My First Ghost

My First Ghost

My earliest memory was of my maternal Grandfather, whom my brothers and I called “Foddy” because we couldn’t say “Grandfather”. It was Foddy who taught me to fish and play cards and he would take Stewart, Bryan and myself on trips downtown just to see the city. One day, when I was about five years old, I saw Mom and Dad all dressed in black and looking very sad, especially Mom. I asked Mom what was wrong and she told me that Foddy had gone to Heaven.
They had left a baby sitter with us. I was 5, Stewart was 4 and Bryan was 2. When I asked them where they were going, Mom told me that they were going to Foddy’s funeral. I didn’t understand, but I let it go. I didn’t find out until it was explained to me later. Foddy had been ill because of a couple of heart attacks he’d had in previous years. One day, he went to lie down on the couch at his and Granny’s house. He had a third heart attack and passed away while he slept. Granny came home and found him dead. After Foddy had been buried, I began having disturbing dreams about him. I found myself standing in a field of stones with names and numbers on them.
I found myself sinking into the ground and looking at him as though I was looking through a cross section of the ground and through the casket at him. He was dressed in his best suit and lying very still.




Pretty wild for a five year old kid who knew nothing about death, only that his grandfather was in Heaven.About a year later, Mom and Dad took the three of us boys over to Granny’s house to spend the night. We had some dinner and then watched Granny’s color TV and then went to bed. Stewart and Bryan slept in the back bedroom and I slept in Foddy’s old bed. I had trouble sleeping because, not only was I in a strange bed, but I had the feeling that I was being watched. I sat up and looked over toward the bedroom door and sensed a presence there! It gave me a terrible fright and I woke Granny up and pleaded for her to call Mom and Dad to come and get me. As soon as I became frightened, the presence vanished. Mom and Dad came and got me and took me home to where I slept in my own bed. Thinking about it now and looking back, I’m pretty sure that it was just Foddy looking in on me, checking out his beloved wife and his grandson. I never told anyone about this until last month. I told Bryan and it gave him the creeps. But that was the first.