Ghost Story Tuesday

I love going up into attics. They’re like forgotten memory containers. Dark, quiet secret-keepers. They hold stories of people’s lives. When you spend a lot of time talking to the dead, attics are an excellent accessory to confirming information because of what they hold.
They hold things that belonged to those who left us years ago. They hold forgotten things. And, they hold mystery.

I love mystery.

Jenn was an excellent person to read for. She was open, unfailingly excited, and her house had ghosts. Doing a remote read was fun. She’s written about it a few times, and being the information-seeking sponge that she is, she did a whole bunch of research on the people that lived in her house before her, and her findings have been amazing. It’s very rare for me to get such detailed feedback on a reading, and so exciting to have so much of what I said make sense. It’s almost – magical – to be able to match those I’ve described to the history of people.

So you can imagine what it was like to be able to visit the house I had read remotely. It was mind-blowingly cool. Jenn, an excellent hostess (and ravishingly beautiful to boot!), took me through the house, and I was able to feel presences both familiar and new to me. I was overwhelmed with the energy in her upstairs bathroom, and showed here where there was a presence. The next day, Jenn told me that she had remembered that that was where she and David had found a breathing apparatus shut inside the wall.

By the time Jenn and I reached the entrance to her attic, we were nearly giddy with the excitement of it all. Together, we climbed up the ladder, and entered the small, dark room that sat atop her happy house, and, in whispered exclamations, began to respectfully delve into memories left behind.

There were five boxes stuffed full of puzzles. On the back of each box were records – lists, really. There were dates (1970s), records of whether any pieces were missing, and a mathematical formula on each puzzle. We figured that the puzzle-doer (puzzler?) was keeping track of each time he did the puzzle, and how long it took him.

There was a box of wallpaper, and we discovered that the large plank of wood we were sitting on (in order to prevent falling through the floor, Money-Pit fashion) was an ancient door, probably from the original building of the house.

We gently passed an old megaphone back and forth, wondering aloud about its’ owner. Still, I felt we were missing something…that we hadn’t found what we were meant to find.
Crouching there, balanced on that old door, I peered beneath the makeshift table that held old boxes and other various attic accoutrements…and there saw…a trunk.

“There’s a trunk!” I exclaimed in excited whispery tones.

“A what?” Jenn’s whispers were equally excited.

Together, we pulled the trunk out and marvelled over it. It was obviously very old, and hand-made.

“Is it okay to open it?” Jenn asked.

Touching the trunk, I knew that this was what we were supposed to find.

“Yes,” I said.

Together, we lifted the lid, and in the darkness, peered inside while our eyes fought to adjust.
“Looks empty,” I said, but I knew I was looking at something. With trepidation, I reached inside. Fleeting visions of dead animals and ancient, rotting body parts filled my mind. It was awesome.

What I pulled out was a jacket, some hand-knit, fingerless mittens (what the heck do you call those, anyway?), and newspaper dating from 1927. We were thrilled. As we examined our finds and theorized about who they could have belonged to, a feeling began to take over me, and I remembered the reading I’d done for Jenn.

We were quiet for a minute.

Then Jenn began to tell me about a trip she had made to a local graveyard. She had been searching for Mr. Pipe and Mrs. Kitchen, and beside them she found a young boy, who had died of pneumonia. That feeling I was getting got stronger. Somebody needed us to tell the story of that boy. As I held that jacket, I knew that somebody needed us to tell it. out loud. So, together, we did. I told her what I had seen about the boy during that first read, and what I was seeing then, and she filled it in with what she had learned.

When I do medium work, and an entity wants something from me, and I fulfill that need, they give me a reward. Those who have felt it know that it’s the most wonderful feeling…I get such a rush of gratitude and release. It fills me up.

When we were done talking about that boy, that feeling washed over me.

“We’ve done something really good,” I said, and brushed a tear away.

Jenn just smiled.

You know what? I still don’t know who it was. I don’t know who that jacket belonged to, and I don’t know how he was related to that boy who died. He didn’t need me to know. He wanted us to know the story of the boy. I did feel that in life, this man was sort of an outcast. His presence was gone from the house after our trip to the attic. He’s happy.

After all of that adventure, all of that exploration and discovery…after everything that happened that day with those magnificent, welcoming spirits, I realized something. Yes, that was all incredible stuff. But the best part? The best part was returning downstairs to our husbands and children - being with Jenn and her family – those beautiful earthly beings with whom I (and my family) shared apple cottage cheese pancakes and laughter.

The dead can teach us so much…

…about life.