Remembering My Aunt Ellen

A few years ago I was at a party at an artist's house.  This artist friend of mine has friends from all walks of life, and I find pretty much all of them very interesting.

This particular party had fellow artists, a preacher, a local TV personality, business people, etc. and one professional psychic.

Yes.  You read that correctly.

This psychic came up to me, introduced herself, and said, "You have a guardian angel."

I replied, "I have many guardian angels."

To that she said, "This one's name is Ellen, and she is always with you."

I said, "I know."

She seemed surprised at my answers, but I was not in the least surprised by her remarks.  My Aunt Ellen would, of course, be watching over me.  I'm sure she watches over all her nieces, nephews, children, and odd neighborhood kids she knew.  Aunt Ellen was like that.

Aunt Ellen was one of Mama's younger sisters.  Every summer my Mama would send me to Aunt Ellen's house to stay for a week.  I'd also usually spend a week at my Aunt Vernie's house and another week at my Aunt Beadie's house and sometimes even a week at Uncle Bob's, but those are other stories.  Today I'm remembering Aunt Ellen.

Aunt Ellen had a husband named Uncle Bud, but his real name was Ellie.  He worked at a service station back when service stations had attendants to pump your gas, wash your windshield, and check your oil, etc.  I was grown before I even heard of anyone pumping their own gas.  It was a different world back then.

Uncle Bud and Aunt Ellen seemed to me like opposites.  

Aunt Ellen loved to talk.  She was very friendly and would tell you all kinds of stories. She never met a stranger.  She would talk loud and laugh often.  

Uncle Bud, on the other hand, was shy and quiet.  He didn't seem to know that many people, but the ones he did know all respected him and valued his opinions.  He was so soft spoken that you needed to be very near him to hear what he said, and since he almost never talked, you'd want to hear because it would probably be something important to know. 

I guess opposites really do attract because those two really loved one another.

Aunt Ellen and Uncle Bud had an older son named Dean, and three children younger than me, Kay, Raymond, and Darryl.  Aunt Ellen's children were always nice to me, and I almost always enjoyed going to her house.

She loved to cook.  Aunt Ellen peeled her tomatoes and did not peel her cucumbers, which I always thought was odd because Mama, her sister, peeled her cucumbers and not her tomatoes.  Aunt Ellen always put salt, pepper, and sugar on her tomato sandwiches.  Mama never put sugar on hers.

I always found it interesting that sisters could cook so differently.

Mama and Aunt Ellen were different in so many ways.  

Mama was tall and thin most of her life except for her 50s and early 60s when she gained nearly 100 pounds, which all promptly disappeared after she retired. 

Aunt Ellen was always a larger woman, whose natural curves would put Dolly Parton to shame.

Both women were extremely attractive in their own ways, but their marriages seemed very different.  For instance...

• Mama and Daddy were never affectionate in public.  They never even kissed in front of us children.  They were very private people in that way.  
•  In contrast, Aunt Ellen and Uncle Bud were very affectionate to one another.  They kissed good-bye and said, "I love you," right in front of us!

I LOVED that Aunt Ellen and Uncle Bud loved each other so much and showed it.  I will never forget the night I was spending the night at Aunt Ellen's house when Uncle Bud came home from work hurt. One of his hands was all bandaged up because he had accidentally cut off one of his fingers!  They had re-attached the finger at the hospital and sent him home.  Aunt Ellen was so upset.  I felt sorry for her.  Uncle Bud was hurt very badly, but I remember he comforted Aunt Ellen that night.  He didn't want her to be upset or worry about him.  Such was their relationship.

When Aunt Ellen was in her 50s and just turned 60, she had headaches. She also had breathing and other health problems.  She went to a lot of doctors over those years who told her there was nothing wrong. Then one day her face started to swell.  The whole right side of her face was swollen, so the doctors couldn't ignore her anymore. When they took her seriously enough to do some x-rays, they found the cancer.

Yes.  It turns out she had cancer.  By the time they found it, it was too late.  The doctors gave her three months to live, which was about how long she lasted after the diagnosis.  She was 60 when she passed away in September of 1982.  I miss her so much.

Uncle Bud was lost without Aunt Ellen.  He only lived a few more years.  The grief weighed heavy on him.  He never got over losing her.

The last time I visited the little town where they lived, I rode by their old house.  It hurt my heart to see it after all these years.  It felt so empty without Aunt Ellen and Uncle Bud inside, even though it looked like someone did live there.  The house itself looked like it had shrunk.  Originally it was just a little four room house with a bathroom, but they built onto it when their children grew older and they needed more room.  Even with the addition it looked tiny to me that day. The yard that once seemed so big, was just a little patch of land with a fence around it.  The whole neighborhood looked like it had fallen into disrepair. It made me sad to see it.

I prefer to remember the little house like it was when I was young.  Full of the smell of good food and the love of good people. I like to remember going up to that front door and having it opened by a woman with a quick smile and a big laugh.  She was always glad to see me.  I loved those visits.

Yes.  I do have a guardian angel named Ellen.  The psychic was right.  I also have many other guardian angels.  I love and miss them all, and I'll tell you about them by and by.  Stay tuned.

Aunt Ellen and Uncle Bud in his WWII Uniform

Happy Groundhog Day!

Punxsutawney Phil Sees Shadow

Predicts Six More Weeks of Winter

Poor Punxsutawney Phil.  They woke him up and hurt his eyes with the sunshine casting his shadow, and he was not finished sleeping.  Then they let thousands of people be photographed individually with His Seer of Seer Rodentness.  

Poor thing.  I hope he's back to napping by the time you read this.

Today, here in Charleston, it is a lovely sunshiny day.  Beautiful and fairly cool in the 60s outside right now, but 95 degrees in my office because there are no working thermostats in this building, but that is another story.

I sincerely can NOT wait to retire where I hope to spend the rest of my entire life in a place with working thermostats, so that I always know what the weather will be INSIDE the building I am in.  That is my hope.  I also hope to spend the rest of my life in buildings where bathrooms are NOT a hike away from my room or office.

Ah...it is a daydreaming kind of day today for sure.

Groundhog Day has been a marker of my life for the past 22 years.  I feel somehow that today releases me from that curse.  I feel lighter somehow and hopeful that my next (and most likely last) 22 years will be more joyful and populated with much happier days.  

That is my wish.  That is my hope.  

Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing at least a few more days of winter this year.  I know we've already had two days of winter here in lovely Charleston, SC, but we used to get at least two weeks of winter.  I'd like that.  I miss seasons most of all.

But my azaleas are already blooming and my grass is greening and all my spring flowers are raising their little heads.  I suspect HOT HOT HOT weather will arrive all too soon here.

I can NOT wait to move, so I can breathe better, see more of my family, and generally be a happier person.  I look forward to the later part of 2017 with anticipation and hope!  

Happy Groundhog's Day everyone! 

Visitations

This is a story.  Just like any other story.  Some of it is true.

It started when I was very young.  They'd come.  Confused.  I'd see them out of the corner of my eye.  Standing there wanting.  Wondering.  Anxious.

There'd be some sort of accident.  A car would crash.  A log would fall at the saw mill.  A house would burn.  They'd come.  Drawn to the energy that is me.

Mama knew I was different.  She tried to beat the different out of me, but it stayed anyway.  I left her house as soon as I could.  Sooner than I should have, but I felt I had no choice.  

It is true that the outside scars always healed soon enough, but the inside scars never heal.  They weep instead.  They hurt.  They scream in rage.  They are immortal, like the ones who come.

She could see them too.  My Mama.  She didn't want to look.  She denied it long past my youth, but she knew.  Mama always knew things she shouldn't know.  Had no right to know.  She just knew.  I suspect her Mama tried to beat it out of her too.  That never works, of course.  You can't stop their coming.  You can't stop the knowing.  

It pops into your head when you least expect it, and you just know.  The baby will die.  The man will get the job.  The couple will marry, but it won't last.  You learn to block it eventually.  It's not good to look for it.  There is a price.  There is always a price.

The night this story happened was cooler than usual.  Bright with stars and moonlight.  Smelling of the cool clear air of home.  The sirens woke me up.  Tearing though the early morning hours with an urgency you could just feel.  The dogs wailed at their passing.  A warning in the night.  Then suddenly they stopped.  The sirens. Abruptly they stopped.  Dreadfully they stopped making the hair stand up on my arms and tears come to my eyes.

The air in the room was suddenly cold.  I could see my breath in the dim light the streetlight spread through my room.  I turned over in bed shivering at what I did not know, when I heard it, and I knew.  I was not alone.

Both my dogs got up and went into my kitchen where the cups he made with his own hands hung above my sink.  The dogs' tails were wagging.  They did not bark.  They recognized him.  

The entity in my kitchen felt male and panicked. I knew the dogs would comfort him, and I'm sure they did.  I didn't know who it was, but I knew someone had passed away that my dogs knew, but my dogs know many people.  I thought maybe it was one of our elderly neighbors down the street.  Passing through to say good-bye and give the dogs one last pat on their way to heaven.  It had happened before.  I was not surprised, but this time, I was wrong.  

The next day I heard the sad news.  The dogs did indeed know their visitor.  I knew him too, and I was heartbroken to hear of his passing.  I've been weighted with grief this past week, but the grief suddenly lifted today.  He is calm now.  More settled.  More accepting.  He will be okay.  He stayed as long as he could.  Perhaps longer than he should, but he had no choice.  

Do not concern yourself.  Life never ends.  Only the body dies.  We will all meet again.  One fine day.  That is my advice to you.

Yes.  This is a story.  Just like any other story.  Some of it is true.

Prophetic Dream

Many years ago I dreamed a dream.  A very disturbing dream.  The US was at war, and random bombs and violence was happening all over America, but not everyday.  Just random things like the Boston Marathon bombing and the things in this article from September 2016.

It was one of those dreams where I was so upset that I realized I was dreaming and woke myself up. Once awake, I just somehow knew it would happen.

At the time I was renting the upstairs of an old house on one of Charleston's barrier islands, but in the dream I lived up Hwy 61 in West Ashley, and I had dogs.

As I said, years have passed.  I now find myself living with dogs where I lived in the dream, and I have watched as all the buildings in the dream have been built in real life.  All but the last few on the other side of the Crosstown.

They are in the process of building those last ones now.  

As each building goes up, I think of that dream and nearly panic at the thought of still being here when it happens.  I will retire and move away in July of this year if at all possible. Hopefully it won't happen before then.

In the dream a bomb explodes near the front of the Veteran's Hospital in downtown Charleston, SC.  Panic ensues.  

Soldiers arrive shortly after the explosion.  They raise the Ashley River drawbridge and close off the peninsular.  No one is allowed to enter or leave.  I am frantic to get across the Ashley River to my dogs, and in the dream I am considering trying to "borrow" a boat to cross the Ashley River, but then I rationalized that I would need my car to get out of the area.  I was frantic to leave, but couldn't figure out a way to get off the peninsular.  I was so frantic that I woke myself up.  

Let's hope this was just an unfortunate dream that has stayed with me for over a decade.  Let's hope that the buildings they have built that were in the dream are just a coincidence.  Let's hope that no one targets our Veteran's Hospital with a bomb. 

But most of all...I hope I get to move away before they finish those last buildings.  Let's hope....

Remembering My Grandma Alice: A True Story

Two of my brothers have passed away.  One is buried at sea.  The other's grave is in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.  I've been missing both of them a lot this week, which reminded me of funerals and the process of dying, which somehow made me think of my Grandma Alice.

My Grandma Alice lived in a little white house in Gaffney, South Carolina during my early childhood.  She was in her 70s when I was born, so she was retired all the years I knew her.  

Grandma was a tiny little woman.  She might have been five foot tall if she stood on her tip-toes.  She was thin and nicely wrinkled with dark brown hair that never turned grey. 

Grandma loved me.  I was her namesake.

Grandma was the mother of ten children.  She outlived two of them.  My father, who was her eldest, died of heart failure in 1962 less than four months shy of being 62 years old, and  Samuel, her third child, died of pneumonia as a young child on the "mill hill" in Cherokee Falls, SC. 

I admire my grandmother.  She had a hard life raising all those children on a shoestring and losing two of them and her husband in her lifetime.  I'm not sure I could have survived that life.  Grandma was a very strong woman, a direct descendant of both French and Scottish nobility, who lived her life in poverty in the isolated hill country of the Carolinas.

I have many memories of my Grandma, both good and bad, as she was human, but the memory I want to share with you today happened in 1963 when Grandma was so very sick and living her last hours on this Earth.  

They had called in the family.  Grandma was released from the hospital so she could die at home.  By the time we got there, she was in bed in her house and her fever was high.  I was young, but I remember my aunts and uncles looking grave and saying, "Pneumonia," in hushed voices.  

Grandma was talking in a croaking voice between weak coughs.  She had a death rattle.  I will never forget that sound.  Not really something a child should hear coming from her grandmother, but there it was.  Death.  The aunts and uncles recognized the sound.  Their faces white, their mouths clinched tight, trying to keep back the tears.  Their mother was dying.

And she was talking.

Grandma was suddenly young and happy and being courted by my dashingly handsome, Grandpa William, who passed in 1934 at age 56 of kidney failure, so long before I was born.  She was getting ready for a date with him and telling her Mama she could hear William's carriage coming down the road.  She was trying to hurry.  "How do I look?" she asked, wanting to look her best for her beau.

I asked Mama why Grandma said carriage instead of car.  Mama explained to me that back in the late 1800s when Grandma was young and dating Grandpa, there were no cars.  They only had horses and carriages.

Grandma relived many years of her life while lying in that bed those final long hours.  She talked to friends and relatives long since dead.  They gathered round her bed thick as thieves.  She would laugh, which sent her into fits of coughing, but she was happy to see them.  She talked to Daddy too, which made Mama cry.

In the end, William came in his carriage and she went peacefully and happily to join him.   The body she left behind was merely a shell...a decaying cocoon.  Her soul was free. 

Grandma's body lies beside her beloved William in the Hopewell Baptist Church graveyard in Blacksburg, South Carolina.   I find it comforting to know they are together.  She loved him so....

Nursing Home Ghost Visitations: True Stories?

Since I was just a toddler, I've been around the elderly.  My own father was 54 years old when I was born, and my mother was two months away from being 38 at my birth.  Their aunts and uncles all died during my childhood, so I have never been a stranger to losing those I love.

Seeing so many elderly persons exit this life also showed me what happens during their final days.  Almost always they are visited by those loved ones who have gone before.

I know this sounds crazy, but I promise you it is true.  Ask any nursing home or hospice worker and they will tell you stories too.  Some may try to explain it away with medication or the brain's chemicals altering before death, but those explanations pale when you see it for yourself so many times.

My boy, Buster, was a registered Therapy Dog.  We visited a nursing home weekly from mid-2006 until a week before Buster's death in December 2013.  I can tell you with certainty that dogs know and see things that people do not.  Buster was amazing.

I'm fairly convinced that humans are the stupidest of all creatures, if you want to know the truth, but I digress....

Buster saw things in that nursing home that I couldn't see.  He would often wag his tail and look up expectantly like someone should pet him outside a room where the patient had passed away the previous night or a day or two ago.  It was like they came to tell Buster good-bye.  Buster wouldn't even let me lead him into those rooms.  He somehow knew that person was no longer there. 

This is just truth.

Buster and I would often visit an elderly patient who would tell me all about how their mother had been to see them that day.  They would chat happily and tell me all about the visit.  I'd mention it to the nurses, who would give me a wary look and almost always tell me that person had other visitations that week too.

By the next week when Buster and I visited, that person would have passed away.

It happened over and over and over, so I decided to try some Google searches to see if it happens to others and guess what?  Yup.  Happens all the time.

Some people call the visitors angels or Jesus or some other religious figure, but most people recognize the visitor as a deceased family member.  I find that fascinating.

The Google searches also turned up a LOT of stories about how Grandma's ghost (or whomever's ghost) visited her family the night she died, etc.

Hallucinations?  Maybe, but I personally believe not.  I believe we merely live in these bodies while we are on this physical plane.  The energy that is us never dies.  Only the body returns to dust, so it makes sense to me that someone on a spirit plane might be able to communicate with someone on a physical plane. 

I believe we are never truly alone.

Doesn't really matter what anyone believes though.  What is true and real is true and real whether we believe it or not and that real  truth might be different from anything any human has ever imagined before. 

Still, it comforts me to think my loved ones who have passed away are still alive and well in the spirit world and I will get to see them all again someday.  I like to believe that.

Just something to think about today.  We'll all know the answer soon enough.

The Sight

Sharyn McCrumb is one of my very favorite authors.  In fact, I am presently reading her latest book, Prayers the Devil Answers.  If you have not yet read any of her books, RUN, do NOT walk, to your nearest library or bookstore right now!  You can finish reading this blog later.  😉

Sharyn writes historical fiction that is generally more true than not. Her books are mostly set in the Appalachian mountains.  She's written several New York Times best sellers including The Ballad of Tom Dooley, The Ballad of Frankie Silver, and Ghost Riders. 

Her novel, Kings Mountain tells the story of the Battle of Kings Mountain, the turning point of the Revolutionary War. 

That Battleground is considered by many locals to be haunted ground. Too many people died violent deaths there to believe otherwise.

I should know.  Kings Mountain Battleground is located in my hometown of Blacksburg, SC.  The town of Kings Mountain is in North Carolina, but the fighting happened in South Carolina near where I grew up. 

Naturally, I read Kings Mountain as soon as it was published, but my favorite of Sharyn's books is The Rosewood Casket, a Ballad novel.  I love Sharyn's "Ballad" novels best.

My very favorite of all Sharyn's characters appears in her "Ballad" novels, Nora Bonesteel.  In the books, Nora Bonesteel has "The Sight" and I find that fascinating!

Nora is based on the real life person, Charlotte Ross, who is a wonderful storyteller!  Earlier this week my purchase of Charlotte's storytelling CD arrived.  There are four wonderful stories on the CD.  One of them tells a true account of a ghost appearing to Charlotte when she was eight years old.  You see, the real person, Charlotte, like the fictional character, Nora, has "The Sight."

This got me to remembering all the times strange unexplainable things have happened in my own life and the lives of many of my family members.  

The Sight is strong in my family.

Back in the 1970s, when I was in my 20s, I woke up before daylight one morning with such a feeling of dread that it is hard for me to describe it to you.  

Something horrible had happened to my brother, Gene, that night.  I didn't know what; but I knew it had happened; and I knew it was horrific. 

Gene, like many other Vietnam War veterans, came back from that war feeling lost and disillusioned with life.  Those first few years after he left the Service, he spent wandering the country.  He never felt right no matter where he was.  He would hitch-hike and hobo from one place to another.  We almost never knew where he was, but he would call once in awhile to let us know he was okay.  

The last time he called, he was in Texas, so that's where I started looking for him. I called Directory Assistance and got the phone numbers for pretty much all the Veteran's Hospitals in Texas, and I started calling.

Now, back then making a long distance phone call was a big expensive thing, but I honestly didn't care.  I kept dialing and dialing until I felt like the crazy lady the people who answered my calls found me. THEN...

Finally, MIRACULOUSLY I found a nurse in a Veteran's hospital in Texas who knew Gene. She said he had been in that hospital for a cut or something several weeks prior.  She remembered him because he was a big strapping red-headed thing who flirted outrageously with her.  When she said that, I knew it was the right Gene!  She told me Gene was headed to Washington State, so...

I called Directory Assistance again and got the numbers for all the Veteran's Hospitals in Washington State.

It took several days, but I finally found him.  He was in Spokane, WA in a Veteran's Hospital and he was alive! 

The night I woke up frantic was the night my brother, Gene, was hit by a train in Spokane, WA.  Gene had lost one of his legs and had been unable to call to let any of us know.  

There were no cordless phones back then and no phones in the rooms at that VA Hospital.  They said they tried to call a family member once for him, but there was no answer.  No voicemail back then.  No call waiting.   

A few weeks after I found him, Gene was able to get to the nurse's desk to call me.  I was so relieved!  He told me all about the accident and how a buddy he was traveling with saved his life.

Gene spent about six months in that VA Hospital recovering and learning to walk on his artificial leg.  By the time I saw him again in person, he was walking so well that you couldn't even tell one of his legs was missing.  It was a miracle!

My red-headed brother, Gene, a couple of months after losing his leg, still in a VA Hospital in Spokane, WA.

Decades later, in 2002 when Gene did pass away, I didn't know.  

My mother was in an Upstate, SC hospital in Neuro-ICU at the time.  They had just called in the family and told us that Mama was not going to wake up from her coma, and I had argued with the doctor about it.  I was angry because the doctor had just written her off when I had a strong feeling that she was going to live.  

Several family members including my older sons, Dave and Marcus, myself, one of my sisters, and a couple of cousins were standing around her bed, and I was talking to her.  I said, "Marcus is here. Mama, did you hear me? I said, Marcus is here."  Mama suddenly said, "He is?" and smiled.

We all looked at each other for a second, but then Mama started talking.  Mama said, "There were two men."

I said, "There was?"

Mama shook her head yes and continued, "Those men wanted me to get down in that hole, but I didn't want to do it. Then this other man came and said, 'I'll go,' so he got down in the hole and I woke up!"

Several of us said at once, "Somebody died."

We were right.  The next day he was found, dead in his bathroom with the water still running in the sink.  My brother, Gene.  Dead at 53 of a massive heart attack.

Mama walked out of that hospital very much alive.  She lived another 3.5 years, but hers is a story for another day.

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Please share your stories in the comments.  Most families have such stories, and I find them fascinating!