My First Ghost Story

It began with mom and dad cleaning out the closed off room in our 100 year old farm house.  I was five, but it seemed like yesterday.  I peeked inside this once sealed room to see thick dust over old dressers and cob webs everywhere.  It was like the movie "Child of Glass" when they entered the old abandoned farm house.  What made it so odd, was this room had not just been closed, but painted and nailed closed.  I asked once, but there was no answer as to why.

When I first entered the room under restoration, it felt like an ice box and scared me terribly.  It wasn't too long before my sister and I had to sleep in there on our bunk beds.  That was the last time I rested at night.  I felt like I was being watched from the foot of my bed near the window.  I even put my pillow down there so I wouldn't feel my imagination staring at me.  That made it worse, and I slept with the covers over my head.  Not long after that I felt an especially strong urge to look at the corner of my bed, only to see an elderly woman with big curly gray hair in a black high collar dress.  She was not family.  I can only guess she lived in the home with the original owners.  She wasn't mean, but very stern.  I now she looked after me, but I still couldn't rest knowing I was being watched.

When I was in my early teens, I was given the option of moving into the front tiny bedroom or staying in that large one by myself.  To my parents surprise, I jumped at the chance to leave the room.

I don't know how long after it was that the dreams of a fire began.  Our whole family got out every time, but the fire was always in the same place. When I asked about the fire in the kitchen downstairs, my mom turned white.  She had never spoken of it.  I begged her to tell me what she knew.  She made me tell her why I was asking and every detail of my daily dream.  She still had no colour.

She finally confirmed that there was a fire exactly were I told her and to stop asking questions about it.  It was made clear that my "vision" was unacceptable.

I struggled through many years of growing and seeing things that I knew to be glimpses of the past or future.  It wouldn't be until I was over 30 until I found a way to share what I saw routinely.

This is why I have such passion for helping children and families with unexplainable events.  Nobody needs to live in fear by themselves.  They could have taught me how to figure out that some of what I heard, was just an old creaky house.  Now we have an amazing relationship and I would not have changed a thing in how they raised me.  It made me who I am and able to help others.

Ann Bender (Overhiser), API Co-Founder