My Real Life Ghost Story
I told Pam I would talk about the locally famous haunted
house (McPike Mansion, Alton IL) down the street from where I live, but I
changed my mind.
Instead, since I write romance and am celebrating the
release of my debut book, The Bull Rider’s Brother, I’m telling you the story
of the ghost who tried to save me from a bad marriage.
I was just eighteen, summer between freshmen and sophomore
year at college. Living at home, I was working swing shift at a local factory
making plastic milk bottles. (As a side
note, if you want to make sure your college age child returns to school after
summer break, get them a job watching a machine make plastic bottles. I ran
back to school after that summer.)
One day, I met the man who would become my first husband. He
worked days at the same factory. We
started dating, mistake number one.
Later that week, I saw one of the jokesters who worked my
shift sitting on top of the pop machine right outside the door that lead to my
workstation. I pulled aside the plastic
strips to tell them they weren’t scaring me, and no one was on the top of the
machine.
I figured it was my imagination.
That weekend, I was sleeping over at this guy’s house. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman
sitting on the window sill. Her face
sad. I sat straight up in bed, but
again, no one was there.
I screamed, waking the still sleeping boyfriend. He turned on the lights and held me until I
fell back into a fitful sleep. The next
morning over coffee, he told me the history of the house. How he’d been told that a woman committed
suicide in the house after finding out her husband had been unfaithful.
I swore I’d never enter the house again.
The boyfriend moved in with me, renting the house to a young
couple. The renter husband robbed a
small grocery store a few months later, killing the local owner with a single
shot to the head.
Coincidence?
Maybe. But the house had a dark
energy, a bad feel. The boyfriend winded
up losing the house back to the bank.
Years later, we were married.
Fast forward a couple of decades, after finally divorcing
the man who’d made my life miserable, I thought about the sad woman on the
window sill. Had she been trying to keep
me from making the same mistake she had, trusting the wrong man?
I’d like to think so.
So tell me your personal ghost story if you have one. If not, when was the last time you were
scared?
Bio:
Growing up in the middle of cowboy country, Lynn
Cahoon was destined to fall in love with a tall, cool glass of water. Now, she enjoys writing about small town
America, the cowboys who ride the range, and the women who love them. Contact
her at her website – www.lynncahoon.wordpress.com
Blurb for The Bull Rider’s Brother
Rodeo weekend is the start of the summer the entire town of
Shawnee, Idaho. On a girl's night out, Lizzie Hudson finds herself comparing
her life as a single mom with her best friend's successful career when James
Sullivan, the cowboy who got away, walks his Justin Ropers back into her
life. Seeing him shakes Lizzie's world
but James is in for an even more eventful weekend, learning he has a son. James has enough on his plate trying to
manage his brother's bull riding career.
Can he learn to redefine family and become part of Lizzie's life before
she gives up on him and marries another?
The Bull Rider’s Brother is a series contemporary romance about Lizzie Hudson, a single mom who wants to keep her life just the way it is, thank you. The problems you know are less scary than the problems you don’t.
When James Sullivan comes back for the town’s rodeo weekend and finds out that his high school sweetheart had his child, six years ago, Lizzie’s world is thrown into turmoil and she must decide if safety and certainty are worth giving up on a chance for love. A love that an emotionally damaged James may never be able to return, breaking her and her son’s heart in the process.
WARNING: My current release The Bull Rider’s Brother from
Crimson Romance – doesn’t have a touch of paranormal or high heat level, but if
you like a sweet, emotional, small town romance, check it out.
My Lyrical Press release in November, A Member of the
Council, is a hot, paranormal romance.
Comments
No ghost stories to tell...unless you count the ones my seven year-old makes up. They're a hoot but hardly scary! :)
Congratulations on your new release!
LaLaLa!
Congratulations on the new release!!
I had many more experiences in that house (lots of people did and ghost hunters picked up paranormal activity at every visit). Music boxes going off when there were none, whispers in my ears, little girls singing, etc. I got a bit used to it, but wouldn't venture alone to one end of the house, even in daylight hours.
Kathleen...that sounds like one freaky night!!
Pamala- you should have shared, now I'm curious.
Kathleen - wow. Just wow.
Lynn
None of my own though I did stay in a hotel once that was reputed to have a resident ghost. I found out after booking the stay because the idea freaked me out. Fortunately, there were no midnight visitations.
Wishing you much success with The Bull Rider's Brother. I enjoy sweet romances!
I have one. The house where I grew up was fairly old, and the previous owner had died there suddenly. I thought living in a house with a ghost was kinda cool.
Junior year in high school, I was studying for the Chemistry Regents exam and not in the mood for it, so I pushed the book away and reached for something else (more fun!). All of a sudden I felt a cold "finger" trace up my spine! I shot to attention, grabbed the chem book and said, "Yes, Mr. Searles!" (The previous owner.) I'm grateful he got me back on track because I got a 75 in a class I otherwise didn't do well in. My mom also reported once seeing someone at the top of the stairs in "period garb", but otherwise, not a lot of activity. Not like that southern mansion!!
Good luck and many happy sales to you, Lynn!!
My daughter was conceived on or around April 4th, 2002(unintentionally). She was due Christmas Eve that year, but instead was born on December 13, 2002 (a Friday the 13th, as well).
I started to make the connections of the dates associated with my grandfather and my daughter shortly after she was born. When she was just about 3 months old and I was simply exhausted from taking care of a newborn and my husband was always at work and I had my 4 y/o stepson to take care of and I was very nearly at my wit's end. Every time I'd get my daughter settled down to fix myself something to eat, she'd cry or fuss or something. Even if I put her in her bouncy seat a few feet away where she could see me. I was almost to the point of breaking down in tears, because I couldn't take a moment for myself and so I said a little prayer and I also spoke to my grandfather (I've talked to him often since he's passed and I miss him dreadfully). I asked for a distraction so I could fix my lunch.
Within seconds, my daughter, sitting in her bouncy seat, glanced toward the doorway that leads from our kitchen/dining room to the middle room of the house and she started to giggle with the biggest grin on her face. I glanced around the stove and saw nothing there in the doorway but the curtains that hung there. She still continued to giggle and bounce and laugh- in that direction. Needless to say, my heart dropped to my feet and I swallowed back the fear and simply whispered "Thank you, Grandpa." It was the only time that's ever happened and though I saw nothing, I felt it and with all my heart I KNOW he was there when I needed him and I still feel he's around, though not always in such an obvious way.
Thanks for stopping by.
Taryn - I love that story.
I have taught myself to look for and pay attention to "signs" I am given to help point the way I'm supposed to go. I joking refer to this as "the Universe speaking to me". Or sometimes I say I am "compelled" which feels precisely true when the sense is strongest, like a feeling about a story that has to be written.
If I had to postulate a theory about what ghosts are, I would say ghosts are the energy of a person who has not completed their energy transformation (aka death) for some reason. I went to a presentation on the subject of ghosts at the NEC conference. The speakers said there were four or five ways ghost energy manifests. Some were minor. Some were full projections of who they used to be. And they cited explanations for them in almost every culture on earth. The information resonated with both sides of my brain.
I also think some people are sensitive enough to pick up on those energies, just like I believe people have other "paranormal" gifts. Part of the reason I love writing paranormal and science fiction stories is having the chance to explore my "theories" with my characters. If the energy from a still live person can be captured on film (Kirlian photography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirlian_photography), then how far a stretch is it to believe some of it lingers after the person's physical body ceases to live?
I don't think I'll go into my one particularly elevated contact with a ghost...I'll just say I was glad I had seen the movie "Ghost". It helped me deal with a level of contact I'd never had before. Because of the intensity of the contact, it did lead me to learning more about incidents which had taken place throughout my life. I have a finer understanding and now "listen" carefully to any warning I'm given:)
Congratulations on your latest release, gal! Wishing you all the best with it:)
Lo
Hubby's dead cat came back to tell me my cat was dieing. Both cats come back for visits. I enjoy that.
Oh and I should say that I did not see either Dad or the cats. I smell Dad's pipe tobacco and feel the cats jumping, walking or running on the bed.
http://penelopemarzec.blogspot.com/2011/10/strange-tale.html
It's a genuine NJ ghost story. :^)
Thanks for sharing!
Lynn