A few days ago Karen related a tale that gave everyone shivers. Then Brandy chilled us all with a story of her own.
I've been debating over the last two days whether or not I would share my experiences. The reason why is that I'm still trying to find some logical reasons for them.
But no matter how I try, I can't. There simply aren't any.
Without further adieu, here are my stories to share.
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My grandparents had a good relationship. They were the love of each other's lives and had many blissful years together. Unfortunately life is unfair and Grandpa passed away. After a few months, my grandmother would tell us that she knew Grandpa visited her. And that he sometimes played tricks on her. He was that kind of guy.
You see, Grandma sometimes would lose things. It happens. But the things that went missing were usually things that Grandpa gave to Grandma. Like jewelry.
More times than I can count Grandma would complain she'd lost an earring, a necklace, or a ring. She'd look endlessly for the item. For weeks she'd drive herself crazy trying to find it only to give up hope.
Shortly after she'd resigned herself that it was completely gone, it would show up.
Just appear. Where would it appear? Always in the same place. On her nightstand.
In plain sight.
And of course she would then call my mother and tell her what had happened. I always got chills hearing that the lost item just
showed up like that. I mean, Grandma is an extremely neat and organized person. Her house was always impeccable. It's not like she could have missed seeing the lost item on her nightstand - there was never anything on it except a lamp.
She swore it was my grandfather. I believe her.
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Something I haven't mentioned on my blog is that I lost my mother six and a half years ago. She was young. The circumstances were tragic and unnecessary. I miss her every day.
After her funeral, I was given her watch, wedding rings, and a few other pieces of jewelry that she wore every day. I cherish these pieces. I put them in a little
burgundy velvet bag and stored that in my jewelry box. The jewelry box was kept on the top shelf in my closet in the back, where even I couldn't get to it without a stool. My boys certainly would not be able to reach it.
Somewhere around three years ago when my youngest son was two and my oldest son was five, we came home from running errands. My two year old went to walk into their bedroom and stopped halfway there because something on the floor caught his eye.
He came running to me with his hand outstretched, face beaming with his "found treasure."
That treasure was my mother's watch.
The watch that was supposed to be in my closet. That I hadn't even taken out in maybe a year. That my two sons had never even seen because I hadn't ever shown it to them.
But here it was, in my two year
old's hands. I remember my heart started to beat really fast and felt like it was too big for my chest. I took it from my son and examined it, just to make sure I was actually seeing what I thought I was seeing. I just couldn't make sense of it.
I then went into my closet and got the jewelry box down. It was still where it had been for the longest time. I don't know what I was expecting to see when I opened it - maybe a duplicate of my mother's watch so that I could somehow wrap my mind around what was happening.
But no such luck. The watch in my hands that my son had found was most definitely my mother's watch and the one that was
supposed to be in that jewelry box.
I still don't know how it got on the floor. Maybe my mother was trying to leave a sign for me that she's watching over me. I've no idea. But I do know that I will probably never understand.
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This next story is much more recent.
For Christmas a couple of years ago my husband gave me a beautiful pair of opal earrings to match a ring that he'd given me the year before.
When we were moving all of our stuff out of our old apartment the first weekend, I noticed that my opal earrings weren't in my jewelry box. (This is a different jewelry box than the one I keep my mother's items in.) I figured they'd gotten packed in something else and I'd find them when we unpacked here at the new house.
As you know, we left a good amount of our stuff at the old apartment because we couldn't fit it on the first trip. After unpacking here and not finding those earrings, I reasoned they must be somewhere in the old apartment.
When we went back there over New Year's weekend to pack the rest of our things and clean it out, I looked for those earrings.
For three days I looked and looked and came up with nothing for my effort. The boys' room was emptied and clean. Hubby's and my bedroom (where I kept the earrings) was emptied and clean. And with a heavy heart I vacuumed in there, all the while hoping that the earrings weren't getting sucked into the vacuum. I'd pretty much given up on finding them.
Soon enough everything was packed and we were about ready to leave. Last step was to vacuum the living room and we'd be as good as out of there.
I was talking to hubby about something when something glittered in the sunlight on the floor by my feet. I thought maybe it was an aluminum candy wrapper or something. I figured the vacuum cleaner would get it and almost didn't bend down to pick it up. But something told me I needed to take a closer look.
I couldn't believe my eyes when I picked up my opal earrings off the floor. I stood there, mouth agape, at the thought that here all weekend long we'd been
walking right where they were and never saw them, never stepped on them, nothing.
I just couldn't believe it. I told my hubby and his eyes widened at how odd that was. I told him I thought it had to be my grandfather or my mother. And then told him the story about my grandmother's nightstand. And reminded him of the time our youngest found my mother's watch on the floor.
You have to understand, all weekend long we'd had a very bright work lamp sitting on the floor in the living room, its light beam shining in the path where the earrings were. If they'd been there all weekend long, we'd have seen them glittering in the light. But we didn't. Because I'm sure that they weren't there all weekend long.
I'm sure that my grandfather and my mother helped to make sure I found those before we left that place for the last time.
