, your protective instinct must have been raised up full on.
What did it for me is the feel of a hand on your head. Yikes! Heart attack coming on.
Thanks for sharing.
Carole, your story gave me shivers. It did put a whole new fear factor into the scene having my little tiny baby nearby. All was well, but I know there aren’t going to be solid answers to what the heck was it?
The hand on your forehead spoke volumes to me. Your “ghost” was trying to let you know it had come in peace. Although it had the opposite effect on you at the time, I think your effort to see the visitations in a different light shows great wisdom. Perhaps it was an ancestral spirit, a guardian of your family. If you descend from ancient Scandinavian lineages, they used to “conjure” guardian spirits to watch over their future family members. According to my Norwegian great-grandmother, my family has one.
Deborah, I think you’re on to something. The hand on the forehead is often used as a benediction.
That is so interesting, Deborah. Methinks I foresee a Norwegian guest post in our future. No conjured hand on your head, I’ll make contact via email or twitter!
Wow, this is so interesting, Deb. I do believe in guardian spirits. The hero in Love of Her Live starts off as a guardian spirit, i.e. spirit guide, who takes his job a little too seriously.
I don’t know if it matters so much, but the hand was on the top of my head, not my forehead. I can easily feel each finger if I think about it, but there really was nothing menacing in the touch.
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This may not explain your love of romance, but it certainly does your involvement in paranormal. Shivers for sure Sharon.
Here, here, Jessica. I don’t know how anyone can not be moved by a story like this, even if they’ve had no personal experience themselves.
Yes, Jessica, I have no problem suspending reality enough to write paranormal. I’m very comfortable in building worlds where humans and elves for instance, that remain unseen for the most part, live together.
You know they say that babies come from a soul bank in heaven, I wonder if that wasn’t a guardian angel checking in and asking you to take care of them. You may just be susceptible to seeing them! What a cool experience.
I agree, Hildie. Emotive, awesome, and very cool.
Hildie, I agree. I wrote about a past life regression session that I’ll have to re-post one day, but I also did a life between lives regression. It was very beautiful and I have no trouble believing in guardian angels coming to check on new-born babies.
I can only tell what I’ve experienced and guess on the meaning. And fictionalize the rest in stories!
Sharon, thank you so much for sharing your chilling tale. Clearly, your experience has touched a nerve.
And, I always have fun hanging out with you!
Sherry, thank you for asking! It makes me a little nervous sharing experiences like this, but I’m so glad I did. I got some wonderful perspectives and a renewed sense to feel blessed by the things I don’t understand. There’s no need to fear.
Absolutely, there are supernatural beings in this world. Either they are from heaven, in which case the person experiencing the visitation feels euphoric with the presence of God. If they are fallen angels, or demons, you feel terror and unrest. It’s really very simple, and I have experienced both.
Interesting, Jodi. I wonder if we may attract one or the other depending on our state of mind. When I became more spiritual, my experiences became much more loving. Although, now that I think about it, I remember this one time . . . pure evil.
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