A Ghost Story by Rick Moran

      Everyone has one; they may not admit to it, but it is there, hidden away in a family closet, probably deep inside a long locked steamer trunk we call the psyche. Many admit to them now, as they did so many generations ago, before the time when we worried about being politically correct.  What am I referring to, you ask? The family tale passed on from one generation to the next that ties us to the paranormal. Sometimes it is the story of how a long gone relative was chased through the graveyard so very long ago, or maybe it is grandpa's encounter with a UFO. Every story is different and usually passed along with an obligatory snicker, but they are nevertheless passed along, just in case.

        I have noted in my travels that many of the best paranormal researchers began their quest seated around the dining room table on Thanksgiving or campfire one summer night on a family outing. My family of course was not an exception, in fact the tales were more numerous than most, possibly because of my Scot-Irish lineage or the fact that several of my kin were considered psychic.

        Possibly the most intriguing of the family ghost stories was centered on my Father's grandmother, a full blooded Scot who came to the United States in the 1880s.  In my family, in spite of the fact they were fairly well off, they were thought of more or less as "wet-backs" by the rest of the clan, all of whom could trace their roots back to before the American Revolution.. 

        My Great grandparents had a beautiful brownstone on the west side of Manhattan and both a maid and upstairs "girl," as my grandmother told the story were in residence, as well as 11 children.. Great grandmother was a school teacher in Scotland, her husband an engineer.  On the particular night in question my great grandmother was in the pantry and my grandmother came down to see what she was doing.  She calmly turned to her third oldest daughter and smiled. She directed her to call the "girls" to the basement.  Shortly thereafter she announced that there were preparations to be made, she would die the next day. Horrified, the girls asked how she could know such a thing; she explained in her family the daughters would all be visited as death approached, so that they could make ready.  She said that true to the custom, her own mother, long gone in the highlands of Scotland, had come that night with the word.

        Great grandmother was still a young woman by our standards, but true to the legend, she died in childbirth the next afternoon.  As she had ordered, everything was in readiness, even to the smallest detail; messages had been sent with the eldest daughter, Sarah, to the other women of the Clan in New York. They arrived at the house just as she passed.

        I remember my sister asking my grandmother if she was frightened, and she said, "No. What was there to be frightened about.  Wasn't 24 hours warning a blessing?" My sister scoffed at the idea and said so. Later we debated the entire idea; my sister looked at the events logically and I heard myself saying in response, "But what if..."  

        I have no idea if my grandmother got the warning; she was in her 90's and died in a hospital after a stroke, but my sister was another story. She suffered from juvenile diabetes and died after a miscarriage.  After she died her husband said that the night before her passing, she asked him to call me and say it was time.  He knew  I routinely came on my day off and decided not to follow her request. Had she too been visited?

So why am I passing along this little ghost story? Besides the obvious; we all have family stories about the unexplained, but most dismiss them or treat them as legend, while a small number of us have to ask, "But what if?" What if Washington Irving's tales of Sleepy Hollow were based on fact? What if Mothman really did visit Point Pleasant WV and what if that neighbor down the road really does have a ghost in the attic?  We will never know until we take a closer look and hopefully some of what you will find on these few pages will help you along the way!

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