This happened to me in the summer of 1987. My husband and I had just rented a small ranch house on the west side of Elgin, Illinois.
Our landlady had been unable to sell the house, and instead decided to rent it for a year. She informed us her father had passed away
suddenly a few months before she moved out of the house to sell it, and we were dutifully commiserate for her loss.
The house was not old. It had been built perhaps in the 1950's when the boom of growth after the Second World War saw many small
ranch-style homes being built to accommodate returning servicemen and the families they were starting. "Our" house had three bedrooms,
an attached one-car garage and a partially finished basement. The laundry area in the basement was directly under the galley-style
kitchen. And our bedroom was in the back, next to the bathroom.
Near the baseboards, next to the bathroom door, was a small night-light, since it got so dark in that corner of the hall. My husband
knew I didn't like sleeping in total darkness. But one night, that light went out. He asked me if I wanted the dining room light turned
on very low, so it would shine in. I said no, I'd manage until morning, when I'd get a replacement bulb.
We had no more than laid down and turned out the light, when suddenly in the pitch-darkness, I saw someone leaning over my side of the
bed to look at me! An older man, his face (which I could clearly see in the pitch-blackness) full of concern and confusion. I sat bolt
upright and screamed my husband's name repeatedly. Whatever it was had vanished, of course.
"What's the matter?" he asked. "There's someone in the house!" I cried. Being a good husband, he went all around the house, into every
room, checked all the doors and windows; he even went down into the unfinished part of the basement, which he said gave him the willies
to begin with. There was no one in the house. But I know what I saw.
Later I asked our landlady if her father had died in the house. There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment, then
she said, "Why do you ask?" "Because I think I saw him," I replied. "What did he look like?" she wanted to know. I described what I
had seen in as much detail as I could remember at the time (which is more than the years since have allowed me to remember). "Oh,
my God," she said. "That's Wally! That's my dad!"
I found it strangely reassuring to know our ghost was not a spiteful or mischievous spirit, merely a lost soul. I only had one other
encounter with Wally after that. I was in the basement doing laundry, and all three of our cats were downstairs with me. My husband
had gone to the hardware store, so I was ostensibly alone in the house. Suddenly all the cats growled and looked up at the basement
ceiling, and I clearly heard footsteps crossing the floor over my head, passing through the dining room, and disappearing into the
middle bedroom....where Wally had died. I knew he had been in a wheelchair just before his death from a heart attack, and the only
thing I could think was, "Well, I guess you don't need wheelchairs in the afterlife!"
