Our Little Old Lady

From: Denise McAvaney (oliviers@bunbury.iap.net.au)
Story type: Ghost
Location: Narrogin, Western Australia
Source: Form Submission

In June 1992, my husband and I with our son Adam moved to an old house in Narrogin, W.A. Adam was nearly two years old and I was six months pregnant with our second son, Matthew. We were not in the house long before strange things happened.

We heard footsteps moving around the house, and pictures we had hung on the walls began to shift to different angles. We noticed the pictures moved mostly while we were out, or if we brought strangers to the house.

Once we returned from a weekend away to find a halfpenny dated 1928 lying on the lounge carpet where we had often heard footsteps pass. At night if our bedroom door was left ajar, we could glimpse a mysterious face peering from around the door as though curious. Adam would point into corners and say "Lady there", or carry on a conversation with an invisible "lady".

My sister, who often heard the voice of a dear friend who had died speak to her, told me that the voice said our ghost was an old lady who belonged to the house, and that she was gentle and meant no harm.

Soon Matthew was born. On the morning of the day I was to bring him home from the hospital, my husband awoke to find a fire blazing cheerfully in the fireplace, where there had only been cold ashes for 3 days. It was as though our ghost knew I was bringing the baby, and tried to warm the house in readiness.

To celebrate Matthew's birth, my husband had bought a helium balloon that proclaimed "It's A Boy!". We let this balloon drift around the house. It often seemed to possess a mind of its own, suddenly appearing behind us, especially if we were changing the baby etc.

One day, I was breastfeeding Matthew in the lounge while Adam napped in a bedroom which opened off the same room. Adam awoke crying, and when I did not get up immediately, the balloon floated down the hallway from the other end of the house, past where I sat, stopped at Adam's doorway, then floated across to Adam, who immediately stopped crying. I often felt as though our ghost wanted to comfort and protect the children, especially since I suffered from depression and sometimes failed to give my boys the loving attention they deserved.

We moved to another town soon after Matthew was born. Although I was often uneasy, even scared, at the thought of living in a haunted house, there are times I miss our "lady". I hope whoever shares her house now has children whom she can love.

Last year,1995, when I was expecting our third child, something happened to make me wonder if Adam possesses a special gift that allowed him to see that "lady" when he was only two. Adam had only just been put to bed one night, when he cried out in fright for his Dad. When my husband got to Adam's room, Adam said "There's an old lady in my room". The next morning, I went into labour, and our daughter was born. She is the spitting image of my grandmother, who died in 1986. She is so like her in appearance, I can't help but wonder if my Grandma didn't visit us and appear to Adam the night before she started to enter the world for the second time. My Grandma had such a hard life, I think she has been given back to us, reincarnated as my daughter, so that she will have a better life this time around. Denise.