Do You Believe in Ghosts and Spirits?

Do You Believe in Ghosts and Spirits? 

Do you believe in ghosts and spirits? I do. I'm about to tell you a few of my experiences. I only wish they weren't real, but alas... these things did happen to me, and I can never forget them. 

At the age of nine, my mom and I were living with her boyfriend in his childhood home with his mother, brother, and sister. It was a pretty nice house in one of the older (and now roughest) parts of town on the west side called Ensley. I was home alone that particular day, and have no idea where the four grown-ups of the house were. I had no worries, as I sat alone in the back of the house watching television. It was sunny out, no winds, and nothing wrong with the power, yet the television went off on its own. I didn't try to explain it away. I simply ran from the back of the house through the room my mom and I slept in, out of the brother's room, straight through the dining room, and out the living room door. SCREAMING! I ran to the house of the old woman across the street and sat there until everybody got home at the same time. When I told them what happened, the mother said "Oh, that happens sometimes." Yeah, but it never happened before or since, and I didn't believe it. 

Another night (I had just started 4th Grade), I was at the kitchen table doing homework. From the kitchen table, you could see through the dining room to the living room, but that particular night, all the lights (other than in the kitchen) were off. I got distracted, as I do, and looked to my right. As if on cue, I saw a short-sleeved white dress shirt that looked as if it were tucked in. I saw it drift slowly out of the darkness of the living room and past the dining room table. It kept on into the dark of the brother's bedroom. I didn't see a person or pants or hear a sound. I just saw what looked like a white dress shirt as if worn and tucked in by someone. I tried to process what I had just seen, then I LOUDLY started to sing until I annoyed my mom enough to come to see about me. She said, "Girl, what the hell is wrong with you?" I can’t remember if I told her or not, but I think I did. I found out sometime later that she had once seen that very same thing. Come to find out, that was my mom's boyfriend's long-dead dad’s favorite path through that house. In that house, someone saw an indentation next to them on the couch as if someone had sat down. They felt a presence and heard noises. That was the first time I had ever (to my remembrance) actually SEEN a ghost.

At age 13, the night before the first day of school (I didn't start school until the week after), my mom and her boyfriend (a different one) went next door to my Uncle Fred and Aunt Patricia's house to watch wrestling on Pay-Per-View. I guess it was SummerSlam or something. (I checked on the interwebs and saw that SummerSlam was August 28, 1989, and was a Monday, so I guess I was right.) Anyway, I was at home alone, and heard the noise and festivities next door, but was supposed to try to go to sleep.  Suddenly, I got this feeling of paralyzing fear. A terror I never felt before. Without warning, or waiting for anything to happen, I lept up and ran out the front door, and crossed the porch over to my aunt and uncle's house (we stayed in a duplex). My mom saw me walk in and asked me "Roz, what the hell you still doin' up? You got school tomorrow." I couldn't explain it. She told me "Go back home and go to bed." I said, "No." She said, "Roz. Go back  HOME and go to BED!" I looked at her, shook my head, and said "Uh-uh." She said, "Roz, go back home or I'mma beat your ass!" I said, "You just gon' hafta whoop me, cuz I'm not goin' back over there by myself!" That was the first time I ever defied my mother. She never said another word, and I didn't get a beatin'.

My mom heard spirits in that house too. She just never told me about it. Until months later.

A couple of months later, we stayed with my grandmother and her husband. That house was pretty nice. The only thing was there were two rooms at the back of the house (one was used as a storage room). Well, even in the summer heat, that back storage room was always inexplicably colder than the rest of the house. There was no central air and heat there. Before I knew as much about ghosts and the paranormal as I've since learned, I didn't know that freezing cold rooms meant the presence of spirits and/or ghosts. My grandmother had seen the ghost of an older white man come out of that room before. She learned to ask "What in God's name do you want?" to make the ghosts she saw go away. My mom has heard footsteps in the hallway while she was bathing and nobody but her and the dog were home. The dog, Bob, was in the kitchen, and as far as I remember, did not wear boots.

March 11, 2011, my mom, the kids, and I were driving to another part of town to pick up the steak dinners that we called in and ordered from a local restaurant (I was buying). It was dusk or twilight, as I love to call it. As we drove down the overpass toward Eastlake, I thought I saw a plane landing. For some reason, that "plane" was taking a pretty long time to land. As we got closer, we saw that it was NOT a plane. It was a HUGE triangular-shaped thing with lights on the bottom of it. It just hovered there over a strip mall (where there was what used to be a Food World. Locals would know what I'm talking about). To this day, I haven't heard or seen anything else about it, and we seem to have been the only ones to see it. I didn't have my camera, so there is no proof. I stop short of calling it a UFO, but it was definitely ... peculiar. Planes are not that triangular and they don't hover ... completely still over a building. Not like that. 

One month in 2011 or 2012, I saw Gabby go to their room. Then it hit me, ‘Gab didn’t speak to me. As Gabby walked past, the steps were a lot faster than normal, almost like a flash. I never heard anybody come through the front door, and Mikey was not with them. They hadn't made it home from school yet. Another day, I saw this tall (maybe 7 feet or so) shadow peek into my room, and it ducked back just as I looked up. I didn't see its face, but in my mind's eye, it was very, very dark with a long black robe. its hair was back off its head as if like a receding hairline. I told my mom that I had just seen a shadow. She was talking to someone on the phone and when she described EXACTLY WORD-FOR-WORD to that person what I had seen I interrupted her to tell her that was exactly what I saw. I was shocked. She knew it was time to pray, and I wouldn't leave her room until she did. 

January 2013, I was sitting up around 5 AM doing some homework in my bedroom. I had just figured out how to do it and was in my groove when I suddenly looked up and saw Gabby coming from the living room. I didn't pay it any mind because they happened to be up at that time. Then I stopped to realize...

1. I only saw a silhouette... a shadow. My bedroom light was on, the light from Gab’s room was on, plus the light was on in the kitchen. I should have seen their pretty face.
2. Gabby would have stopped and said "Hi, Mommy!" or "Hi!" as always. 
3. Again, I didn't hear a sound.

I decided not to freak out about it. I finished my homework assignment, then I slowly stood with a stretch and sauntered on out to the hallway. Gabby was lying down with their hair in a ponytail. The "silhouette's" hair was down like Gab was often known to wear it. I asked, “Did you just walk into your room a few minutes ago?” Gab said, "No, mommy. Why?" I just shook my head and said, “Nothing,” and went back to my room.

Bonus Stories: 

Around 2017, Gabby worked at Domino's and their hair was colored brownish or red and shoulder length. One night, I was doing something on my computer in my room, and my youngest, Mikey was on my bed next to me. The next thing I know, I heard a sniffle, and they started to cry. 

I said, "Baby, what's wrong?" 

I was spooked by what they said next, 

"I saw Gabby standing in the doorway staring at me. They had on a Domino's uniform, and their hair was down. They were looking at me really mean, but they didn't have a face!"

I just looked over at my kid in shock. I knew they weren't lying because we'd always seen this doppelgänger. Before, I was the only one who saw it, but Mikey saw it next. No one else in the house ever did. So, they went to Gabby's room and knocked on the door. When they went in, they immediately told Gab what they saw. On a video or some kind of phone call, Gabby was talking to a friend who knew about that stuff and they heard Mikey's story. The friend said it was a manifestation of something Mikey had suppressed. Since Gabby started working, they weren't spending much time at all with Mikey. After that, they started finding ways of spending more time together as much as possible.

Mikey never saw the doppelgänger again.

Around 2017 or 2018 I was taking care of my mom. She was bed-bound from a stroke and I, my uncle, and my dad were her caregivers. It was still kind of early in the day, so my dad and uncle were at work. Gabby was working at Starbucks by this time, but was off work that day and barely stepped out of their room on off-days. They also had short, curly hair with an undercut and it was a reddish color on top and the rest was black. Sometimes, they also wore a plaid shirt. All these details of my kid are important for what I saw.

While in the kitchen, I was getting something from my mom. From the kitchen, you could see into the living room, and there was a "bar" separating the living room from the kitchen. I was looking at the counter or the sink doing this thing for my mom (probably fixing food). Suddenly, a very quick flash went past me. Though it was fast and I could only see it from my peripheral, I saw Gabby's plaid shirt, haircut (same as I described), and all of that. The only difference? There was no face. I felt rather than saw it "glare" at me, but there was no face. I quickly looked up and it was gone. Gabby had a doppelgänger in those apartments.

Gabby was awake, so I quickly called them to me. They came out of their room, and I told them what I saw. I don't think they were wearing that shirt that day. When I told them what I saw, their eyes grew huge! They were spooked by it, but I never saw it again. 

I HEARD it though. One day, I thought Gabby was sleeping, but when I walked past their door, I heard them singing. I couldn't make out the words, but I stopped to listen for a minute. I love to hear Gab sing (they have some original songs on YouTube), so even though I couldn't make out what was being said, I just listened, then went on to my room. Gabby finally emerged from "The Cave" (what they call their room) sometime later. This was our conversation:

"Hey, baby!"

"Hi, Mommy!"

"Did you just wake up?"

"Yeah, I did."

"What were you singing in your room earlier?"

"Huh?"

"When I walked past your room earlier, I thought I heard you singing."

"I wasn't singing anything today. I've been sleeping all day."

"You ... weren't singing."

"No, Mommy."

"I heard singing in your room and it sounded exactly like you."

Mikey and Gabby looked at me with a level of fear I hadn't seen before. We all believe in ghosts and spirits, so they never doubted me. We all just went silent after that, so we simply stopped talking about it. One other time, I heard Gab's giggling coming from the room. I got back to my room and asked Mikey about it.

"I thought Gabby had work today?"

"Mommy, they're AT work!"

My eyes got big.

"What, Mommy? What's wrong?"

"I just heard giggling in their room! I heard them giggle!"

Mikey looked shocked. We told Gabby about it when they got home later. In that apartment, we often saw a dark shadow quickly zoom into the bathroom. We never saw it come back out. It got to the point where I would just sigh in frustration whenever I saw it. Sometimes, the anomaly was white, and that wasn't as alarming. Mikey saw them too. 

When we got to the apartment we're in now, I saw a shadow at my door that looked exactly like my dad. I was singing, so when I saw the shadow, I was embarrassed. It was our first week here and my dad was staying at his girlfriend's house that first week (my mom passed away in 2019, and he's since started back dating). When I leaned over to see out my open door, no one was there. I didn't see or hear anyone. I walked out of my room and looked all over. No one was home. I've since told it it wasn't welcome here and to go back to Irondale (where our old apartment was).

Since then, I saw a small tube of perfume or something else move by themselves like you see in paranormal shows. When I saw those things, I immediately said, "NOPE! NO, YOU WILL NOT! You are NOT welcome here, go BACK wherever you came from! NO!"

I didn't tell these "stories" to scare anyone, nor am I trying to change anyone's skepticism about the existence of ghosts, spirits, or UFOs. I'm simply told of some strange experiences I have had. Do I wish they hadn't happened? I don't know. I guess maybe I do. But then again, I wouldn't have been witness to some of the strange, unexplainable occurrences of this earth. Things are going on that we have yet to understand. Some things that science simply cannot explain. I don't care if no one believes me or not. I know I'm not crazy. I just know the things I have seen.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!