HAUNTED MUSKOKA
GRANDPA STOOD AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BED
Following the recent passing of my father, Ed Sr., we have had many family chats reconciling the unfortunate events and the circumstances of his final days of poor health,.... as well as reminiscing a wee bit about the death of my mother, back in May of 2008, something that he never really got over. They had been married for 60 plus years.
As we certainly subscribe to the belief that the spirit "crosses over," after death, and that this parallel existence allows for communication between the living and the deceased, we of course have been paying particular attention to signs, of which there were numerous, following Ed’s death. (Some are included already in this blog collection). But the lengthy discussions part of the traditional mourning process, did remind me quite suddenly.....as if my mother had just then tapped me on the shoulder, that our family had experienced paranormal visitors in the past. We just didn’t make a big deal about it! Which is true because we’ve had a lifetime of interesting encounters that we’ve pretty much heaped, quite unceremoniously, into our family album of "believe it or not," manifestations.
My mother was from a religious family that spent considerable time at church, and she maintained a strong sense of belief in the afterlife until the end of hers. I wasn’t brought up to be a regular church-goer. For whatever reason, she gave me the choice of attending or not. In fact, of my own interest, I attended several months of Sunday School at Burlington United Church, until I decided formal attendance, each Sunday morning, wasn’t for me. It didn’t mean I grew up without a strict belief in God because that was definitely not the case. I just wasn’t interested in attending Church as part of a regular congregation.
Merle was the same, and I dare say my father Ed had his beliefs, and I do think they were the same as my mother’s. Merle didn’t believe in ghosts, as such, although she liked to watch movies with ghosts. If I told her I saw a ghost, she’d say "Isn’t that nice, now go out and play and let your mother have some peace and quiet." Yet she was religious to the point of respecting the difference between a soul’s fate in either heaven or hell. Ghosts just didn’t enter into the equation, in part because they couldn’t be slotted into the heaven or hell category. She didn’t want to acknowledge a ghost that might have the Devil’s commission. It was just better to defer all discussion about ghosts, and simply enjoy them on the silver screen.
But Merle did have a ghostly encounter and she was quite perplexed. She would never admit to seeing a ghost, so she decided that depicting an unearthly visitor, as a vivid dream, covered all areas of her paranormal reservations. Merle explained to me one morning that she had awoken to find her father standing at the end of her bed......just standing. It was well after his demise....which happened on the steps of a church in Florida, when he suffered a fatal heart attack. This alleged visitation happened six months or more after his passing. As she explained it, he had a beautiful look on his face, and she wasn’t startled by the appearance or fearful in any way. She just continued to look at him until the vision eventually faded into the darkness of the bedroom. There were no lights on but my grandfather had been illuminated.
As she was trying to convince me that it hadn’t been a ghost at all, she couldn’t help but confess that it was exactly the same visitation, she’d experienced after her mother Blanche’s death, back in the early 1960's. I suppose she thought it was odd that both had appeared in the same pose, standing at the end of her bed but she still attributed it all to a very life-like dream. And possibly this was the case. Still she footnoted that Blanche as well, had possessed such a peaceful expression, hovering at the end of the bed. On the first occasion, she had called out to her mother but there was no response....just that eventual fading into the darkness of the bedroom in the wee hours. Up until shortly before her death, if you had asked if, during her 88 years, she had ever seen a ghost, she would have vigorously shaken her head. If you asked if she had seen her mother and father’s spirit after death, she’d possibly wink, if that, and shrug her shoulders, not agreeing entirely but not disagreeing either. Merle believed in the spiritual qualities of afterlife but she was nervous of offending God by being overly presumptuous about what was his domain afterall.
I have not witnessed either Merle or Ed, stationed at the foot of my own bed, just yet, but there have been plenty of small signs we believe were spirit-generated. You can read about them on this blogsite. One evening, just recently, while sitting watching the television, and thinking about Ed momentarily.....and having asked him for any signs he could spare to validate the existence of the other side.....by golly, I felt this blowing against my ear.......and there wasn’t any other reason or source of this sudden gusting of air. It was a funny way to represent the afterlife. But I’m pretty sure you’ll appreciate, having the sensation someone is strongly blowing in your ear, is a stretch to concoct even with a vivid imagination. As for my dad doing such a thing.....sure he would. He was a performance kind of guy.
I’m pretty sure Ed, Merle and the rest of our passed family members, are chortling in that spirited way, teasing as they did in life.....the kid who always took things so seriously.....that would be me.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
ED ARRIVED - WE’RE PRETTY SURE HE’S CONTENTED
To someone familiar with the nuances of the paranormal, someone who believes that the departing soul "crosses over," to that other dimension we refer to as heaven, the revelation that my father sent some reminders to us, following his recent death, isn’t front page news. While we like to think our family members do things in a big, or special way, truth is the signs we received that Ed had passed-on, were wonderful to experience but just not the "oomph" and flickering lights, paranormal researchers are going to get excited about. Afterall, Ed didn’t pass this mortal coil to prove a point, or to make a big production of entry into the hereafter to benefit psychic research. It was pleasant, these few signs, enough, in a soft low key manner, to give us a feeling of completion of this cycle of life and death, and validate that there are some mysteries of this life and death thing we need to be open minded about.
As it happened with my mother Merle, and father-in-law Norm, we had many signs in advance that a crisis was imminent. Several weeks before Merle had a major stroke I began to have serious flashbacks to our old hometown, Burlington, and people I hadn’t thought about in decades. While I’m an unrelenting daydreamer, known as incorrigible even back in my school days, this isn’t uncommon. It was all centering around Merle. This isn’t particularly psychic on its own but in concert with many other events that eventually led to my mother having a major stroke, and a heart attack, following unanticipated surgery within several weeks. As we have long subscribed to the theory that the spirit does cross over to a new realm, and communication is not impossible, every now and again leading up to the event, I confess having asked some of my friends and family, floating weightlessly on the other side, if there was anything about Merle I should have a heads-up about. Just more visions of Merle but there was something undefinable at the time, lurking in the old subconscious that seemed to warn about a threat to her health.
She survived. The reminiscences faded. She pushed past the grave illness although she had poor quality of life ever-after, disabled and residing in a nursing home for quite a number of years. Just prior to her death I began having the same intrusions upon my normally mundane daydreams. I once again asked the other side if there was something I needed to know about Merle. Well, they don’t answer quite like that......no cell phone range here! When we got the call from the home that May morning in 2008, I knew from the first ring that my mother was deceased. Not still alive. While the attendant felt she was still breathing, I knew without question she had passed because of the sensation of peace I felt at that particular moment. Suzanne, my ever-thoughtful wife, tried to hurry us all out of the house that morning to be at Merle’s bedside. I told her it was too late but that this is what Merle had wished anyway. She still didn’t believe me. When we arrived at the home, my father was sitting by the top of her bed, with a very serene look on his face, and after a few moments told us that she had passed away even before he arrived, and he had only been about four blocks away.
When Suzanne’s father passed away, Andrew, Robert and I were sitting on our front deck, while she remained at his bedside, at the hospital, as his heart began to fail. With nary a whisper of wind, we heard the tinkle of glass from the wind chimes hanging over the railing. There was no other explanation at the time. I told the boys, "Your grandfather has just passed over." I felt the same feeling of peace I’d experienced before with the deaths of family members and close friends, and it was no surprise what-so-ever when the phone rang moments later, and it was of course, Suzanne, to tell us Norm had just died. What made the windchimes significant for Suzanne, is that these had been sold by the family marina, in Windermere, when they operated it as a family business in the 1960's and 70's, and there were always windchimes tinkling at the family cottage on Lake Rosseau. Not only was his last action a notification of passing, it was also very appropriate to the memories of cottage times in Muskoka.
When my good friend Dave Brown, of Hamilton, passed away, I knew before Suzanne picked up the phone that Dave had indeed died. I’d had a strange feeling for several days leading up to this and although he had been in hospital, I never thought it was a mortal situation. Suzanne hadn’t told me the whole story from the last time she had talked to Dave. He had insisted on talking to her and not me. He used to get mad at me from time to time, so that was quite understandable. Dave and I were rigorous book collectors and historians, as well as outdoor enthusiasts, and our intertwined lives were always scholarly and always fun.....but we could argue until sunrise about certain points of fact and fiction. Dave had an aura that would almost knock you over. He was intense all his life. If any one was going to communicate from the other side it was going to be David Brown. So I started talking to him the moment I heard he had died, and truth is, I’ve never stopped making little comments about my work and home chores. He just doesn’t argue back! He’ll let me know if he’s pissed. Dave used to visit after a wilderness expedition, and he loved to sleep on a couch down in my archives. When I was working on his biography, as he was indeed one of the movers and shakers of the Outdoor Education Program in Ontario, I never once believed that the composition of the text was Dave-free. He had asked me to do the biography in his last two months of life but when I accepted the job it was my assumption he would be a major, real-life partner. I had to go on with the project because I believed in it so much. I can so clearly remember on the night I finally sent off the first shipment of finished books to his colleagues in Hamilton, when coming from those familiar archives he loved so much, I felt his hand on my shoulder as if he was within arm’s length. I said, "Hello Dave.....did we do a good job?" Well, the only response I got, was actually what I didn’t get, that made me believe we had indeed fulfilled a promise to each other. Dave could have been furious with me for some of the revealing content I felt compelled to include, and I’m pretty sure that instead of a pat on the back, I’d have received a hardy kick in the arse.
For years now I’ve been asking Dave’s help to find things around the homestead here, books, papers, documents that have disappeared, and while nothing is ever immediate with the other side upon request, inadvertently and mysteriously, I’ll stumble upon what I need maybe even weeks after they were sought-out. No, it’s not really Twilight Zone material. My own experiences with this validation of those who have crossed over, inspired by the work of Medium John Edward, isn’t all that exciting or remarkable over the long haul. In fact it doesn’t enter into it anymore that we may be talking to dead people. We’re just big believers in keeping our options open and being keen to things, possibly signs, forewarning, reminding, and contenting, that admittedly seem tiny and coincidental to most.....but add up to us.
Just before Ed passed away, I asked those who have crossed to look out for the dear old fellow, and that most definitely included a request to Dave and Merle, and others, to make sure he was comforted in those abstract hours in another dimension. "Ted, you’re nuts, plain and simple," offer my critics. Those who believe, or are open to possibility, confess they’ve done exactly the same.
With my own father, I began having similar flashbacks about our early days in Burlington, Ontario, about two weeks before his mid-December collapse in his Bracebridge apartment. After about a week of remembering events and gad-about with my parents back in my youth, I confess to wondering aloud to my wife what was coming next. Ed was fine and looking forward to Christmas....particularly the traditional shopping days with our sons, Andrew and Robert, that date back to when they were five or six years old. Even as 20 somethings they still made their dates with grandpa for the Christmas adventure that would involve a dinner out and a long day of shopping. They boys wouldn’t miss spending this time with Ed.
On the night of a huge snowstorm just prior to the middle of December, son Andrew and his friend James had the misfortune to be stuck on Highway II, in Bracebridge, the result of an accident further along the windswept stretch. They were coming home from a work assignment at a local theatre, and had been told by police the Highway was clear. Not so. But then almost all the roads that night were clogged and blowing over further. It was a disaster. When they phoneed us well after midnight, and told us they could be there indefinitely, we were understandably concerned that they might freeze to death. Shortly after talking with Andrew we phone Ed to tell him of the situation, and asked if it would be all right if the boys, when they got themselves free of the traffic tie-up, could stay at his River Road apartment. He was eager to help and said he would stay up a while to get updates. Andrew phoned him from the car as well, and everything was in order. They had food and extra clothing to don if their ordeal was to last longer. They did actually get free within several hours but could not re-enter the cut-offs back into Bracebridge. Suzanne had to phone Ed later that morning, (no he hadn’t been up all night) to explain how Andrew had made it safely back home, and that I wouldn’t be able to make it in that morning for our usual coffee date. He sounded fine and understood that the storm was even going to keep him in that Friday.
The unraveling for Ed had begun. I just didn’t know how badly. While I had good intentions to make it to Bracebridge that following Saturday, our trip from Gravenhurst ended when we looped back along a precarious snow-bound stretch of Winhara Road, very narrowly surviving the return trip without need of a wrecker. On District Road 4 there was a sea of mired-down trucks and there was no way of passing the carnage into downtown Bracebridge, so we doubled back home.
When we got back to Gravenhurst, I insisted on a visiting a local book shop. As an avid book buyer I absolutely have to seek out evasive titles at least three times a week or I’ll vaporize. Seeing as I had been blocked from my favorite Bracebridge shops, my bibliophile’s mission was to make a significant find right at home. And I did. The book that almost fell off the shelf into my hands, (highly visible even without a dustjacket) was the hardcover, illustrated book "The Ships of Canada’s Naval Forces 1910-1985," a book I had once given my dad because his ship, the "Coaticook", the River Class Frigate he served on, was photographed in the text. I had to have this book for my own collection. I intended to get Ed to sign the page of the photograph. I was always so proud of his naval service, and loved to hear him tell stories about those precarious days on the high seas dodging U-Boats. What I didn’t know, or maybe I should have, if I’m in-touch with the other side as I think, was that Ed was in the first stages of a stroke, one that was minor enough yet debilitating, to give him the next three days of torturous struggle for help. Was it a sign that I missed. For sure I had many occasions since that snowstorm to call him, to find out if his power was on but when Suzanne had called the day before, he was in good spirits and presumably reasonable physical condition.
One of the strangest situations was that Tuesday morning’s visit for our usual coffee. For the first time in months, eldest son Andrew had come as well. Work had been demanding a lot of time this fall for Andrew, and it was going to be a nice visit with grandpa with our boys. The snow removal effort was slow and there was no place to park. I let the boys off in Bracebridge at the local thrift shop, and I told them it might be awhile before I’d join them, as snow removal had killed most of the mainstreet parking. I was also on empty. As close as you can get without actually walking. No fuel. After driving around the block for about ten minutes, Andrew finally came out, and I told him I was on gas vapors at that point, and to hurry up his brother. No go! Robert was still at the cash register. I couldn’t stop. Andrew phoned to tell him we were heading out District 4 to the gas station I knew would be accessible in a pinch. Feeling frustrated at the weather’s inconvenient dumping of snow on Muskoka, I asked Andrew to phone his grandfather, to see if I’d even be able to park at his apartment building. Just before we arrived at the pumps he informed me his first call had been unanswered. I asked him to please keep calling because if he didn’t answer, and I could not be assured of parking at his building, there was no way I was going to stop. We’d have a coffee another day. After filling up the tank, and heading out the driveway of the station, Andrew told me that he had talked to Grandpa, and that he had asked us for help, as he couldn’t seem to get out of bed. I thought about it for several seconds, then asked him to call 9-1-1 for medical assistance at the apartment. He suggested this might be nothing serious and that we should wait to see for ourselves what Grandpa was experiencing. I knew that for a stubborn old sailor, that to admit he was in need of help to get up, it was serious enough to warrant a medical response. I asked Andrew again to call the emergency number. We arrived at the apartment only seconds ahead of the ambulance, and because Andrew had his apartment keys, as he had once lived with Ed while at school, we were able to access Ed in mere minutes. We found him inside the door, slumped on a small sofa, looking very week and distressed. If Andrew had not been with us that morning, it would have taken quite a bit longer to find the landlord and the pass keys. As it was his heart rate was pretty rough and it was obvious to us he had experienced a recent stroke. We would find out later that he had experienced his first bout on Saturday morning at about the time I open that book, and poured myself into the great stories he had spun about the Frigate Coaticook. Coincidences. On the surface, with no thread between them, yes, they were all convenient coincidences. To those who believe in such things, there was a little more attached. Maybe there was providence to it all, a forewarning. A subtle tweak of fate.
From the beginning or his hospital ordeal, which lasted more than a month, it didn’t matter whether the medical staff admitted his illness was mortal, I knew it was inevitable. Not simply because I read through the up-beat reports, or expected tests would reveal a treatable condition but because the feeling from all the myriad recollections and feelings ,.....of ease from whatever paranormal factors were at play, if indeed they were, suggested to me Ed was on the brink of a fabulous adventure on the other side.....and I knew how pleased he would be to see his wife again because despite our best intents, we could not stave off his loneliness during that past year and a half.
When on the Tuesday before his death, I saw in his face a resolve to leave his pained body, a resignation in his hand grip to his son that he was truly ready to go, I had no reservation whatsoever directing a new protocol of comfort medication, to ease his suffering. While I had resisted this final protocol over the month, it was only then that Ed gave me clear instruction without a word being spoken that it was time to say our farewells. On the day of his death, I held his hand and asked Merle to help him cross over. I watched him raise his arms, as if to clutch something but at that time there was no real conscious communication with my father; ....as he was, in my estimation, already hovering over the bed and did not have any mortal way of getting my attention beyond a secure grip of hands. There were a lot of curious vibes at that moment but they didn’t involve me. I was unimportant in this transformation.
Our kind nurse informed me that it was likely he wouldn’t survive through the night. I let her know that when I had to leave, I always made peace with my father during that hospital stay, as it was possible many times that month, he could have succumbed. I had to pick up my wife from her place of employment, and we left it open as to whether we would go back to the hospital right away, or have dinner and relax for a few moments. The spirits knew where we were if required. And it was pretty much up to that dimension of life, as the medical options had run their course.
While we were sitting watching the television news, our dog Bosko, a dog dearly loved by Ed Sr., sat up and went to Suzanne’s knee begging for a little cuddle. She doesn’t do this often, I can tell you, and most often Bosko sits at my feet. This night, Suzanne was the friendly knee to drop a chin on. It was a brief preamble to a shiver Suzanne had that even I noticed as a reaction. When she looked at me I said "Do you think that was Ed?" "I’ve never had a shiver like that before.....and look at Bosko,....why now!" she said. The dog had continued to beg more head-patting. Suzanne, still feeling the chill of moments earlier, went into another room to work for a few moments, and no sooner had I settled down to read the paper than the phone rang. It was our wonderfully kind nurse informing me that Ed had passed, quietly, gently, and oh so peacefully to a background of soft music. Why was I not surprised? Relieved that his suffering was over, yes indeed. Had we received a message from Ed as he was passing the places and people he loved on earth, during that departure from the living? This is up to you to decide. We’re very contented this was the case, and we are pretty sure he has comfortably crossed over.
In the week since, particularly tough because it involves the last stages of apartment-takedown and storage of his many keepsake furnishings and bric-a-brac, we have experienced many coincidental signs that Ed wishes us now.....to free ourselves of mourning, and that he, in spirit is okay. From the strange, sudden sniff of a perfume Merle might have used, to forgotten sayings that all of a sudden come to mind without any preamble explanation or initiation. And while nothing replaces the handshakes we shared in those final days, when he dearly wanted to escape to the outside world for a coffee (but was denied because of illness), we all share the belief Ed’s in a good and safe place......and we occasionally remind the good Mr. Brown to check up on Ed to see that he hasn’t borrowed any of his past plumes as a sailor, (kind of a rough tradition) to regale the folks on the other side. A dram of whiskey. I’ll have it for him as a salute to a good and long life with many wonderful memories to cherish. Godspeed.
To someone familiar with the nuances of the paranormal, someone who believes that the departing soul "crosses over," to that other dimension we refer to as heaven, the revelation that my father sent some reminders to us, following his recent death, isn’t front page news. While we like to think our family members do things in a big, or special way, truth is the signs we received that Ed had passed-on, were wonderful to experience but just not the "oomph" and flickering lights, paranormal researchers are going to get excited about. Afterall, Ed didn’t pass this mortal coil to prove a point, or to make a big production of entry into the hereafter to benefit psychic research. It was pleasant, these few signs, enough, in a soft low key manner, to give us a feeling of completion of this cycle of life and death, and validate that there are some mysteries of this life and death thing we need to be open minded about.
As it happened with my mother Merle, and father-in-law Norm, we had many signs in advance that a crisis was imminent. Several weeks before Merle had a major stroke I began to have serious flashbacks to our old hometown, Burlington, and people I hadn’t thought about in decades. While I’m an unrelenting daydreamer, known as incorrigible even back in my school days, this isn’t uncommon. It was all centering around Merle. This isn’t particularly psychic on its own but in concert with many other events that eventually led to my mother having a major stroke, and a heart attack, following unanticipated surgery within several weeks. As we have long subscribed to the theory that the spirit does cross over to a new realm, and communication is not impossible, every now and again leading up to the event, I confess having asked some of my friends and family, floating weightlessly on the other side, if there was anything about Merle I should have a heads-up about. Just more visions of Merle but there was something undefinable at the time, lurking in the old subconscious that seemed to warn about a threat to her health.
She survived. The reminiscences faded. She pushed past the grave illness although she had poor quality of life ever-after, disabled and residing in a nursing home for quite a number of years. Just prior to her death I began having the same intrusions upon my normally mundane daydreams. I once again asked the other side if there was something I needed to know about Merle. Well, they don’t answer quite like that......no cell phone range here! When we got the call from the home that May morning in 2008, I knew from the first ring that my mother was deceased. Not still alive. While the attendant felt she was still breathing, I knew without question she had passed because of the sensation of peace I felt at that particular moment. Suzanne, my ever-thoughtful wife, tried to hurry us all out of the house that morning to be at Merle’s bedside. I told her it was too late but that this is what Merle had wished anyway. She still didn’t believe me. When we arrived at the home, my father was sitting by the top of her bed, with a very serene look on his face, and after a few moments told us that she had passed away even before he arrived, and he had only been about four blocks away.
When Suzanne’s father passed away, Andrew, Robert and I were sitting on our front deck, while she remained at his bedside, at the hospital, as his heart began to fail. With nary a whisper of wind, we heard the tinkle of glass from the wind chimes hanging over the railing. There was no other explanation at the time. I told the boys, "Your grandfather has just passed over." I felt the same feeling of peace I’d experienced before with the deaths of family members and close friends, and it was no surprise what-so-ever when the phone rang moments later, and it was of course, Suzanne, to tell us Norm had just died. What made the windchimes significant for Suzanne, is that these had been sold by the family marina, in Windermere, when they operated it as a family business in the 1960's and 70's, and there were always windchimes tinkling at the family cottage on Lake Rosseau. Not only was his last action a notification of passing, it was also very appropriate to the memories of cottage times in Muskoka.
When my good friend Dave Brown, of Hamilton, passed away, I knew before Suzanne picked up the phone that Dave had indeed died. I’d had a strange feeling for several days leading up to this and although he had been in hospital, I never thought it was a mortal situation. Suzanne hadn’t told me the whole story from the last time she had talked to Dave. He had insisted on talking to her and not me. He used to get mad at me from time to time, so that was quite understandable. Dave and I were rigorous book collectors and historians, as well as outdoor enthusiasts, and our intertwined lives were always scholarly and always fun.....but we could argue until sunrise about certain points of fact and fiction. Dave had an aura that would almost knock you over. He was intense all his life. If any one was going to communicate from the other side it was going to be David Brown. So I started talking to him the moment I heard he had died, and truth is, I’ve never stopped making little comments about my work and home chores. He just doesn’t argue back! He’ll let me know if he’s pissed. Dave used to visit after a wilderness expedition, and he loved to sleep on a couch down in my archives. When I was working on his biography, as he was indeed one of the movers and shakers of the Outdoor Education Program in Ontario, I never once believed that the composition of the text was Dave-free. He had asked me to do the biography in his last two months of life but when I accepted the job it was my assumption he would be a major, real-life partner. I had to go on with the project because I believed in it so much. I can so clearly remember on the night I finally sent off the first shipment of finished books to his colleagues in Hamilton, when coming from those familiar archives he loved so much, I felt his hand on my shoulder as if he was within arm’s length. I said, "Hello Dave.....did we do a good job?" Well, the only response I got, was actually what I didn’t get, that made me believe we had indeed fulfilled a promise to each other. Dave could have been furious with me for some of the revealing content I felt compelled to include, and I’m pretty sure that instead of a pat on the back, I’d have received a hardy kick in the arse.
For years now I’ve been asking Dave’s help to find things around the homestead here, books, papers, documents that have disappeared, and while nothing is ever immediate with the other side upon request, inadvertently and mysteriously, I’ll stumble upon what I need maybe even weeks after they were sought-out. No, it’s not really Twilight Zone material. My own experiences with this validation of those who have crossed over, inspired by the work of Medium John Edward, isn’t all that exciting or remarkable over the long haul. In fact it doesn’t enter into it anymore that we may be talking to dead people. We’re just big believers in keeping our options open and being keen to things, possibly signs, forewarning, reminding, and contenting, that admittedly seem tiny and coincidental to most.....but add up to us.
Just before Ed passed away, I asked those who have crossed to look out for the dear old fellow, and that most definitely included a request to Dave and Merle, and others, to make sure he was comforted in those abstract hours in another dimension. "Ted, you’re nuts, plain and simple," offer my critics. Those who believe, or are open to possibility, confess they’ve done exactly the same.
With my own father, I began having similar flashbacks about our early days in Burlington, Ontario, about two weeks before his mid-December collapse in his Bracebridge apartment. After about a week of remembering events and gad-about with my parents back in my youth, I confess to wondering aloud to my wife what was coming next. Ed was fine and looking forward to Christmas....particularly the traditional shopping days with our sons, Andrew and Robert, that date back to when they were five or six years old. Even as 20 somethings they still made their dates with grandpa for the Christmas adventure that would involve a dinner out and a long day of shopping. They boys wouldn’t miss spending this time with Ed.
On the night of a huge snowstorm just prior to the middle of December, son Andrew and his friend James had the misfortune to be stuck on Highway II, in Bracebridge, the result of an accident further along the windswept stretch. They were coming home from a work assignment at a local theatre, and had been told by police the Highway was clear. Not so. But then almost all the roads that night were clogged and blowing over further. It was a disaster. When they phoneed us well after midnight, and told us they could be there indefinitely, we were understandably concerned that they might freeze to death. Shortly after talking with Andrew we phone Ed to tell him of the situation, and asked if it would be all right if the boys, when they got themselves free of the traffic tie-up, could stay at his River Road apartment. He was eager to help and said he would stay up a while to get updates. Andrew phoned him from the car as well, and everything was in order. They had food and extra clothing to don if their ordeal was to last longer. They did actually get free within several hours but could not re-enter the cut-offs back into Bracebridge. Suzanne had to phone Ed later that morning, (no he hadn’t been up all night) to explain how Andrew had made it safely back home, and that I wouldn’t be able to make it in that morning for our usual coffee date. He sounded fine and understood that the storm was even going to keep him in that Friday.
The unraveling for Ed had begun. I just didn’t know how badly. While I had good intentions to make it to Bracebridge that following Saturday, our trip from Gravenhurst ended when we looped back along a precarious snow-bound stretch of Winhara Road, very narrowly surviving the return trip without need of a wrecker. On District Road 4 there was a sea of mired-down trucks and there was no way of passing the carnage into downtown Bracebridge, so we doubled back home.
When we got back to Gravenhurst, I insisted on a visiting a local book shop. As an avid book buyer I absolutely have to seek out evasive titles at least three times a week or I’ll vaporize. Seeing as I had been blocked from my favorite Bracebridge shops, my bibliophile’s mission was to make a significant find right at home. And I did. The book that almost fell off the shelf into my hands, (highly visible even without a dustjacket) was the hardcover, illustrated book "The Ships of Canada’s Naval Forces 1910-1985," a book I had once given my dad because his ship, the "Coaticook", the River Class Frigate he served on, was photographed in the text. I had to have this book for my own collection. I intended to get Ed to sign the page of the photograph. I was always so proud of his naval service, and loved to hear him tell stories about those precarious days on the high seas dodging U-Boats. What I didn’t know, or maybe I should have, if I’m in-touch with the other side as I think, was that Ed was in the first stages of a stroke, one that was minor enough yet debilitating, to give him the next three days of torturous struggle for help. Was it a sign that I missed. For sure I had many occasions since that snowstorm to call him, to find out if his power was on but when Suzanne had called the day before, he was in good spirits and presumably reasonable physical condition.
One of the strangest situations was that Tuesday morning’s visit for our usual coffee. For the first time in months, eldest son Andrew had come as well. Work had been demanding a lot of time this fall for Andrew, and it was going to be a nice visit with grandpa with our boys. The snow removal effort was slow and there was no place to park. I let the boys off in Bracebridge at the local thrift shop, and I told them it might be awhile before I’d join them, as snow removal had killed most of the mainstreet parking. I was also on empty. As close as you can get without actually walking. No fuel. After driving around the block for about ten minutes, Andrew finally came out, and I told him I was on gas vapors at that point, and to hurry up his brother. No go! Robert was still at the cash register. I couldn’t stop. Andrew phoned to tell him we were heading out District 4 to the gas station I knew would be accessible in a pinch. Feeling frustrated at the weather’s inconvenient dumping of snow on Muskoka, I asked Andrew to phone his grandfather, to see if I’d even be able to park at his apartment building. Just before we arrived at the pumps he informed me his first call had been unanswered. I asked him to please keep calling because if he didn’t answer, and I could not be assured of parking at his building, there was no way I was going to stop. We’d have a coffee another day. After filling up the tank, and heading out the driveway of the station, Andrew told me that he had talked to Grandpa, and that he had asked us for help, as he couldn’t seem to get out of bed. I thought about it for several seconds, then asked him to call 9-1-1 for medical assistance at the apartment. He suggested this might be nothing serious and that we should wait to see for ourselves what Grandpa was experiencing. I knew that for a stubborn old sailor, that to admit he was in need of help to get up, it was serious enough to warrant a medical response. I asked Andrew again to call the emergency number. We arrived at the apartment only seconds ahead of the ambulance, and because Andrew had his apartment keys, as he had once lived with Ed while at school, we were able to access Ed in mere minutes. We found him inside the door, slumped on a small sofa, looking very week and distressed. If Andrew had not been with us that morning, it would have taken quite a bit longer to find the landlord and the pass keys. As it was his heart rate was pretty rough and it was obvious to us he had experienced a recent stroke. We would find out later that he had experienced his first bout on Saturday morning at about the time I open that book, and poured myself into the great stories he had spun about the Frigate Coaticook. Coincidences. On the surface, with no thread between them, yes, they were all convenient coincidences. To those who believe in such things, there was a little more attached. Maybe there was providence to it all, a forewarning. A subtle tweak of fate.
From the beginning or his hospital ordeal, which lasted more than a month, it didn’t matter whether the medical staff admitted his illness was mortal, I knew it was inevitable. Not simply because I read through the up-beat reports, or expected tests would reveal a treatable condition but because the feeling from all the myriad recollections and feelings ,.....of ease from whatever paranormal factors were at play, if indeed they were, suggested to me Ed was on the brink of a fabulous adventure on the other side.....and I knew how pleased he would be to see his wife again because despite our best intents, we could not stave off his loneliness during that past year and a half.
When on the Tuesday before his death, I saw in his face a resolve to leave his pained body, a resignation in his hand grip to his son that he was truly ready to go, I had no reservation whatsoever directing a new protocol of comfort medication, to ease his suffering. While I had resisted this final protocol over the month, it was only then that Ed gave me clear instruction without a word being spoken that it was time to say our farewells. On the day of his death, I held his hand and asked Merle to help him cross over. I watched him raise his arms, as if to clutch something but at that time there was no real conscious communication with my father; ....as he was, in my estimation, already hovering over the bed and did not have any mortal way of getting my attention beyond a secure grip of hands. There were a lot of curious vibes at that moment but they didn’t involve me. I was unimportant in this transformation.
Our kind nurse informed me that it was likely he wouldn’t survive through the night. I let her know that when I had to leave, I always made peace with my father during that hospital stay, as it was possible many times that month, he could have succumbed. I had to pick up my wife from her place of employment, and we left it open as to whether we would go back to the hospital right away, or have dinner and relax for a few moments. The spirits knew where we were if required. And it was pretty much up to that dimension of life, as the medical options had run their course.
While we were sitting watching the television news, our dog Bosko, a dog dearly loved by Ed Sr., sat up and went to Suzanne’s knee begging for a little cuddle. She doesn’t do this often, I can tell you, and most often Bosko sits at my feet. This night, Suzanne was the friendly knee to drop a chin on. It was a brief preamble to a shiver Suzanne had that even I noticed as a reaction. When she looked at me I said "Do you think that was Ed?" "I’ve never had a shiver like that before.....and look at Bosko,....why now!" she said. The dog had continued to beg more head-patting. Suzanne, still feeling the chill of moments earlier, went into another room to work for a few moments, and no sooner had I settled down to read the paper than the phone rang. It was our wonderfully kind nurse informing me that Ed had passed, quietly, gently, and oh so peacefully to a background of soft music. Why was I not surprised? Relieved that his suffering was over, yes indeed. Had we received a message from Ed as he was passing the places and people he loved on earth, during that departure from the living? This is up to you to decide. We’re very contented this was the case, and we are pretty sure he has comfortably crossed over.
In the week since, particularly tough because it involves the last stages of apartment-takedown and storage of his many keepsake furnishings and bric-a-brac, we have experienced many coincidental signs that Ed wishes us now.....to free ourselves of mourning, and that he, in spirit is okay. From the strange, sudden sniff of a perfume Merle might have used, to forgotten sayings that all of a sudden come to mind without any preamble explanation or initiation. And while nothing replaces the handshakes we shared in those final days, when he dearly wanted to escape to the outside world for a coffee (but was denied because of illness), we all share the belief Ed’s in a good and safe place......and we occasionally remind the good Mr. Brown to check up on Ed to see that he hasn’t borrowed any of his past plumes as a sailor, (kind of a rough tradition) to regale the folks on the other side. A dram of whiskey. I’ll have it for him as a salute to a good and long life with many wonderful memories to cherish. Godspeed.
Monday, December 14, 2009
CHRISTMAS AT THE MCGIBBON HOUSE
The former Manitoba Street home of Dr. Peter McGibbon, in Bracebridge, was my residence from the autumn of 1977 until the late spring of 1983. For the first years of my family’s stay in the dwelling, I was privileged to have possession of the attic which overlooked the tree-lined triangle of Memorial Park. It was a magnificent portal to watch out over my hometown.
First of all, as is noted in other entries on this site, the McGibbon house was haunted by many quantities and qualities of the paranormal. And while it’s true I was originally a tad unsettled about the entities encountered, there were so many unexplained activities that it became more the patina and provenance of the house, more so than being just a "haunted house." Working in the attic gave me truly interesting point of observation about the haunts I was writing atop.
It was only days after moving in that I set up my typewriter, on an old desk by the front window. The attic had enough windows that it stayed wonderfully illuminated with natural light from early morning until dusk. It was cheerful enough but it was rather cavernous because of its size and ceiling height, and the fact there were modest furnishings. It was a well insulated room when the door to the back stairs was shut, and of all the places I’ve had writing studios situated, over the decades, none had the ambience of that McGibbon house attic.
The most memorable period writing from that third floor portal, was during the winter of 1977-78. I had just finished my studies in Canadian history, at York University, with a minor in English, and I was eager to begin some serious writing. I dabbled in poetry and short stories at that point, and I wrote a weekly column in a new paper known as the Bracebridge Examiner, on the subject of antiques and collectibles. It was a magic place because only slumber put me out of action. I was able to sit at that typewriter and go mad with composition. It was probably my most prolific period as a writer, and it was the silence and the view that really made this place a catalyst for new ideas. I wanted to write. I’d sit down with a bottle of wine, and I’d work until well after midnight, for at least five nights each week over that winter period. It was a strange feeling of elevation being on top of so much history. Dr. Peter McGibbon and his wife Mabel were two very accomplished individuals and this house had been used as both a medical office and a residence.
It was an early 1900's three story brick house so it was always making some unexplained settling, expansion or reduction noises; whether it was the heating ducts clanging with wisdom from the furnace, or creaking of floor boards from downstairs that I could hear clearly on occasion, even while in the middle of typing at the attic window. What made it strange moreso, was that there were periods of almost entombment when even the traffic below didn’t seem to register within. It could be noiseless for hours and then, as if someone had thrown open a window or door, the sounds were more than abundant. It could change in seconds and I can remember stopping work because it had gone from grave-like silence, to the sounds of a three ring circus. There were many times during these long writing jags that I would be startled by someone talking nearby. In my years in the McGibbon house this was common activity, as was rapping at the doors and jiggling of door knobs. I’d look around expecting that my girlfriend Gail had arrived, and I’d simply missed the opening creak of the door at the stairs. This happened hundreds of times and never once could I attribute the voice to a person in my presence. These were just voices in the air of the house. Voices from the past. Sometimes I would swear someone was calling my name. I can’t remember how many times I ran downstairs, thinking my mother Merle was in some sort of trouble, only to find out she was nodding off on the chesterfield, or making dinner.
It was also not uncommon whatsoever, to feel someone or something looking over my shoulder, as if trying to read what I was typing, feeling as close as one can get without the full sensation of intimacy. I had many taps on the shoulder and the awareness of a footfall behind me, or closer to the back stairs where there was a dim light. There were times when I thought I’d just then witnessed a silhouette passing through the light but whenever I got up for a closer look, all was as empty and unremarkable as before. There were other times when I would get a cold shudder, which my mother used to suggest was "caused by someone walking over your grave from another life." It was the only serious creepy feeling I had in that attic, when all of a sudden I’d find myself with a tingling shiver, as if I should be scared though I was never sure what to be scared about. It was a very friendly house besides being very paranormally occupied.
I can recall being up in the attic one Christmas Eve, initially working at my typewriter, and when that enterprise ceased, wrapping presents for my family on the big editorial table to my right. I can clearly recall a less than harmonious feeling during the wrapping session, as if being told by a resident spirit, that this particular attic wasn’t for such frivolous activities. I did feel a little like Dickens’ Scrooge, in "A Christmas Carol," and half expected at any time, for the past, present and future to play out as a film strip, down across my snowy mainstreet panorama. It was the perfect window for Jacob Marley to violently throw open to inclement weather, and command my attention to the ceaseless toils of a struggling mankind below. It was certainly the kind of window that the three spirits would find accommodating in earthly visitation that’s for sure. But it all seemed ethereal in so many ways......some of it could be simply explained by the fact I was looking down at the snowy trail I walked a thousand eventful times as a child, on the way to and from Bracebridge Public School, or onward to the arena for a game of minor hockey. I could see my own ghost, and the figures of my old chums, some who were by that time deceased. It was painfully nostalgic as I did cherish my childhood, growing up in this curious little town, straddling the 45th parallel of latitude.
There were many occasions that evening when I did turn around quickly to catch the interloper, who was trying to see what I was wrapping. The first four or five times I was sure a family member had crept up those steps at the back, and had made a couple of footfalls into the room. I was wrong. After awhile it did become rather oppressive, as if something in the house was dissatisfied with the room being used in this fashion. In retrospect I’m not too sure it cared for the writing jags either. There were cold drafts moving the hanging lightbulb overhead, and so many creaking timbers that it sounded like an actual conversation of complainers.
I did not feel the same accommodation was being afforded me this Christmas Eve, as I had been welcomed on so many other nights when writing was the only task. I finished up my wrapping chores and put the parcels back in bags until the morning. I had no intention of hauling them downstairs through the zig-zag of the dark staircase. When I took one final look out the big front window that beautiful winter’s eve, I found myself quite heartsick, longing for those earlier days when snow angels impressed, in the newly fallen snow, had been made by my chums on the joyous trot home from school. As much as it should have been, and had always been to that point uplifting, the residence seemed oppressed by sadness but with no real accounting. I didn’t know this house as well as I thought....its history, its own family legacy. Maybe I was experiencing a sadness from the house not of my own making. I later found this to be somewhat true, and although I couldn’t correlate it to the Christmas season as such, it did involve the loss of a young girl and the misery of a doting father.
As you will read about the McGibbon house throughout this site of recollections about Muskoka and Algonquin ghosts, this was not a house where malevolent spirits dwelled. Maybe a little though provoking, possibly a little unsettling but in no way was the house occupied by a single entity that wasn’t welcoming overall. It had its peculiarities but nothing that was frightening. Every resident in the house over the years just accepted the comings and goings, and bumps in the night, as of the "ordinary kind." We all lived in an ordinary haunted house. But it was remarkable and memorable in so many ways.
As for my attic vigils, I owe it a giant debt of gratitude. It was a wonderful place to write about history and philosophy, and to be an apprentice bard. It was moody and brooding at times but then so was I, thus there was a balance achieved. I will never forget the wonderful contribution that old house made to a fledgling writer, who cherished the upstairs view of "Our Town."
Merry Christmas!
The former Manitoba Street home of Dr. Peter McGibbon, in Bracebridge, was my residence from the autumn of 1977 until the late spring of 1983. For the first years of my family’s stay in the dwelling, I was privileged to have possession of the attic which overlooked the tree-lined triangle of Memorial Park. It was a magnificent portal to watch out over my hometown.
First of all, as is noted in other entries on this site, the McGibbon house was haunted by many quantities and qualities of the paranormal. And while it’s true I was originally a tad unsettled about the entities encountered, there were so many unexplained activities that it became more the patina and provenance of the house, more so than being just a "haunted house." Working in the attic gave me truly interesting point of observation about the haunts I was writing atop.
It was only days after moving in that I set up my typewriter, on an old desk by the front window. The attic had enough windows that it stayed wonderfully illuminated with natural light from early morning until dusk. It was cheerful enough but it was rather cavernous because of its size and ceiling height, and the fact there were modest furnishings. It was a well insulated room when the door to the back stairs was shut, and of all the places I’ve had writing studios situated, over the decades, none had the ambience of that McGibbon house attic.
The most memorable period writing from that third floor portal, was during the winter of 1977-78. I had just finished my studies in Canadian history, at York University, with a minor in English, and I was eager to begin some serious writing. I dabbled in poetry and short stories at that point, and I wrote a weekly column in a new paper known as the Bracebridge Examiner, on the subject of antiques and collectibles. It was a magic place because only slumber put me out of action. I was able to sit at that typewriter and go mad with composition. It was probably my most prolific period as a writer, and it was the silence and the view that really made this place a catalyst for new ideas. I wanted to write. I’d sit down with a bottle of wine, and I’d work until well after midnight, for at least five nights each week over that winter period. It was a strange feeling of elevation being on top of so much history. Dr. Peter McGibbon and his wife Mabel were two very accomplished individuals and this house had been used as both a medical office and a residence.
It was an early 1900's three story brick house so it was always making some unexplained settling, expansion or reduction noises; whether it was the heating ducts clanging with wisdom from the furnace, or creaking of floor boards from downstairs that I could hear clearly on occasion, even while in the middle of typing at the attic window. What made it strange moreso, was that there were periods of almost entombment when even the traffic below didn’t seem to register within. It could be noiseless for hours and then, as if someone had thrown open a window or door, the sounds were more than abundant. It could change in seconds and I can remember stopping work because it had gone from grave-like silence, to the sounds of a three ring circus. There were many times during these long writing jags that I would be startled by someone talking nearby. In my years in the McGibbon house this was common activity, as was rapping at the doors and jiggling of door knobs. I’d look around expecting that my girlfriend Gail had arrived, and I’d simply missed the opening creak of the door at the stairs. This happened hundreds of times and never once could I attribute the voice to a person in my presence. These were just voices in the air of the house. Voices from the past. Sometimes I would swear someone was calling my name. I can’t remember how many times I ran downstairs, thinking my mother Merle was in some sort of trouble, only to find out she was nodding off on the chesterfield, or making dinner.
It was also not uncommon whatsoever, to feel someone or something looking over my shoulder, as if trying to read what I was typing, feeling as close as one can get without the full sensation of intimacy. I had many taps on the shoulder and the awareness of a footfall behind me, or closer to the back stairs where there was a dim light. There were times when I thought I’d just then witnessed a silhouette passing through the light but whenever I got up for a closer look, all was as empty and unremarkable as before. There were other times when I would get a cold shudder, which my mother used to suggest was "caused by someone walking over your grave from another life." It was the only serious creepy feeling I had in that attic, when all of a sudden I’d find myself with a tingling shiver, as if I should be scared though I was never sure what to be scared about. It was a very friendly house besides being very paranormally occupied.
I can recall being up in the attic one Christmas Eve, initially working at my typewriter, and when that enterprise ceased, wrapping presents for my family on the big editorial table to my right. I can clearly recall a less than harmonious feeling during the wrapping session, as if being told by a resident spirit, that this particular attic wasn’t for such frivolous activities. I did feel a little like Dickens’ Scrooge, in "A Christmas Carol," and half expected at any time, for the past, present and future to play out as a film strip, down across my snowy mainstreet panorama. It was the perfect window for Jacob Marley to violently throw open to inclement weather, and command my attention to the ceaseless toils of a struggling mankind below. It was certainly the kind of window that the three spirits would find accommodating in earthly visitation that’s for sure. But it all seemed ethereal in so many ways......some of it could be simply explained by the fact I was looking down at the snowy trail I walked a thousand eventful times as a child, on the way to and from Bracebridge Public School, or onward to the arena for a game of minor hockey. I could see my own ghost, and the figures of my old chums, some who were by that time deceased. It was painfully nostalgic as I did cherish my childhood, growing up in this curious little town, straddling the 45th parallel of latitude.
There were many occasions that evening when I did turn around quickly to catch the interloper, who was trying to see what I was wrapping. The first four or five times I was sure a family member had crept up those steps at the back, and had made a couple of footfalls into the room. I was wrong. After awhile it did become rather oppressive, as if something in the house was dissatisfied with the room being used in this fashion. In retrospect I’m not too sure it cared for the writing jags either. There were cold drafts moving the hanging lightbulb overhead, and so many creaking timbers that it sounded like an actual conversation of complainers.
I did not feel the same accommodation was being afforded me this Christmas Eve, as I had been welcomed on so many other nights when writing was the only task. I finished up my wrapping chores and put the parcels back in bags until the morning. I had no intention of hauling them downstairs through the zig-zag of the dark staircase. When I took one final look out the big front window that beautiful winter’s eve, I found myself quite heartsick, longing for those earlier days when snow angels impressed, in the newly fallen snow, had been made by my chums on the joyous trot home from school. As much as it should have been, and had always been to that point uplifting, the residence seemed oppressed by sadness but with no real accounting. I didn’t know this house as well as I thought....its history, its own family legacy. Maybe I was experiencing a sadness from the house not of my own making. I later found this to be somewhat true, and although I couldn’t correlate it to the Christmas season as such, it did involve the loss of a young girl and the misery of a doting father.
As you will read about the McGibbon house throughout this site of recollections about Muskoka and Algonquin ghosts, this was not a house where malevolent spirits dwelled. Maybe a little though provoking, possibly a little unsettling but in no way was the house occupied by a single entity that wasn’t welcoming overall. It had its peculiarities but nothing that was frightening. Every resident in the house over the years just accepted the comings and goings, and bumps in the night, as of the "ordinary kind." We all lived in an ordinary haunted house. But it was remarkable and memorable in so many ways.
As for my attic vigils, I owe it a giant debt of gratitude. It was a wonderful place to write about history and philosophy, and to be an apprentice bard. It was moody and brooding at times but then so was I, thus there was a balance achieved. I will never forget the wonderful contribution that old house made to a fledgling writer, who cherished the upstairs view of "Our Town."
Merry Christmas!
Thursday, October 15, 2009
More historical research underway into old ghosts, old ways, and grand old haunts in Muskoka
My newest efforts to detail the paranormal characteristics of Muskoka involve much more historical research, as left by some of the well known....and some "not so well known" authors from the era of the pioneer homesteads across the hinterland. I’m up to my neck in old books and loving every moment of it. It just feels right to be in the company of so much important heritage about our region, our province and country.
As a first installment of many more entries to come, I have given a brief overview of our region’s first encounters with the spirit tradition. It dates back to the First People’s cultural beliefs in the spirits of earth and the universe, of nature and storm, sky and season. Take a few moments to visit my newly launched website at www.freewebs.com/hauntedmuskoka , and consult the site regularly for more information about the paranormal heritage of the District of Muskoka.
My newest efforts to detail the paranormal characteristics of Muskoka involve much more historical research, as left by some of the well known....and some "not so well known" authors from the era of the pioneer homesteads across the hinterland. I’m up to my neck in old books and loving every moment of it. It just feels right to be in the company of so much important heritage about our region, our province and country.
As a first installment of many more entries to come, I have given a brief overview of our region’s first encounters with the spirit tradition. It dates back to the First People’s cultural beliefs in the spirits of earth and the universe, of nature and storm, sky and season. Take a few moments to visit my newly launched website at www.freewebs.com/hauntedmuskoka , and consult the site regularly for more information about the paranormal heritage of the District of Muskoka.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
PICTURE OF A GHOST?
This is a photograph of a ghost? It was taken at the former McGibbon House, on Manitoba Street, in Bracebridge, Ontario. (It was torn down a number of years ago). You can read more about the ghost(s) of McGibbon House by referencing back in this collection of blog entries. The black and white image above was one frame of dozens taken with a motor-wind on my news-issue 35mm camera back in the early 1980's. But it was the only frame showing the arc of mist just above and overlapping the door frame itself. It was taken of a doorway into a small hall, where every night at about the same time my cat "Animal" would jump off the small sofa, and stare up at the kitchen wall.
After many months of this happening, and not being able to figure out what was attracting the cat’s attent
ion, I set myself up this particular evening, with a camera, flash and some patience. Within only minutes of my setting up, Animal jumped down and wandered toward the open door, sitting beside the old rocking chair, and on cue looking up. If you see the cat, follow its glance upwards and you will see the misty and curved vapor on the door frame itself. If you draw a line from the cat’s nose to the vapor it’s not far fetched at all to believe this was the object of its curiosity.
I remember shooting about a full roll of 24 frames on this occasion but when my photo technician processed the film the next day, there was only one frame that contained this peculiar half ring of mist. It was determined not to be a light flare or lens flaw as all the other photographs taken with that same camera and lens were perfect......even the ones shot at the same time from the same position.
The event only ever lasted a few moments and just as I was scrambling in my camera bag for another roll of film, Animal had turned and trotted back to the couch to resume his cat-nap. The same thing happened many more nights that year and Animal reacted the same each time. What is curious, if you cross reference stories about the McGibbon homestead, is that my first major paranormal encounter in the house, was experienced on the back stairs several years earlier, just a few feet from where this photograph was taken. I went through the back door into a dark stairway one night, after working at my typewriter in the attic office, and was preparing to head down one more flight of stairs to a lower apartment,.....when without any warning, I walked into a literal wall of damp, chilled, blinding white vapor......contrasted so starkly from the blackness on this second floor landing. It was quite an experience and is detailed in the larger story about the McGibbon House. I suppose this vapor could have been a repeat performance in a very haunted back section of an historic Bracebridge house. Only Animal knew for sure.
This is a photograph of a ghost? It was taken at the former McGibbon House, on Manitoba Street, in Bracebridge, Ontario. (It was torn down a number of years ago). You can read more about the ghost(s) of McGibbon House by referencing back in this collection of blog entries. The black and white image above was one frame of dozens taken with a motor-wind on my news-issue 35mm camera back in the early 1980's. But it was the only frame showing the arc of mist just above and overlapping the door frame itself. It was taken of a doorway into a small hall, where every night at about the same time my cat "Animal" would jump off the small sofa, and stare up at the kitchen wall.
After many months of this happening, and not being able to figure out what was attracting the cat’s attent
ion, I set myself up this particular evening, with a camera, flash and some patience. Within only minutes of my setting up, Animal jumped down and wandered toward the open door, sitting beside the old rocking chair, and on cue looking up. If you see the cat, follow its glance upwards and you will see the misty and curved vapor on the door frame itself. If you draw a line from the cat’s nose to the vapor it’s not far fetched at all to believe this was the object of its curiosity.I remember shooting about a full roll of 24 frames on this occasion but when my photo technician processed the film the next day, there was only one frame that contained this peculiar half ring of mist. It was determined not to be a light flare or lens flaw as all the other photographs taken with that same camera and lens were perfect......even the ones shot at the same time from the same position.
The event only ever lasted a few moments and just as I was scrambling in my camera bag for another roll of film, Animal had turned and trotted back to the couch to resume his cat-nap. The same thing happened many more nights that year and Animal reacted the same each time. What is curious, if you cross reference stories about the McGibbon homestead, is that my first major paranormal encounter in the house, was experienced on the back stairs several years earlier, just a few feet from where this photograph was taken. I went through the back door into a dark stairway one night, after working at my typewriter in the attic office, and was preparing to head down one more flight of stairs to a lower apartment,.....when without any warning, I walked into a literal wall of damp, chilled, blinding white vapor......contrasted so starkly from the blackness on this second floor landing. It was quite an experience and is detailed in the larger story about the McGibbon House. I suppose this vapor could have been a repeat performance in a very haunted back section of an historic Bracebridge house. Only Animal knew for sure.
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