Originally Posted by chek101
This is a TRUE story; it happened to me:
Back, when I was a young working mother, I was resting on the couch. I was exhausted. I was a postal worker then and the Christmas and New Year’s holidays had just passed. Unfortunately for us postal workers, that time of the year is always hard on us; it means a LOT of work, and a LOT of mandatory overtime hours. I didn’t mind all the work or the hours, because I really needed the extra money to cover the holiday expenses. Something my kids seem to forget.
This one Christmas season, shortly after the holidays, I finally caved in from the heavy workload. I had gotten maybe 3 hrs sleep a day: some day’s none, and had worked for 29 days straight with no days off. So yeah, I caved, and I just let myself fall to the couch.
As I lay there, I was thinking, I was in heaven and that there’s no place else on this earth that I want to be more than right where I was …when … the phone rang. Oddly, it was my sister calling from California telling me terrible news: my sister had just been killed in a car crash. How my sister in California knew before I did or my mother did, was a mystery to us because she lived 3000 miles away at that time. Yet, she was the first to know. I tell you I was so tired and exhausted that all I wanted to do was sleep. I think I just somehow shut out that phone call - my brain was too shot to comprehend what I was hearing or maybe refusing to comprehend what I was hearing. I don’t know which it was, or what was going on with me with that because I certainly loved my sister. I didn’t like her husband because he was abusive to her, and was always driving her and their 5 kids around, drunk. So many times, they had minor accidents because of that man. Well, finally one of those accidents killed her. I fell asleep … a better place for me at that time.
Next thing I know, my husband comes home from work and wakes me up, telling me how sorry he was to hear about my sister. I guess the word had finally gotten to him as I slept. I don’t know how that went down either, all I know is he knew when he came home. That’s when it all finally hit me and I just cried and cried. He was good to me then; he insisted that I go straight to bed because now he was home and could get the kids off to bed for me. So that’s what I did … I went to my bedroom and climbed into bed and fell instantly out cold before the tears on my face could dry.
Later, I have no idea how much later, but … well … first let me explain that I had this small dog, her name was Tribby, and she liked sleeping with me. Sometimes she could jump up on the bed easily, other times, when she felt like being pampered, she wanted me to pick her up and put her on the bed, at which point she would scratch on the side of the bed closest to my face till I’d pick her up.
Now later …
So I’m out cold, right? Naturally, Tribby begins pestering me to pick her up and bring her into bed with me. I could feel her scratching and pawing at my feet thru the blanket near the foot of the bed. I lay there, sort’ve asleep but somewhat conscious of her really being pushy. Gradually, I was becoming more and more awake. Finally, almost fully awake now, but my eyes still locked in that “I’m-not-opening-up-I-don’t-care-what-you-say” mode, I started thinking, but what is Tribby doing down there at that end? Why is she bothering me from way down there??? Why not over here at this end by my face likes she usually does? Now, I’m sorta mad, because now I have to scramble all the way down to the foot of the bed and pick her up when a quick reach-over down my end would’ve done the trick and I could’ve fallen right back to sleep again with hardly any disturbance.
But no … she had to nag me. So, I flipped over on my right side really angry with her now, when my face hit full into her fur. She WAS already on the bed with me. I jerked awake now, thinking but if she’s here with me now, what the heck was tapping on my foot?
Let me tell you … that’s when the ma-shuga hit the fan: man, I leaped into a sitting position and immediately looked down towards the foot of the bed. There stood the scariest sight I EVER saw in my whole life! And … I knew WHO it was (I don’t know how, but I knew) and I knew WHAT it was … it was my sister … the one killed earlier that day, and here she was at the foot of my bed! She looked like a stenciled silhouette drawn in pale blue light. And it was exactly the size and shape of my sister … she was a short person, maybe 4ft 2”. She made some sort of gesture with her hands, but that is as far as she got because what I did next made her zoom off, and that was scream and scream and scream. My husband and son hearing my screams … crashed thru the bedroom door without even trying to open it, knocking it off one hinge. I was still screaming when my husband grabbed me and still couldn’t stop. He found me sitting upright in bed with one arm extended, pointed to a spot on the wall. You see, when I scared my poor sister’s spirit off, it shrunk into this little ball of light and flew into the wall … to that spot that I was still pointing to when my husband and son crashed thru the door. It would be some twenty years later before I would ever sleep with the light off again in that room! I mounted a night light in that spot where the ball of light went.
No, I was not dreaming, my husband says the same thing. I KNOW when I am dreaming! I was AWAKE! Was that after life? I don’t know, I don’t think so. I think it was a kind of residue: a kind of left over-something that used to occupy time and space but was now slowly being erased.
