Normally I never believed in ghosts and part of me still doesn't but I just cannot explain the event that unfolded one summer night when I was 14 in 1991. It was the same week that "The Chase" (http://ymaout.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-chase.html September 25th blog) happened. My memory is distorted on what event happened first, nonetheless these events did happen. In a quick summary, my mom just had a hysterectomy and I invited a friend, Amy, to come up to our cabin at Houghton Lake while my mom recovers.
The cabin used to be my grandparents. Every summer since as long as I can remember we could go there. We knew everyone around the area and even the neighbors to our right is one set of my godparents. They still live there to this day. As much as I love the cabin I had alway felt a weird vibe to certain areas of the house. There is the kids bedroom. I hated being in there at night. I can't explain it and nothing happened but you feel like someone is watching you. I refused to look in the closet for anything. The closet doors were always open but I just would not glance in that direction. I hated sleeping in that room. Even today I don't like the feeling I get when I go into in there. Another room we call MeMe's room. She was my great grandmother and this was her room when staying at the cabin. Again, when I enter this room I get a different vibe that something is just off about it. The other two bedrooms are fine. No strange feelings when I enter those rooms or any other part of the house.
It was just a regular evening at the cabin. We wanted to stay up and watch TV (probably the Late Show) and camp out in the livingroom. There is a huge picture window that looks out to the lake. Houghton Lake is the biggest inland lake in Michigan. It is breathtaking looking out at night and seeing all the lights dotted around the lake from people's homes. If the waves are high enough you can hear them splashing against the side of the boats. It is very peaceful. We spent our evening putting our hair up in curlers and doing our nails. We eventually got tired and fell asleep. She fell asleep on the floor and went and made myself comfortable on the couch.
Some time during the night I became restless and opened my eyes. What laid before me was astounding. A dense, pale white, misty fog covered the floor in the livingroom and surrounding area. I remember thinking how odd that was. I couldn't see Amy sleeping on the floor. The fog covered her right up. Over by the TV, in almost a perfect triangular shape, was a black void. It was just pure black. I couldn't even see the TV. The fog would swirl around like choppy waves at sea rising and falling. I eventually laid back down feeling at rest with myself, and fell back to sleep.
A short time later I awoke again and leaned up. I looked around the fog was still there. In the love seat that was across the room from me sat a tiny baby. I am guessing this baby to be about 5-6 months old. It was leaning back like it was propped up against the back of the love seat. It was a chubby little baby just in a diaper. There was just a feeling of peace about everything. I laid my head back down and fell back asleep.
For a third time that night I awoke. Again, I half sat up and looked around. The fog was still there. The black void was still there. I looked across the room and the baby was gone. I glanced over and there was a fireman sitting in the recliner chair. It looked like he got home from a fire call. He had his hat and boots on. His face was just a black shadow. His fireman coat was unbuttoned. His arms were on the arm rests. His right hand was holding an axe. He wasn't holding it in a threatening manner. It was like he was just holding it, as if someone was holding a rolled up newspaper with their hand while sitting. It was very nonchalant looking. I stared at him for a while. I wasn't scared or nervous. Instead, I felt a very peaceful, calm, numbing, tranquil feeling with myself. I knew what I was seeing but my brain wasn't having a thought process of what I was viewing. I never experienced that feeling ever before or had I ever since. I laid back down and drifted back off to sleep.
I woke up a fourth time. The fog was still there. The void was still there. The baby and the fireman were gone. As peaceful as everything was I was starting to get annoyed by waking up all the time. I thought perhaps my curlers were causing me the restless sleep. I decided to take them off. I slid myself off the couch and onto the floor. I still couldn't see Amy. I looked down and the fog covered everything from my hips down. I knew my legs were straight out in front of me but I couldn't see them. I sat there in the fog looking around just mesmerized by it all. I reached up to my hair and slowly started unraveling a curler. I sat it down next to me. As my hand would bring each curler down to the floor my hand would disappear into this fog. I shook out my curls a little bit and climbed back up on the couch. I laid my head back down on my pillow and fell back asleep. That was the last time I woke up until morning.
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| This is the layout of the livingroom at the cabin. The yellow squares are the reclining chairs with a end table in between. The maroon rectangle is the love seat. The brown rectangle is the couch where I slept. The black void is where we had a small table-top TV. Amy was on the floor sleeping. B=baby; F=fireman. The long thin rectangle is the window looking out to the lake. |
When I woke up in the morning my mom was awake in the kitchen getting her coffee going and breakfast. Amy was still sleeping. I went over to the kitchen, sat myself on the bar stool across from my mom and we had general conversation at first. Then I decided to tell her, "Mom," I said, "I had a strange dream or something last night." and I told her about it.
"A fireman?!" my mom interrupts when I got to that part, "Did you just say you seen a fireman?" My mom started to go pale in the face.
"Yes! He was just sitting there in Grandpa's chair." I told her.
"How do you know it was a fireman?" my mom asks.
"Because he had the fireman triangular looking style of hat. He had his heavy looking coat on. He had his boots on. No mistaking it, it was a fireman." I replied back.
She became very quiet for a moment and an odd look came across her face. "Do you know who lived here before Nonnie and Grandpa?" Nonnie is what we called our grandmother.
Now I was started to look bewildered, "Didn't Nonnie and Grandpa build this place?" I knew that my grandpa helped build the seawall out front and I just assumed that since I grew up here that they built this home. No one ever mentioned prior owners. I was young to even think about prior owners.
"No, they bought it back in the mid to late 1970's." That probably explains why I thought they built it since I was born in 1977. My mom continuted on, "The man that lived here previously died from a heart attack and he used to be a fireman and was retired before he died"
"Get out!" I rolled my eyes not wanting to believe her tease, "That is not true!"
"Don't you remember, next to the garage, there was the fake fire hydrant? It was part of his retirement gift from the fire station." Her look was dead serious.
I strained my memory trying to recall it. "I don't remember it at all. What happened to it?"
"I don't know. I think Grandpa just got rid of it."
Chills started to run up and down my spine. So perhaps the fireman I seen WAS the ghost of the man who lived here before. I still cannot explain the baby I seen or the fog or why there was a black void in the corner of the room.
You would think that I would be now terrified of the livingroom. Just the opposite, actually. I find great comfort and peace being in that room. When the house if full of family I usually take the couch, although I never seen the ghost of the fireman again. I still get an eerie feeling when I walk into the kids room and MeMe's room. Funny how that is.
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