The Ghost My Parents Brought Home

I grew up in a very typical German neighborhood. Houses in my area were all brick and the woodwork in most houses was amazing. My family had a very large house. It was needed with six children. The house was very unique. The man that built it was a carpenter and he made use of every square inch of that house. There were drawers built into wood walls that you couldn't even tell were there. The upstairs had two very unique bedrooms with little hidden closets and drawers. The basement was fully finished and there was an old player piano built into a wall down there. It was such a fantastic house.

My parents were also very unique people. Neither of them had regular jobs. They both bought and sold antiques and collectibles for many years. It was a little spooky and strange to me because our house was constantly changing. I could come home on any given day and find we had new furniture or other decor in our house. My parents are both incredibly smart and both had certain talents and interests of their own. One thing my mother collected was antique dolls. She had quite a collection. There was a glass case in her bedroom full of dolls and some were even life sized. There were also always parts of dolls such as eyes and hands around for spare parts. I liked dolls quite a bit as a child. I had my own collection of dolls that I truly loved. There's no doubt though that when I'd go into my mothers room and see her dolls, I'd get a creepy feeling.

I speak so much about these dolls because I honestly believe they were at least a part of the haunting at this house. Every member of my family would swear the house was haunted. We'd all had experiences that were too real to deny. Several of us had experienced hearing breathing and moaning at night that was unexplainable. I'd lay in bed and hear someone breathing loudly right next to me. There was no one there. I could feel the breath on my neck but there was no one there. We all talked about it. We all felt the same way about it . We believed it was evil and it scared us. The same thing had happened to at least three or four of us. It was very scary and in no way did we welcome it. The breathing was only one of the strange experiences had at that house.

Unexplainable footsteps were heard by almost every member of my family. Lights would flicker at the same time as the footsteps. The lights would always flicker when we heard the footsteps. We had six children in our family and the lights never flickered at any other time. We could all be running through different parts of the house and the lights never did anything strange. My mother would often be down in the basement doing laundry or ironing and hear very distinct footsteps. The path was from her bedroom down a hall, through the kitchen and then they would stop at the door that leads to the basement. She would call out and ask who it was or who was home. There would never be any answer. This happened to my mother several times but she wasn't the only one to experience it. I heard it myself at least a handful of times along with my sisters or brothers. When it happened the feeling was the same as when the breathing happened. It felt bad and very scary. There was no peaceful or nice feeling about it. It was something strange in our home and it didn't belong there. We all felt the same. We wanted it to stop and leave.

There was no doubt that my mothers doll collection had something to do with all the goings on. Two of my brothers had both seen a young girl ghost in the doorway of my mothers bedroom. I'd also seen the girl entering my mothers room one day. I ran down the hall to look into the room and see her but she was already gone. I felt something that time though. I felt a very cool chill right as i passed into the doorway she'd just been in . The feeling was again very distinctly bad or negative. I remember wanting to run right back out and down the hall again but I was as curious as I was scared. I looked all around in my mothers room. I opened her closet and even looked under her bed. I wanted to be absolutely sure no one was playing any tricks on me. The room was empty. Only my mothers dolls were there.

To this day, every member of my family is sure that the dolls were haunted. We're not sure if it was just one doll or if it was more than one. Every strange experience seemed to start with them except for the breathing. The breathing always happened to us when we were in bed at night. No one ever heard footsteps approaching or moving away. Only the breathing. The main reason we're all so sure the dolls were the root of the haunting is that just before we moved away from that house, my mother decided to sell her entire collection of dolls. She found one lady that was willing to buy the whole collection for a decent price. After that lady took the dolls away, we never heard the footsteps again. We never heard or felt the breathing again. I couldn't get my mother to ask the lady later on if she had any experiences with the dolls. I think my mother was so glad that she wasn't dealing with it, that she just didn't want to bring it up again. I can't say I blame her. I honestly believe that some spirits are gentle souls. I believe just as strongly that some spirits are evil and it's best to avoid them. As I finish writing this, I look at my dolls and smile.