First post...I've been a b3ta lurker for awhile and just got round to registering. sooo... it's late for this post but i hope you enjoy these stories. all 100% true.
ones to do with me:
when i was about nine, my grandfather (or 'papa', as i called him) came to live with us. my grandparents were in ill health, and i think my grandmother was in the hospital at the time? i don't really remember... i do remember that she died while he was living with us, and i was awakened one morning to my papa and my mum crying because the hospital had just called to tell us that she had died. my papa continued to stay with us, however. we were very very close, my favorite memories are of him reading rudyard kipling's 'just so stories' to me. anyway, my papa was a very smart man, and had been a teacher (among other things), and so he helped to tutor me with my math which was my least favorite subject. one night, i got horribly frustrated with my homework and basically, i am ashamed to say, behaved the right little prat and stomped off to bed without kissing him goodnight. i woke up in the morning (it was a saturday) and ran in to say good morning to him and to say i was sorry, and he was dead. i went into the kitchen and found my mum and da, and my mum was a wreck because she had gone in to take him his breakfast and he was gone. i felt horribly guilty, thinking he had died thinking i hated him. that night i had a dream, and i saw him in it. i dreamed we went to a beautiful park, and sat together, and he told me everything was fine and not to worry, he knew i loved him and he loved me too. i awoke in the morning, feeling much better and much relieved. now, you could say that this is the way of a nine year old's psyche healing itself and assuaging its own pain, but the conversation i had with my mother aftwerward tells me differently. i remember riding with her to the funeral parlor sort of place to pick out a coffin and make plans for the service. she was trying to make me feel better about death (i had lost all three of my grandparents in the space of eight months. my other grandmother had died before i was born.) and i said something like 'mummy, papa and i went to the park and he says it's nice and he loves me.' she said she'd had the same dream, and described the park as i had seen it in my dream. it was apparently a park she'd gone to with him as a child, one that i had never seen. make of it what you will. my parents house - where my papa died - still gives me the heebie-jeebies at times. i know he's still hanging out there - i've been downstairs on the computer a few times and heard his shuffling footsteps going from the room he stayed in across the hall to the bathroom - and i was the only one in the house at the time. another time, a friend came to visit for the evening. i'd told her nothing about the house. as soon as she came in we exchanged greeting and she paused. she looked at me strangely and pointed into the hallway where my papa's room was and said 'what happened there? was he related to you?' needless to say i got chills and we retired to my back deck to smoke cigs, and i asked her what she meant. she said she just had the feeling of an older man, and that he was just sort of watching over us. i'm inclined to believe her, because she saw my friend geoff's da after he died of cancer. although mildly creepy, it's comforting that my dear old papa is still hanging about. i've got a couple more, if anyone's interested...
(,
Sat 1 Nov 2003, 7:25,
archived)
ones to do with me:
when i was about nine, my grandfather (or 'papa', as i called him) came to live with us. my grandparents were in ill health, and i think my grandmother was in the hospital at the time? i don't really remember... i do remember that she died while he was living with us, and i was awakened one morning to my papa and my mum crying because the hospital had just called to tell us that she had died. my papa continued to stay with us, however. we were very very close, my favorite memories are of him reading rudyard kipling's 'just so stories' to me. anyway, my papa was a very smart man, and had been a teacher (among other things), and so he helped to tutor me with my math which was my least favorite subject. one night, i got horribly frustrated with my homework and basically, i am ashamed to say, behaved the right little prat and stomped off to bed without kissing him goodnight. i woke up in the morning (it was a saturday) and ran in to say good morning to him and to say i was sorry, and he was dead. i went into the kitchen and found my mum and da, and my mum was a wreck because she had gone in to take him his breakfast and he was gone. i felt horribly guilty, thinking he had died thinking i hated him. that night i had a dream, and i saw him in it. i dreamed we went to a beautiful park, and sat together, and he told me everything was fine and not to worry, he knew i loved him and he loved me too. i awoke in the morning, feeling much better and much relieved. now, you could say that this is the way of a nine year old's psyche healing itself and assuaging its own pain, but the conversation i had with my mother aftwerward tells me differently. i remember riding with her to the funeral parlor sort of place to pick out a coffin and make plans for the service. she was trying to make me feel better about death (i had lost all three of my grandparents in the space of eight months. my other grandmother had died before i was born.) and i said something like 'mummy, papa and i went to the park and he says it's nice and he loves me.' she said she'd had the same dream, and described the park as i had seen it in my dream. it was apparently a park she'd gone to with him as a child, one that i had never seen. make of it what you will. my parents house - where my papa died - still gives me the heebie-jeebies at times. i know he's still hanging out there - i've been downstairs on the computer a few times and heard his shuffling footsteps going from the room he stayed in across the hall to the bathroom - and i was the only one in the house at the time. another time, a friend came to visit for the evening. i'd told her nothing about the house. as soon as she came in we exchanged greeting and she paused. she looked at me strangely and pointed into the hallway where my papa's room was and said 'what happened there? was he related to you?' needless to say i got chills and we retired to my back deck to smoke cigs, and i asked her what she meant. she said she just had the feeling of an older man, and that he was just sort of watching over us. i'm inclined to believe her, because she saw my friend geoff's da after he died of cancer. although mildly creepy, it's comforting that my dear old papa is still hanging about. i've got a couple more, if anyone's interested...