My Ghost Story
BY LIZ REED
CO-FOUNDER OF PSOBFL
AUTHOR OF HAUNTED MANATEE COUNTY
OWNER OF DOWNTOWN BRADENTON GHOST WALK
We are approaching the time of year when telling ghost stories is the most appropriate and fun activity. This time I would like to share my personal ghost story.
I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, a few blocks from the Mississippi River. This was a very popular and favorite hangout for the neighborhood kids.
When I was 6, we moved to a bigger house due to the birth of my younger brother. We had bunk beds in our shared room. Of course, I slept in the top bunk. My brother was less than thrilled when I had the flu.
Shortly after moving into the house, I began to hear steps coming down the stairs from the upper floor. The only rooms up there were a room belonging to my older sisters on one side of the hallway, and the attic, which was on the other side. At first, I thought the steps were from one of my sisters coming down to use the bathroom, but when the door leading to the upstairs opened and no one was there, I started getting scared.
Every night this would happen, and I would feel like someone was by my side of the bed staring at me. I would pull the covers over my face until I felt this presence had gone. At times, I would feel the covers tighten around me like I was being kept from moving and couldn’t breathe. Then the blankets would loosen, and I felt like I could breathe once again.
After my baby sister was born and my oldest sister moved out, I moved upstairs to share the bedroom with my next older sister. At night, I would hear the attic door open and footsteps come across the hall to my bedroom.
Initially, I only saw a black form that stood at the end of my bed. Then the form began sitting on the end of my bed. There was an obvious indent as though someone were sitting there, and it was impossible to move my legs against it as though a physical being were occupying that space.
There was never any verbal contact between us and no one besides me could see or feel him. In those days this was a topic you didn’t talk about publicly or they would have you go somewhere for treatment, so, in the interest of self-preservation, I kept my mouth shut.
One night, my sister and I were arguing about something stupid, as sisters sometimes do, and our mother yelled up the stairs, “If you don’t knock it off, I’m sending your father up.”
I walked out of our room and saw a figure that I thought could have been my father. I looked to the bottom of the stairs and saw both my parents standing there at the bottom of the stairs. I looked back up into the hallway and the figure was gone.
From that day on, I never again got scared. I would eventually let him sit on the edge of my bed until I fell asleep. He never once meant any harm to me. I believe he just wanted someone to acknowledge that he was still there.
After I moved out of the house, I decided to do some research and found that the original owner’s wife had died in the house. He couldn’t live without her, so he took his own life. He will remain there until he lets go of the guilt for taking his life and will be able to move on.
I hadn’t been to Minnesota in about 40 years until my daughter and I made a trip back. When we went by my old house, it still looked pretty much the same, and I saw the man standing in the attic window. Of course, my daughter asked me if I’d like to go visit him, to which I replied “no.” I had had enough of the spirit when I was younger and I still have no desire to revisit him.
This is what made me think of what happens to us after death and wanting to know more about the spirit world. Why they are still here, what unfinished business they had to take care of before crossing over, all the things that go with interacting with spirits. My curiosity made me want to study to become a paranormal investigator, which has led me to become a writer of ghost stories. Some are ones I have been told and others are about the spirits that I have met through the years.
If you have a ghost story that you’d love to share with me, please feel free to contact me via Facebook or our website. I always love a good ghost story.