A long time ago when I was a baby, I was looking up from inside my crib and
saw about three or four faces looking down at me. They were not the faces of
my family. To this day I'm still not sure what they were, but they were like
round wooden masks you would see in places like Mexico. They would float
over my crib and scare me. I would cry and then my mom would turn on the
light and come to see me. When I got a little older, I would see people
walking around in my room. This was a different house at this point. My
grandmother's house and I was not where near being the baby I was. I think I
was about seven years old and they were coming out of the closet next to my
parents' bed. When I was seven I would sleep in my aunt's room with her. We
shared a bed and I didn't mind. She was maybe in her early twenties about
that time and she wasn't a bed hog like some people tend to be. I would get
into bed and then sleep on my back. My fear was that if I slept with my back
facing the ceiling, that something might get me. Took me YEARS to get out of
that habit, and the road was a long one for me to get through. My parents
decided that my aunt was getting too old for me to share a bed with and they
fixed up a room for me on the third floor. It had pink flowered wallpaper
and was very nice if you liked that sort of thing. But the room had a door
for the room but the closet didn't. I slept with the light on many a night
in that room.
My fear of closets came from this kid who lived next door to our cottage. He
locked me in one in his house and I couldn't get out until his mom heard me
screaming. That kid had issues too. He's a story for another day. What I
want to talk about is how all this relates to the fact that I have a sixth
sense and the closets were not my friend.
Because of the people I saw walking out of the closet, I was able to figure
out that they were not human. At least not in the form that I knew of them.
I would see things and I would hear things and from time to time I would
know things were just plain wrong. I knew when houses were haunted and I
knew enough to stay away from houses with that "vibe" to them. When I was a
kid I just thought that things like ghosts were normal. Just didn't like
them showing up in the middle of the night. I know why I would see things at
night. It's when the world around me is at peace and I'm somewhat tired. I
let my defenses down and then that's when they show up. My house is haunted
and I could tell you all kinds of stories about it, but that's for another
time.
When I was about twelve, I was in Scotland for about a month. I met my dad's
family there and that included HIS aunt Meg who was about 90-something when
I met her. She had a cat who I believe grew up with her. He was an orange
tabby who, whenever you would run a hand over his back, would shed
everywhere. He was not a healthy cat. After we got back to North America,
maybe about a week later, I woke up to an orange tabby on the foot of my
bed. I didn't have an orange tabby at the time. I realized this had to be
Meg's cat. He mewed at me and vanished. In the morning my dad told me that
Meg's cat had died during the night. I knew it already.
I was still new to all this sixth sense stuff at the time. I didn't know
what it was about me that made the dead come to me or for me to just know
something was about to happen. I had the odd time when I knew someone was
going to show up, or something was about to happen. When I was roughly
sixteen, no matter what time I went to bed I would get up at the same time
each and every morning. I would look over and the clock would say something
like 6:15am. I don't remember the exact time, but that sounds about right.
This was after having a dream where I would hear something tapping glass. If
you want to know the sound I was hearing in the dream, take your
ring/key/coin and tap it on a water glass. That's what I was hearing. Then
the next part of the dream, I was flying over the street and it was all
read, like the filters they have on 35mm cameras. I would fly over the
houses and everyone was running away from our side of the street. When I
woke up, the numbers 12, 14 and 16 were in my head. I didn't tell anyone
about this dream, since I had strange dreams all the time, but then I had
the same dream the next night and then the night after that. Each time I
would wake up at the same time. One day there was no dream. I woke up like
the did every other night and I was HEARING that tapping sound. I got up
from my nice warm bed and started down the stairs. I was back in my aunt's
room since she met a guy and got married and moved out. I was halfway down
when my dad opened the door and I heard someone screaming, "HELP ME!!" I saw
my mom on the phone and saying to 911 "I don't know, it sounds like someone
is bring killed out there!" My dad turned and screamed, "OH MY GOD! It's a
fire!!!" I ran up the stairs and dressed faster then I thought I could and
run from the house. When I got across the street I saw that 14 was on fire
and it was taking 12 and 16 with it. We were living in 18. Our house was
spared.
I never thought these dreams were warnings for me. A little heads up if you
will. But I did think it was a little strange that THAT was the only dream I
had up until that point that really did come true. I got in the habit of
journaling my dreams and if they came true that I would have a record of
them. I found, also that telling people about the dreams would also be good.
Between 2001 and 2003, my family suffered a string of deaths. Started with
my mother and ended with my aunt. In-between those two, were my father,
another aunt and my grandmother. With the last death I did get a dream. I
was in the house that was my grandmother's. There was a smoke alarm going
off in the house next door. I ran out with my husband to see what was going
on. My dad was there and he was crying, "They're all dying!" What I was
seeing was a mirror image of the street. I was really in the house next
door - 20. I saw firemen dragging out a body that looked like my uncle.
There was no life there at all. I woke up and told my husband and then I
told my best friend. This dream was on the night of my birthday. Two days
after my birthday, I get a call from my cousin telling me that her mom was
in the hospital. She had breast cancer and it was winning. I got to the
hospital in Toronto to see the family. I knew she was going to die that
night. I was talking to my cousin's then-girlfriend who is a Muslim. I told
her all about the dream and how I thought it was my uncle and not her. Then
it hit me, my aunt and my uncle looked so much alike, that if the dream was
a mirror image, then the gender would be different too. I came back home
that night, went to see my friend and told her about my aunt. She got really
pale after I told her about it. Then I got the call that my aunt had died.
It was something I knew already.
One thing I haven't touched on is the weird feeling I get when something is
about to happen. My aunt's health gave me a little jolt that I knew she had
died. I could almost time it with her death. Years before I was living in
Toronto in a roominghouse and I got this strange feeling that just nagged at
me. I didn't have a phone so there was no way for my family to find me if
anything was wrong. I went to one of the guys living there and asked if I
could use his phone. I called my aunt and she told me that one of my cousins
had suffered a miscarriage. Before that, I knew when another cousin was in
labor. I kinda freaked her out with one thing.. I asked her when she was
going to have the baby and she said something like, "Monday. I'm having a
girl." I told her flat out, "He will be born on Wednesday." I was right and
it took some time for her to look at me after that. She didn't understand
that. I don't either. I just get this weird feeling..
When I think something bad is about to happen, I picture it in my head like
I'm swinging on a vine and there's a brick wall in my path with no way to
avoid it. When my spidey senses are tingling, it's more like I can't think,
can't sleep and I fidget. The restlessness is something I understand. I was
like that when my cousin was pregnant and when the other one lost her baby.
So now when I get that feeling, I get up and wonder who in my family is
sick/dead/dying or pregnant. Just before I started writing this, that was
the feeling I had. It's scary, but I think I'm getting a heads up about
something.
Maybe I should call my family.