Saturday, March 6

Footsteps Of Dead People

Ghost faceGhosts or sightings of dead people: must admit I have never spotted any myself but I have felt a presence and have noticed a lingering smell - such as my dad's blend of tobacco long after he had died. I've also experienced things like my father's watch stopping at the time my son was born. I think I may have heard something as well ...

This happened when my mum was near to drawing her last breath. She had only days to live so it was a very emotional time. Two days before she died I was in the bathroom having an early morning shower when my wife called out that she was popping down to the local shop for something. "Won't be long," she said.

"Ever near us, though unseen ...
the fair immortal spirits tread;
For all this boundless universe is life;
there are no dead."
Bulwer-Lytton
I finished my shower and all was quiet as I dried myself when I heard someone slowly coming up the stairs, their footsteps slow and precise. I took no real notice as I presumed it was my wife back already.

I got dressed and made my way downstairs for breakfast when I heard my wife at the front door. She told me she had just returned. "But I heard you come up the stairs," I said.

"Well it wasn't me," she laughed.

Puzzled and a little apprehensive I searched the house and felt quite relieved that there was nobody about. It would have been impossible for anyone to get in as all of the doors and windows were locked - and yet I definitely heard someone coming up our stairs and passing the bathroom.

My wife did say that it was perhaps my mum paying a last visit. Then I remembered another incident from when I was a child of probably five or six.

I was home from school as I hadn't been well. We lived upstairs in a flat (apartment). Suddenly my mum and I heard slow footsteps coming up the stairs. I remember being terrified listening to the steady tread on the stairs and continuing towards our living room.

The door opened and it was my grandmother! The front door was unlocked so she had just walked in. This was the one and only time she ever visited our flat, even though we lived there for nearly fourteen years - I won't go into the reasons why.

I remember vividly to this day how, when she came through the door, I was shaking with fear because I didn't know who it could possibly be.

The steps sounded exactly the same as those on my own stairs that morning.

It may seem very fanciful, maybe I'm fooling myself, but I feel that it was either my mother or her mother on the stairs that day.

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