The Grandfather Came Back The Very Next Day

My roommate loves ghost hunting. She's been to all the haunted places around the country, (including the hotel where they filmed The Shining!) trying to find some sort of afterlife. A regular with the Ghost Hunters, she was really disappointed to not be present for the live show where they had two taped sightings. Our DVDR is full of ghost stories or ghost hunting TV shows. She reads all of the books and has spoken to experts. This is why she's become incredibly interested in my grandfather.

You see, we think my grandfather is haunting us.

Not in the Halloween movie "I'm coming to get you!" sort of way, more so in the Casper the friendly ghost way. Maybe he has unfinished business...or maybe he's just so stubborn he doesn't want to be forgotten. Whichever the reason, he's still around.

A couple of weeks ago my Aunt went to visit my grandparent's old house, which she owns. With my grandmother now in a nursing home, no one has been at the house for quite some time, however the electricity is still on and we occasionally check it for mail or problems. She went inside to find some old books, photos and mementos. In my grandparent's closet, she found a box of photos right next to a box of coins. Just as she pushed them aside, the lights started flickering.

Now, before continuing, you must understand that my grandfather was very partial to his stamp and coin collections. For most of his "grandfather years" he collected them in order to give to us, his grandkids, one day. He figured they'd be worth money. They aren't, of course, but still, collecting them made him happy. And that made us happy.

My Aunt, rightly so, freaked out when the lights flickered over and over again. Not knowing what to do, she yelled up "Don't worry! I'm not throwing the coins away, I'm giving them to the kids!" The flickering stopped.

Minutes later, on her way out, she stopped in the hallway closet. There were the stamps. As soon as she approached them, the lights flickered in that area of the house. Knowing what to do this time, she yelled up, "I'm not touching the stamps! Don't worry!" Flickering stopped. Aunt ran out of the house.

The next day, bravely, she crept back in for one more thing. There in the living room, a picture frame was toppled over that wasn't the day before. She picked it up and figured a bug might have knocked it over, a rat even. Later on in the day she told my grandmother what happened.

"Oh, that was your father," my grandmother blatantly stated. "Before passing away, all he wanted to do was go back to that house. He kept asking to, but we never brought him. So that was him making a point."

We haven't been back to the house since. It's nice believing that it is just my grandfather haunting us and not some strange spirit, but still, a haunting is a haunting and for someone who's afraid of shadows behind shower curtains, I definitely plan on staying away for a bit.

Unless it's to claim the coin collection. I think he'd be okay with that.