Most people believe that ghosts or spirits are just figments of our imaginations, just our minds and senses acting up when we hear our houses creek in the night. I've never thought that once in my life.

From the time I've been old enough to understand what the paranormal really means, I've been obsessed with it. I had this carpet in my room that would make a small squish noise when you stepped on it. Not like a wet squish, just a little swoosh of air from the fabric being pressed together. When everyone was in bed, late at night, I would start to hear that squishing noise. I was convinced my room was haunted. When I was 5/6 the noise would stay on the opposite side of the room while I was in bed. Then, around 7, it would sound like someone was walking right up to the edge of my bed. I would sleep with the pillow around my ears and the blankets over my head because I was so terrified.

I guess those incidents inspired my journey into paganism. When I was 12 I denounced Christianity and decided to become more connected to the elements around me, and keeping my soul more in tune to the world around me instead of the "world to come". That was when I began allowing spirits to come to me, and going to graveyards with my herbs and such and trying to help spirits to rest.

The walker in my room calmed down quite a bit when I didn't show fear towards him. (I always felt like the spirit was a him and named him Jacques) Now, I'm much more afraid of the living than I would ever be of spirits and ghosts.

Anyway, long story short, my family never fully acknowledged that I had become pagan and felt I was going through a phase. So when my grandfather passed away and what I explained occurred after, they thought I was lying, until I told them the end of the story.

My grandfather was going into the hospital for a kidney removal procedure from one of the most trusted surgeons in the Chicagoland area. We thought he would be out of the hospital in a week and up and moving again 6 weeks after. He was still young, only in his early 70s, and otherwise healthy. No heart problems, immune system in good shape, etc. So we were in complete dismay and completely heartbroken when he went into toxic shock and passed away.

I am very levelheaded about death. Of course I cried and of course I missed my grandfather terribly, but I understood that you live and you die. My grandfather had a wonderful life. But my grandmother was a disaster. I tried to calm her and comfort her, but to no avail. The last place my grandfather was before he died was in my room, where he and my grandmother slept while they were in town (they live in SC). He always had trouble with turning on the televisions in our house and we always had to remind him how to work the remotes.

One night I was watching a movie on my laptop when my TV turned on by itself. I looked around thinking I rolled onto the remote. The remote was on the night stand next to me. Nothing had touched it. So I turned the TV off, throwing it up to an electrical surge. The next night, I was woken at 2 in the morning to the TV blaring. I remembered turning it off to read a book before bed and once again the remote was on the nightstand with nothing around it.

So I said out loud, "Gramps, if this is you, I know that you're alright. But Gramma doesn't. You need to tell her you're okay."

The next day my grandmother tells my mother on the phone that she had a wonderful dream that she and my grandfather were sitting on their back porch on their old house on MontClaire, telling her that he was in a better place, and not to worry, one day they would be together again.

I did not tell my grandmother that story until two years after my grandfather's death. My grandmother, being a devout Catholic, calls it a miracle. I, being pagan, just call it good communication skills with someone on the other side. Whatever it was, it solidified my belief in spirits 100% and I will always feel honored that my grandfather came to me first to tell me that he died happy and in peace.

I know this was a long post, but I hope some of you appreciate it. If you have a similar story, I would love to hear it.