My Life with the Dead
By Dee McGee
The Rocking Chair
When I was about 2 years old my mother had
brought my great grandmother's rocking chair home (it was a
beautiful chair, oak, with flowers and leaves embossed into it).
This was the only thing my mother had left after my great grammy's
death 3 weeks before I was born. At first my parents thought they
were seeing things, they could swear that the chair would rock on
its own! In the early morning hours when my father was getting
ready for work, the chair started to rock. My Dad ignored the
chair, as he usually did, and said nothing to my mother. Mom had
gone down stairs later that morning to get ready for her daycare
children to come for the day and the chair started to rock.
Natually my mother freaked out and looked for every plausible
explanation of why the chair was doing this. She looked for open
doors and windows, felt for drafts, moved the chair away from the
heaters, but the chair, no matter where it was placed would
continue to rock, and the rocking would speed up when children
where present. Now I being the strange little child I was, would
sit in the chair and rock (although I could not touch the floor
with my feet), and would talk to my great grammy. My parents
although weirded out by this experience did not get rid of the
chair (yet). The chair stayed in our house for seven years. My
oldest sister had a baby, and we were taking care of the little
girl. When the baby learned to crawl the baby crawled up to the
chair and would stare at it for hours just cooing away. Mom had
finally had it at this point and sold the chair, an incident
which I cried about for over a month.
Lake Superior
My grandparents had a cabin on Lake Superior and
we would travel there every summer for a family vacation. When I
was between the ages of 3 and 4 I refused to even put a toe into
the lake. My parents, knowing I loved the water and swimming,
couldn't figure it out. My father one day pulled me aside and
asked me why I wouldn't go into this lake when I would go into
all of the lakes in Minnasota, without so much as a
thought. I told him point blank there were people who died in
that water and they were still there and I was scared they were
going to drown me because they wanted me to be with them. To this
day I have not put a toe into Lake Superior, and have researched
the lake and found out about a tragedy called the Edmond
Fitzgerald...a boat that sank with no surviors in Lake Superior.
Ghost in the Garage.
Upon finding out about my father's terminal
illness, we moved to Opportunity, Montana (a town about 7 miles
east of Anaconda). An accused child molester used to live in our
home, so basically we got it for a song, considering we had to
clean urine off the walls of the home, paint over a child's
bloody handprints in a room in the garage and remodel the entire
house. My father and I both had our reservations aout going into
the garage, but we needed it for storage and we wanted to paint
that room. I hated the garage (I still hate that garage), which
is an old house that was built in the 1900's and turned into a
garage when the new house was built in the 50's. The only story I
am willing to talk about that involves the garage is that one day
I had to go into the garage to get something, upon entering the
garage suitcases and bags of our own stuff were thrown onto my
head and hurled at me. I don't go into the garage alone anymore.
Harvey the friendly ghost.
I can't pinpoint when Harvey started hanging
around the house in Opportunity but he did. At first my father
and I just thought we were both imagining things, weird noises,
people walking through the house, doors opening at all hours and
people in the atttic (which is more of a crawl space in our roof).
Then actual physical things started happening. Once it was my Dad
putting out silverware for dinner and the spoons kept sliding to
the other side of the counter. Dad called me into the room to
look at it. We would put out a knife, a spoon and a fork. Sure
enough the spoon would slide to the other side of the counter,
while the other silverware stayed in its place. These little
things got bigger. I would sleep with my radio on and he would
switch the station or turn the music down, put on the base really
high, play with the treble (just things to let me know he was
there). The dogs used to bark at the wall, nothing was there, but
the dogs would go absolutley nuts. Then if he didn't think he was
getting enough attention he would hide things or move them. Dad
used to set his glasses down next to his chair so he wouldn't
missplace them, and Harvey would move them by the computer, or
move his soda all around the house. One day when I had brough a
friend of mine home, he hid her Black Hills gold ring (FOR FIVE
MONTHS!). We searchd everywhere. I think he didn't want her to
leave. You see Harvey is a child, and like a child he needs
attention, and he likes people who like kids. Once when I was at
my lowest point and contemplating suicide Harvey kept changing my
radio stations. I was getting really mad and saying "Harvey
damnit stop that!" He was more persistent. I finally gave up
and he started messing with the controls on my waterbed, and move
waves IN my waterbed. I was crying pretty hard by this time, and
when I looked up I saw I white mist appear in the shape of a
child. He slowly became more clear until I could make out his
face and his clothes. He was a little blonde haired boy. He
looked so scared and lonely like he knew what I was thinking
about and I think it scared the heck out of him. I think he
thought I was going to leave him if he didn't do something. He
just stood there looking at me, and I just sat there looking back
at him. After Harvey had vanished (which proabably was only bout
two seconds after he appeared), I left my room to go tell my
father what was going on and what I was thinking about doing. NOW
WETHER THIS NEXT THING I AM GOING TO TELL YOU HAS ANYTHING TO DO
WITH HARVEY YOU DECIDE! About a year after I had seen Harvey, I
actually did attempt suicide, and my dog J.D., who was on the
other side of my door, started barking at my door so loudly that
my nearly deaf father heard him and came and rescued me from
nearly bleeding to death. How did my puppy know what was going on
in the room? Did he save me, or did Harvey (again)?
THE GHOST WITH THE MOST???
The story of Stan.
I have since moved out of my Dad's house in
Opportunity. First I moved to Butte, where I had to have a
psychic come into my house to tell my why I was having trouble
with a restless spirit. It seems that a lady who had lived in our
house comitted suicide (not in the house thank goodess), and her
son was looking for her (in my house). Then after I suffered a
miscarriage, my roommate and I were haunted by strange crying at
all hourse of the night and even in the day (this has moved with
us). We are now living in Great Falls Montana, and are having
ghostly visits once again, even while I type this to you. This
particular spirit whom we are calling Stan (For the heck of it),
is fond of our electronics. Our new c.d players is now literally
sucking up our c.d.'s and not giving them back, our vcr is
spitting out half eaten tapes like projectiles, our tv changes
channels on its own and turns itself on and off, our phone rings,
when no one has called, and even our web tv system is on the
blink most of the time, our stove turns itself on and the fridge
only works when it has a mind to. We live with the spirits as a
part of our life, but we really wish we could type an e-mail with
out the tv changing channels and watch a movie with out fear of
being harmed by flying video tapes! :-)