Ghosts and Haunted Houses

On the day that I was born, July 10, 1970, I had no idea what my parents were going to bring me home to. The day they brought me home, I was brought home to a very haunted and scary home. During my first year of life, I do not recall many memories as many babies don't.

I do have a few good memories of times such as climbing my brothers' bunk bed for the first time. He coached and coached me to climb the side of the bed, all the away up to him. Then he turned things around and called for mom and then I got into trouble for climbing the bed. The two incidents that I remember happened when I was about a year and a half to two years old.

There are two very vivid, lasting and scary memories that I have of living in this house on Mckendrick Street in Grand Rapids, Michigan. These memories have stayed with me for my entire life as if they happened yesterday and in vivid detail. Later in my life, when I was an adult, even though my parents did not want to talk about this house, they did tell me little things that happened while in the house. Things like items moving across the counter tops, other items rounding corners and landing at their feet.

My dad told me of one winter night he had thought that he had heard someone in the house and went downstairs to find the front door wide open, snow had blown in the house and there were no footprints to be found anywhere. Things happened so often, that he used to keep a gun loaded next to the bed loaded to protect all of us.

One night, my mom had gone out and left my brother who was 5 years older than me home alone and in charge of me. We had gone to bed and everything seemed to be as any normal house would be. Something had woken me up. I still to this day am not sure what woke me up, but I headed into my parents room as any small child would in the middle of the night. What happened next is what made me remember this incident as vivid as if it happened yesterday.

I headed into my parents room, and saw what I thought was my mother on the other side of the bed, so I headed to that side to wake her so she could comfort me. Only thing is that when I reached that side of the bed, mom (or so I thought at the time) moved to the other side of the bed without even moving a finger. Being so young, I had never heard of ghosts or anything of that matter, I ran around the outside of the bed to the other side to try and wake my mom, but as soon as I got there, it happened again. She was now on the other side of the bed. This activity continued on for some time. I am not sure how long, but I do remember being very upset that mom would not stay on the side of the bed I was going to.

I began screaming loudly as I began to become afraid. Afraid of what I am not exactly sure, but my brother eventually entered the room and kneeled down and picked me up. He asked me what was wrong and when I began to tell him what happened, he told me that mom was not home. I turned around and the image was gone. It was gone even though it was there just a second ago. After picking me up and consoling me, my brother took me to the bathroom where I could wash my face and dry my tears.

It was a small bathroom with a pedestal sink, toilet and tub. There was just enough room in there for those things. I had a wooden step stool that I used to stand on and turn the water on using a silver colored faucet.

Things seemed to go fine for me for some time and then it happened again. Only this time it was like I was being given a further punishment to what my parents were giving me. I had wet the bed that night and made my parents very upset when they found out. They put me in my room and made me sit on the wet spot to think about what I had done. It was actually my mother that had done the punishing and as she left the room, she closed the door.

While sitting on my bed I had realized that I really did not want to wet the bed anymore. As I sat there and pondered on that, things in the room began to spin, just like you would see in the movies. The toys started first until everything but the bed was spinning in a circle. I became frightened of all this commotion and started banging on the door and screaming for help. I was not old enough to open the door on my own so all I could do was scream. As I was doing this, a small guitar like thing hit me over the head. It hit me hard enough to knock me out.

Those are the only memories that have stay with me for so long in my life. We moved out of that house to never return when I was about 4 years old. Through the years even though my parents have told me of very few event of that house, I had to beg and beg them to tell me about that house. Their memories of that house were so horrific, that even to this day they do not want to talk about it. The most I could get out of them is basic type of stuff that happens, and nothing specific.

You are probably asking me how this can be true as I was such a young child at the time. When horrible things happen, it can trigger memories that last a lifetime. I was begging my mother one evening to discuss this topic with me and as she refused, I began to tell her my recounts of this house. I began to describe the house in detail and when I described the bathroom to her, it scared her to death. It scared her that I still had memories of this house that the whole family could not forget.