From Someone Who Believes

I'm not sure if my dad really doesn't believe in what he saw with his own eyes, or if he's afraid that in admitting he believes in the ghost he saw it will give it some sort of power over him. Regardless, this is one story I used to beg him to tell me when I was little and he would always refuse because it "wasn't real" and it bothered him to bring it up again.

My dad was in his 20's, living in a small town in New Hampshire in the 90's. He was dating a girl he met before he met my mom and he had been to her family's place a million times before. This time was not unlike the rest - however, there were a lot of extended family members over for a gathering at the time. My dad knew the layout of the house well, and sat at the bottom of the stairway that lead upstairs to his girlfriend's childhood room and her sister's. As he sat at the bottom of the stairs, he watched as on old lady walked out of one of the bedrooms, stood at the top of the stairs, stared at him for awhile, and then crossed the hallway into the other bedroom. She was clad in a nightgown and wore a pendant/necklace around her neck. My dad could not explain the chill he got from the interaction but assumed it was a grandparent or great aunt, confused and perturbed by the commotion downstairs. Casually, he brought up this familial sighting to his girlfriend at the time.

"Oh my God, you saw her!" she got excited, running to tell her sister that my dad had finally seen the ghost they had experienced their whole childhood, living in that house. My dad assumed they were messing with him and carried on. It was an old woman in a nightgown, clear as day. To him, there was nothing ethereal or ghostly about her. As the evening progressed, more and more visitors started to leave. My dad was downstairs when he saw the old woman again, this time quickly crossing from one upstairs bedroom to the next. This time he followed, climbing the staircase quickly, poking his head into the bedroom he watched her disappear into. The lights were off, the windows closed. No one in sight. He was creeped out thoroughly and will admit that he was too frightened to check the room he watched her appear from. He left the party that night and never really thought about the instance again.

Years later, my dad had met my mom, gotten married, and moved into his own condo. He was working for a survey company around town and ran into one of his high school friends who had gone on to be an electrician. They chatted casually for awhile before his friend mentioned the same house. He asked my dad if he remembered the place and my dad knew it was where his ex had lived, the family now had moved. The new family that moved in had hired my dad's friend to come look at the wiring in the house and fix something down in the boiler room. Now, I have to remind you, the only person my dad had ever told about the old woman he saw the night of the gathering was his girlfriend at the time. His electrician friend proceeded to tell him of his odd day on the job.

He arrived at the house and was met with the family - they let him in, gave him the details of what they needed fixed or looked at, and left him alone in the house to do his work. He went down to the boiler room, your standard grungy, dark basement, and got to work. He heard the basement door open and nearly jumped out of his own skin - he had thought he was alone. He watched from the corner of the basement as someone began descending the staircase. An old-woman in a pale white nightgown with a pendant hanging from her neck, stopped in the middle of the staircase and stared. He spoke to her, a short hello. She simply stared back, not responding to his words. He recounted to my dad that he couldn't help but feel cold during this encounter, his body riddled in goosebumps. After a few more awkward seconds, the woman remained silent, turned and went back up the stairs, leaving the door open behind her.

In hearing this story, my dad could not believe it. All the details of the sightings were the same. A small old-woman, same nightgown, same necklace. He told his friend he had encountered a similar woman years prior and this frightened both of them. This time my dad wouldn't be able to walk away so easily, not giving a thought towards the subject again. He went to the town library and looked through old records on the house. He found obituaries of people who had owned it prior to the families he knew. Doubt of an actual ghost remained strong, until he came across an obituary photograph of an elderly woman wearing a large pendant necklace. Her last place of residence before her passing was the same house he had seen her in.

To this day my dad will try to say that subconsciously he must have already known about the elderly woman who had lived there previously, but when I ask him how, he does not know. He wants to believe his brain made him see what he "wanted" to see, but his lack of knowledge of that woman's living existence does not support his own theory. I believe he saw a ghost and more so, I believe that he believes he did as well.