- Joined
- Sep 5, 2018
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- Age
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- Location
- The very Haunted Wood's... Ozarks
Okay, here goes. I remember this like it happened yesterday.
My childhood, and I mean all of it, was not so good (as defined by society). Upheaval was the least of it. For a period of about two years, my mom took us kids and we all moved in with my grandmother (mom's mom). This did not stop the crazy, just threw more adults into the mix, but there was something about being there that brought me the first security I had ever felt although as a child I didn't recognize that fact, I just new I was safe. I was 4.
Grandma had a huge Mulberry Tree in her back yard and even better, a blueberry patch right on the way. I took to collecting some berry's and climbing that Tree, as far and close to the top as was possible. This became my whole world. Sitting and conversating with that Tree, munching blueberry's and having mulberry's for dessert. I only came down when grandma came and asked me. I didn't respond to anyone else at all. This was home for those 2 years.
When my mom abruptly decided to "take my kid's and get out of here" I was shattered. Literally. As only a child can be. I remember thinking I had to hide and hide somewhere they would never find me. Grandma's house was not fancy but it had a big front porch with steps leading up to it, and all around both sides of it there was lattice where grandma grew rose's that climbed them. Somehow I found a hole big enough to squeeze through and that's what I did. I pushed back as far back under that porch as I could get and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, but very quietly so they wouldn't hear.
After some time I heard someone say my name, softly. And again when I didn't respond. I knew this voice... recognized it was not a threat so I looked up and through the rose's to see who was calling. A plump, kind face was looking at me though the little hole I had crawled through. "What are you doing child?" ( I remember she always called me 'child') I told her that I wasn't coming out no matter what. I remember her talking softly to me and I remember responding, but I don't have any memory of what we talked about or how long we talked. In the end, I crawled out to her.
When I was all the way out I stood up the woman was looking down at me and smiling and there was a man and he was smiling too. The woman was elderly and short and plump and had a very round kind face. Her hair was silver or gray and tied up in a bun and she was wearing a full length white apron over a granny dress that came almost to her ankle's as granny's used to do when 'she was from' and sturdy granny shoes. The man was very tall (at least compared to me and granny) and skinny and was wearing an old black suit, shiny with wear and a white shirt underneath. Sometimes I remember him wearing a kind of floppy hat but other times I remember him with no hat. His face was kindly too.
Both of them smiled at me and nodded and I nodded back and I walked up the stair's to the porch. When I turned around they were gone. And life went on. These two stayed with me for many years although it was not constant and I couldn't tell you the exacts of the when's and where's. At sometime before I reached 13, those encounter's stopped and I had no recollection of them at all... or at least consciously. Until. Fast forward.
A couple of years after I moved my kids here to this cabin, and a year into a full blown 'cow paddies hitting the fan ' encounter/experience, on an especially scary night... a very bright light drew my attention to the window looking out on the back porch... which you couldn't have gotten me to look out for anything a moment before, and there was Granny. She was standing with her back against the back door looking straight ahead, arm's stretched out and fully extended... dressed exactly as always, and the glow coming from her was almost blinding. Everything came back in that instant. I knew/remember her and the man as if I had never forgotten. And, I had never been so happy to see anyone before or since.
She wasn't smiling now, and her face was not gentle. She was FIERCE I tell you. I don't know what/who/thing she was challenging, but there was no doubt of the outcome. It was on the losing end of this argument. No thing or one or it was getting through her to do harm, and the probability of its continued existence at all was not good. I knew the man was there too, although I couldn't see him. That was the first night in weeks I truly slept. When I laid down she was still there, and then it was morning.
They never would have you know... found me.
My childhood, and I mean all of it, was not so good (as defined by society). Upheaval was the least of it. For a period of about two years, my mom took us kids and we all moved in with my grandmother (mom's mom). This did not stop the crazy, just threw more adults into the mix, but there was something about being there that brought me the first security I had ever felt although as a child I didn't recognize that fact, I just new I was safe. I was 4.
Grandma had a huge Mulberry Tree in her back yard and even better, a blueberry patch right on the way. I took to collecting some berry's and climbing that Tree, as far and close to the top as was possible. This became my whole world. Sitting and conversating with that Tree, munching blueberry's and having mulberry's for dessert. I only came down when grandma came and asked me. I didn't respond to anyone else at all. This was home for those 2 years.
When my mom abruptly decided to "take my kid's and get out of here" I was shattered. Literally. As only a child can be. I remember thinking I had to hide and hide somewhere they would never find me. Grandma's house was not fancy but it had a big front porch with steps leading up to it, and all around both sides of it there was lattice where grandma grew rose's that climbed them. Somehow I found a hole big enough to squeeze through and that's what I did. I pushed back as far back under that porch as I could get and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, but very quietly so they wouldn't hear.
After some time I heard someone say my name, softly. And again when I didn't respond. I knew this voice... recognized it was not a threat so I looked up and through the rose's to see who was calling. A plump, kind face was looking at me though the little hole I had crawled through. "What are you doing child?" ( I remember she always called me 'child') I told her that I wasn't coming out no matter what. I remember her talking softly to me and I remember responding, but I don't have any memory of what we talked about or how long we talked. In the end, I crawled out to her.
When I was all the way out I stood up the woman was looking down at me and smiling and there was a man and he was smiling too. The woman was elderly and short and plump and had a very round kind face. Her hair was silver or gray and tied up in a bun and she was wearing a full length white apron over a granny dress that came almost to her ankle's as granny's used to do when 'she was from' and sturdy granny shoes. The man was very tall (at least compared to me and granny) and skinny and was wearing an old black suit, shiny with wear and a white shirt underneath. Sometimes I remember him wearing a kind of floppy hat but other times I remember him with no hat. His face was kindly too.
Both of them smiled at me and nodded and I nodded back and I walked up the stair's to the porch. When I turned around they were gone. And life went on. These two stayed with me for many years although it was not constant and I couldn't tell you the exacts of the when's and where's. At sometime before I reached 13, those encounter's stopped and I had no recollection of them at all... or at least consciously. Until. Fast forward.
A couple of years after I moved my kids here to this cabin, and a year into a full blown 'cow paddies hitting the fan ' encounter/experience, on an especially scary night... a very bright light drew my attention to the window looking out on the back porch... which you couldn't have gotten me to look out for anything a moment before, and there was Granny. She was standing with her back against the back door looking straight ahead, arm's stretched out and fully extended... dressed exactly as always, and the glow coming from her was almost blinding. Everything came back in that instant. I knew/remember her and the man as if I had never forgotten. And, I had never been so happy to see anyone before or since.
She wasn't smiling now, and her face was not gentle. She was FIERCE I tell you. I don't know what/who/thing she was challenging, but there was no doubt of the outcome. It was on the losing end of this argument. No thing or one or it was getting through her to do harm, and the probability of its continued existence at all was not good. I knew the man was there too, although I couldn't see him. That was the first night in weeks I truly slept. When I laid down she was still there, and then it was morning.
They never would have you know... found me.
