Strange "Visitors" As My Uncle Was Dying
by Charles
(Aloha, Oregon, United States)
I have two incidents to share. Before these things happened I was a total materialist, when you die you die, nothing remains, etc. Now I am not so sure.
I'm not making claims about either of these events; I'm trying to keep an open mind and wanted to share this story with other folks in the hope that someone may have had something similar happen to them, or be able to provide me with an explanation, or rudimentary guesses as to what the explanation might be. Again, I make no claims to understand completely what these events were. I am totally open to the idea that they were hallucinations brought on by the emotional intensity of the time in which they occurred.
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A few years back my uncle, with whom I was very close, was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer and was told that his condition was terminal.
Over the next several years he underwent experimental "treatments" as he wanted to exhaust every possible remedy, but in the end had become broken and bedridden all the same. Each member of my family took turns visiting and taking care of him as he slowly passed away. By the end he had moved into my grandmother's house, and I made it a point to stop by each day to lend a hand (if needed) and to help provide moral support as it was such a trying time for everyone.
The first "incident" that happened occurred at my grandmother's house, while I was visiting with my mother and brother. I had passed out on my grandparent's couch and was in that state of consciousness that one feels as a dream ends and waking begins. I remember being "awoken" (I was still in a half-dream state) by someone asking me, "Are you Charlie? Charlie? CHARLIEEEEEEEEEE!"
I remember saying, "Yes, that's me." I looked up and saw a vague outline of a woman standing in front of me, but instead of being a person it was just a large, black hole. The voice sounded like a combination of my grandmother and bizarre electrical signals coming from radio when you have it tuned halfway between two stations.
The voice continued. "I've been trying to call my sister but she's not answering her phone. Would you please tell her that I will be here to pick up my brother when he finally gets his a$$ in gear?" I remember mumbling something, then being woken up by my mother as she entered the room.
"Are you on the phone?" she asked.
"No, why?"
"I heard you talking to someone, they were asking if you were Charles....?"
I told her I was having a dream about speaking with some woman, but I did not mention what she said.
My aunt, my mother and uncle's sister, died two years before I was born, and, after having reflected on this over the last few years, I feel like it was either her ghost/consciousness or a mental construct my mind created to assist myself during the stressful time. I have no definite opinion, except that it was extremely bizarre and that I want to keep an open mind about it.
The second incident happened one day when I stopped by my grandparent's house after finishing classes at the Community College I was attending at the time. When I arrived, my grandmother warned me that my uncle did not wish to have anyone visit him at the time. I assumed this was due to the constant vomiting and bowel issues that take place when one is battling cancer. My uncle was a very independent, proud man and would not have wanted anyone, let alone his nephews who had always looked up to him, to see him in that condition, so I understood completely. I decided to finish up some homework, then head home. I started in on the homework, then out of the corner of my right eye I saw someone walking past my grandparent's dining room table.
I looked up from my school books and saw an old man making a bee-line for my uncle's room, located at the end of the hall. To this day I can still remember he was wearing a long-sleeved gray shirt and a black leather vest. And he had no feet, or rather his legs seemed to fade away and disappear just below the knees.
My heart jumped and I sat stunned for a few seconds. I didn't feel any kind of "cool air," as I've heard described in other "supernatural" accounts which bear some similarity to this, but rather felt an almost "hypnic jerk" falling sensation.
My grandparent's den/family room lay immediately to my left, so I stood up and walked inside, certain the person I saw MUST have been one of them. I had my doubts, because my grandfather had suffered a debilitating stroke a few years before, and my grandmother's leg is in a cast due to her diabetes, and I was fairly certain neither of them could have moved as quickly as did the man I had seen a few seconds earlier.
"Were one of you guys up walking around?" I asked.
"No," my grandmother said, "so you're seeing things too, now?"
I told her what had just happened, and she then told me about a few incidents that had happened to she and my mother a week or so earlier, in no way similar to what I'd just witnessed. She said they wanted to tell me and my siblings but refrained from telling me as they thought we'd think they were crazy.
I left the house immediately and went to the store to buy a pack of cigarettes and smoked half the pack on the way back to my grandparent's house. When I arrived my grandmother told me that my uncle was ready to see me. So I went into his room, helped him change out his water bottle, rolled a joint for him (medical marijuana is legal in my state (and even if it wasn't, in my opinion a person who would deny a dying cancer patient cannabis is worse than Hitler!) and no I was not using any on the day in question) and prepared to head home. I had seen enough for one day and had to go home and process whatever it was that I had seen that afternoon.
As I left, I said what I always made a point to say whenever I left my uncle, which was, "I'll see you when I see you."
At that point it really could have been any day (and in fact was almost two weeks later, exactly) that he died so I tried to make it as neutral sounding as possible. When I said it this time, however, my uncle grabbed my arm and stared into my eyes, and with the biggest shit-eating grin you've ever seen said, "You will." I finished the pack on the way home.
Has anything similar happened to anyone else out there?
Thanks!
Charles
