November 18, 2004

Grandma's Goodbye Hug

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Rob, Bellingham, Massachusetts, summer 2002, info@ghostvillage.com

My grandmother and I were very close when I was a child. My family would visit during Christmas and for two weeks every summer at her house on a lake in Winthrop, Maine. I was seven years old when my parents sold our house in Franklin, Massachusetts, and were having one built across town. 

I was too young to recall all of the "haunted stories" and the ghost I named Charlie (I always thought of him as an imaginary friend) that my mother would talk about years later but I do remember the fires. The first time my parents put the house up for sale we had a nasty furnace fire that caused a lot of damage from the thick smoke that filled up the house. We had to take the house off the market and have the place cleaned out. After the house was cleaned and repaired, it went back on the market and we had another fire. This time the fire started in my bed. I had awoken and went to the bathroom and on the way back to bed I said to my father who was awake in the kitchen working on a project for work that I smelled smoke. He quickly recognized the aroma and jumped up and ran to the source. He opened my bedroom door and my bed was ablaze. The reason turned out to be a bad electric blanket but is was scary non the less. We sold the house shortly after.

The new house was not ready at the time of the sale so we spent four months with my grandparents while waiting for the new house to be built. This is when me and my sister became real close with my grandparents. They spoiled us rotten. Their house was in an area where nature was at its best: fishing, swimming, hiking in the woods, and seeing tons of animals were a great experiences as a kid. When we had to leave to go to the new house it was tough on all of us. We continued seeing them on the old schedule about three weeks a year until my parents divorced. I went up with my father before I new about the divorce with a friend. We hung out and had a great time. The teen years were tough, and when I turned 18 I had a fight with my father and moved out. After that, I did not see my grandparents for 20 years. My grandfather died without my having a chance to say goodbye. My grandmother was growing ill as well. Since my grandfather's death I had buried the hatchet with my father and had seen my grandmother a couple of more times for weddings, anniversaries, big birthday parties, etc. The last time I saw her alive she was skin and bones in a hospice house. She had lost her health very quickly. When I went up to see her I was almost in tears and then something went off in my head and I started whispering in her ear. Her only responses were little movements of her hand in mine but they were definitely responses. There was no doubt she was going to die soon so I had started telling her about my daughter and all the good things that were happening in my life. I told her to say hello to my deceased grandparents on my mother's side and to grandpa (her husband for 50 plus years) I got a real big squeeze on the hand for that one. After we left the hospice we went back to my aunt's and uncle's house in a little town called Hancock also in Maine. We stayed up all night playing games, drinking, and crying. We all new her time was short. My sisters and I left the following day for Massachusetts.

That night as I was lying in bed I felt a force lifting me out of bed like someone had reached through me and grabbed onto my shoulders and gently lifted me up. I woke up while this was happening and looked at my arms as they were outstretched. I felt electrified. I said "It's okay grandma you can go." And the feeling of electricity faded away. I looked at the time and it was 12:34. The next morning I received a call at work from my father and he told me she had died sometime between midnight and 2:00 AM. I was stunned to say the least and to this day truly believe that it was her plucking me up to give me a final hug. At the funeral I was told by my stepmother that she should have died earlier but held on to say goodbye to me.