A Ghost Story

My Hoosier family that reads my blog (*waving at y'all*) will all be shaking their heads today, and thinking 'it's about time' you told people about Charlie.

Let me just put it out there, I grew up in a very spiritually active house. Some may call it haunted, and a lot of people did call it haunted, we just called it home. We moved in when I was 4 years old and it's the only home we ever had. My sister sold it about 5 years ago, right before my dad died.

What I remember being told was that it was an old farm house that had been moved from it's original location when a road was put through out in that part of the country. It was a two story, red brick house with 2 bedrooms upstairs with a window at the top of the landing that looked out over the drive way, and a living room, dining room, bathroom, kitchen and back room (that had been added on sometime before we bought it). Pretty basic house. I know it was over a hundred years old when we moved in, but I'm not going to speculate as to an exact age of the house.

Some of my earliest memories of Charlie had nothing to do with fear. I was alone in that area. The only memory I have of moving in to the house is sitting in my rocker that my grandfather had made me in the middle of our empty bedroom. I remember feeling safe and listening to a conversation I didn't understand. I heard voices. I don't tell that much, but I always heard a man and a woman, as if in a tunnel, speaking to each other in a language I never understood. And I'd smell flowers. For some reason I think they were lilacs, but I don't know why. But the smell always made me smile and I remember smelling them most in the living room at the bottom of the stairs. No one ever experienced the voices and the smell but me, as far as I know. But it never scared me. It somehow comforted me.

I don't know why we, as a family, began referring to the odd things that happened as Charlie, but that's who we 'blamed' things on. There were the noises of pots and pans being rattled at night, like someone was going through our cabinets. This, sometimes, was almost deafening. However, my dad claimed he never heard it. Ever. But my mom, my sister and myself always did. You could go check it out and there'd be nothing. But as soon as you left the room, you'd hear it.
Another big incident that sticks out in my mind is bringing home some groceries, which included some Pepsi (bottles...yeah, I'm older than dirt) and dropping them off before we went back out. When we came home, several bottles had been opened and emptied. My parents searched the house, but it was locked up and no one was running loose in our home.
Too many times to count were the footsteps on the stairs. Old house, stairs creaked...one step at a time... Yeah, creepy. I'd wait them out...but (I'm going to apologize to my sister now) many times we'd come home to my sister being outside, too afraid to stay in the house. More than once we came home to my sister being outside in extremely bad weather waiting for us to come home after hearing the footsteps.
There were times Charlie would speak to my sister and I. I don't know why no one else heard him. He'd tell us 'good night girls' and when we'd say 'good night' back, thinking it was my dad, my mom would yell asking who we were talking to since my dad was still downstairs. Our bedrooms were next to each others, and my parents room didn't have a door. She heard everything...everything but Charlie telling us good night.
There were many sightings. People were scared to come to our house...I have to laugh. People from all around and all of our extended family knew about Charlie. But one of the times I remember most was when my sisters boyfriend from college (whom she later married) was in the drive way and waved at the old woman at the window on the landing at the top of the stairs. When told that we didn't have an old woman living with us, he had to be told about Charlie. Many people saw someone waving from the widow. Occasionally you'd catch the sight of someone in a door way, but the sighting I remember most is when I was a teenager and my parents were having a barbecue outside with some friends over. I walked into the back room to a man sitting on the couch reading a newspaper. He lowered the paper and looked at me. He was about the age of my parents, had black slicked back hair, common for the times, and was light brown skinned, maybe European, which wasn't common for our house. I went outside and asked my parents who he was and they immediately went inside to see who I was referring to. No one was there.

Our house was pretty well known, which was a bit embarrassing at times growing up. We had offers from people we did and didn't know, asking to visit, to hold seances and the likes. But as far as I knew or remember, we never allowed anyone to come in.

Mom always said that Charlie semi-retired (or was extremely inactive) after I left for college. But occasionally, he'd let it be known he was around. The last time I remember being told about Charlie was when my mom and her brother were in the back room (while my dad was in the hospital recovering from heart surgery) and a tv stand that was between them lifted off the ground and moved several inches, landing with a jolt. I heard that it scared my Uncle J.D. ( a large manly man) very much.

When I was pregnant with my second son, we decided on the name Charlie. My mom was extremely upset. To be honest, I hadn't thought about our Charlie at all when considering the name. I'd been praying constantly for a good friends son, whose name was Charlie, for about a year because he was born with severe health problems. I fell in love with the name, I think, because I was saying it over and over so much every day in prayer.

I don't really believe in ghosts...I mean to say ghosts as people who are trapped here after dying and play games with the living. So how do I explain Charlie? I don't know, I just thought I'd share this true story with you.