A Nightly Visit

I was just a kid at the time, and I didn’t know what was happening. The paranormal wasn’t something I thought much about, outside of the occasional Goosebumps book, but I wasn’t easily frightened. I can remember it happening like it was yesterday. My room was rather small, and my bed took up most of the space. My bed faced the door that I always kept open, and the light from the hallway would gently light my room in place of a nightlife.

I’m not sure exactly how many times she visited or for how long she stayed each time, but as I lay in bed, the others in my house already asleep, I would see her come into my room. She’d come through the door very casually and completely silent. A tall woman with light hair, not quite blonde but with an auburn tint, that was tied in a messy bun on the back of her head. She wasn’t a small woman, wide hips and shoulders, but her waist was narrow. She wore a skirt and a long sleeve blouse, but the colors were dull, grayed out, as was her skin. I’d pretend to be asleep the first few times, too anxious to face this woman head on, and as I lay with my eyes closed, she’d sit at the foot of my bed and watch me.

At the time, it felt like it lasted forever, but it was probably only a few minutes before she’d get up and leave the way she came, a gentle smile on her face as she looked back before disappearing out the door. Sometimes, on her visits, she’d place a hand on my face or brush a stray hair back into place. Though unnerved by her appearance, I was never scared. She always had a motherly feel and I could almost imagine that it was my own mother there, checking on me at night. Except my mother was much smaller in height and had much more difficulty being quiet.

It wasn’t until much later, years later, that I mentioned this to my mother. And on hearing my description of this mystery lady my mother was almost in tears. She told me that the woman I described was her mother, my grandmother, who had died just weeks before I was born. She told me how much she had been looking forward to my birth until a fast progressing cancer took her life. She never got to meet me, my mom told me, and that must have been her way of knowing me.