Make of this what you will, or not...
Nov 30, 2016 20:12:10 GMT
Post by Humph on Nov 30, 2016 20:12:10 GMT
My father died ( in my arms ) in 1980, he'd had a stroke but the ambulance didn't get there quick enough to help him. I was 21.
Ten years later, in the summer of 1990, I was driving home alone very late at night on a lonely country road in my Golf GTi. It was a warm night, "muggy" as they say and in my non air conditioned car I had the window open. I was stone cold sober and wide awake, kind of enjoying the sporty car on an empty rural road. I was going through a bit of domestic trouble at the time and not really very happy with life but it was a Saturday night / Sunday morning, I'd been out with friends and I was in at least reasonable spirits.
I remember noting that the outside temperature was very warm until fairly suddenly I felt cold, really cold, and glancing down at the dash had to double take when the reading said that the temperature had dropped to -2C ! This felt impossible given that it was August and in Somerset, I remember checking it at least twice.
Then the strangest thing happened. In my peripheral vision I felt that there was someone sitting in the passenger seat and as I turned to look, I saw clear as day, my father sitting there. Dressed in the clothes he was wearing the day he died, a navy blazer, over a v-neck sweater, grey flannels and a Viyella check shirt with a burgundy Paisley pattern cravat at his neck.
He didn't say anything but just sort of nodded to me in a kindly way that felt like he was saying "it'll be alright, I'm watching out for you" then just as suddenly he was gone and the temperature came back to normal in seconds.
The lasted whole thing lasted but a brief few moments, not even long enough to stop the car or even be scary at that point, just an episode I've never been able to explain but I know happened, whether it was a figment of my imagination or not, it was real enough to me.
Its not something I've discussed with my son ( now nearly 17 ) until tonight, over dinner, when somehow the conversation turned to ghosts and whether any of us believed in anything supernatural. I think it was triggered by something on the TV, I don't know, and it doesn't matter other than to illustrate the randomness of the conversation.
He told me something that has rocked me to my core. He says that when he was a small child, he was in the back seat of my car ( the old Mondeo estate ) when he says he felt/saw someone sitting beside him who hadn't been there moments before, and that he'd felt very cold, but somehow he feels that he knew it was the grandfather he'd never met. I'd not told him my story remember. I was taken completely aback tonight and without saying anything, went over to a work surface in the kitchen, out of line of sight of the table, and wrote down on the back of an envelope, a brief description of the clothes I remember my dad wearing in my episode back in 1990. Incidentally, there are no family photographs of my dad wearing that particular combination of clothes.
I then asked my son if he could remember anything about the clothes the person he thought he saw was wearing, or indeed anything else about him. Just before I sat down to type and share this with you, he has told me that while his memory is vague, but he's sure the man was wearing, a dark blue jacket, grey trousers and that he had some kind burgundy scarf at his neck under v-necked jumper. That his hair was slicked back ( my dad did that ) and that he'd nodded to him in a friendly sort of way before disappearing.
My son says that he called out to me at the time to ask who it was sitting next to him, but that I'd dismissed his enquiry from the driver's seat saying there's no one there, and that he must have been dreaming. I certainly don't remember anything about that event.
Now, none of us have been drinking, I've shown my son and my wife the scribbles I wrote on the envelope before my son gave his description of what he remembers, and I've got to say we are at least puzzled...
I'm not going to try to understand it, nor am I going speculate too much on what it may or may not mean, I'm not naturally inclined to believe in this sort of stuff, and take a by and large cynical view of those who do, but do you know what, I can't explain it. I can't explain it at all.
Make of this what you will, or not.
Ten years later, in the summer of 1990, I was driving home alone very late at night on a lonely country road in my Golf GTi. It was a warm night, "muggy" as they say and in my non air conditioned car I had the window open. I was stone cold sober and wide awake, kind of enjoying the sporty car on an empty rural road. I was going through a bit of domestic trouble at the time and not really very happy with life but it was a Saturday night / Sunday morning, I'd been out with friends and I was in at least reasonable spirits.
I remember noting that the outside temperature was very warm until fairly suddenly I felt cold, really cold, and glancing down at the dash had to double take when the reading said that the temperature had dropped to -2C ! This felt impossible given that it was August and in Somerset, I remember checking it at least twice.
Then the strangest thing happened. In my peripheral vision I felt that there was someone sitting in the passenger seat and as I turned to look, I saw clear as day, my father sitting there. Dressed in the clothes he was wearing the day he died, a navy blazer, over a v-neck sweater, grey flannels and a Viyella check shirt with a burgundy Paisley pattern cravat at his neck.
He didn't say anything but just sort of nodded to me in a kindly way that felt like he was saying "it'll be alright, I'm watching out for you" then just as suddenly he was gone and the temperature came back to normal in seconds.
The lasted whole thing lasted but a brief few moments, not even long enough to stop the car or even be scary at that point, just an episode I've never been able to explain but I know happened, whether it was a figment of my imagination or not, it was real enough to me.
Its not something I've discussed with my son ( now nearly 17 ) until tonight, over dinner, when somehow the conversation turned to ghosts and whether any of us believed in anything supernatural. I think it was triggered by something on the TV, I don't know, and it doesn't matter other than to illustrate the randomness of the conversation.
He told me something that has rocked me to my core. He says that when he was a small child, he was in the back seat of my car ( the old Mondeo estate ) when he says he felt/saw someone sitting beside him who hadn't been there moments before, and that he'd felt very cold, but somehow he feels that he knew it was the grandfather he'd never met. I'd not told him my story remember. I was taken completely aback tonight and without saying anything, went over to a work surface in the kitchen, out of line of sight of the table, and wrote down on the back of an envelope, a brief description of the clothes I remember my dad wearing in my episode back in 1990. Incidentally, there are no family photographs of my dad wearing that particular combination of clothes.
I then asked my son if he could remember anything about the clothes the person he thought he saw was wearing, or indeed anything else about him. Just before I sat down to type and share this with you, he has told me that while his memory is vague, but he's sure the man was wearing, a dark blue jacket, grey trousers and that he had some kind burgundy scarf at his neck under v-necked jumper. That his hair was slicked back ( my dad did that ) and that he'd nodded to him in a friendly sort of way before disappearing.
My son says that he called out to me at the time to ask who it was sitting next to him, but that I'd dismissed his enquiry from the driver's seat saying there's no one there, and that he must have been dreaming. I certainly don't remember anything about that event.
Now, none of us have been drinking, I've shown my son and my wife the scribbles I wrote on the envelope before my son gave his description of what he remembers, and I've got to say we are at least puzzled...
I'm not going to try to understand it, nor am I going speculate too much on what it may or may not mean, I'm not naturally inclined to believe in this sort of stuff, and take a by and large cynical view of those who do, but do you know what, I can't explain it. I can't explain it at all.
Make of this what you will, or not.
