This Old House

I've been intuitive and a sensitive, before I even grasped what it was.

I don't know exactly when it started but stories of psychic readings and ghosts always amazed me and enthralled me. I always would feel spirits but was too scared to learn more. Once I was old enough to understand the spirit realm, a new world opened up for me.

So in 2003, after house hunting for the perfect old house circa 1890 or earlier, because they are the only kind I am drawn to, I shouldn't have been surprised that the house we stumbled on via word of mouth would have such a history to it and the beginning of my awareness of my abilities.

This isn't a ghost story, but they have a lot to do with it. Upon visiting the house for the walk through, we took a few pictures. It's a 200 year old cape house, built in 1790 by a soldier who survived the American Revolution. One of the pictures my ex-husband took, later showed two blurry figures in the westward facing bedroom window, one tall and one small like a child. No one else saw it, they all said it was trees and laughed. Within 20 minutes of being there two of us heard footsteps walking around the empty upstairs. I asked about spirits and didn't get a straight answer. But the energy in the house was very warm and very protective. I knew if we respected the house we would be okay.

We purchased the house and moved in two months later. I remember walking through the house listening with not just my ears, but my soul. There was just something about it. I sensed the room with the ghostly figures was where a woman died in childbirth. I also tried to figure out a few rooms that the energies seemed confusing. The bathroom was something else... Maybe a pantry? The pantry didn't feel right... Maybe an office? And the kitchen, it seemed people sat there, but it wasn't a kitchen. I researched historic floor plans with no success. Apparently it was a unique layout. And there was a wide door on the side - had to be the funeral door.

Within a year I scheduled a locally know psychic-medium to come visit the house for a group reading. I asked her to read the house. Within that year I had also done research in the county the house had come from, yes, it was moved to its current location in 1980, in order to save it. In addition, a historian friend had done census research for me. So now, back to the day the psychic came to visit. I did not tell her my gut feeling on the house because for all I knew it was my imagination. I also had the factual information from the historian. So I began showing her the house.

I will never forget what happened next. I told her nothing of my intuitive reading or the facts I had discovered. She walked into the Keeping Room, and yes, that was the kitchen. The bathroom that I wondered if it was a pantry - yes, she could see the herbs hanging from the ceiling. The current pantry - it was a farmer's office. The owner was important in town, well known, political figure. The limbo room - was the formal dining room. Now for upstairs, the west facing room... She saw a woman dying in childbirth. But there was a little boy too. She saw him dying from perhaps pneumonia. So my feeling and the picture made sense.

The historian's research backed everything up. The owner had run a lumber yard and was a founding member of the town. His wife had died during childbirth and their son died 6 months later, of pneumonia. This was the first time my psychic senses had been verified and validated.

I told the psychic-medium that the house didn't seem haunted, rather visited and protected. She said she agreed and was glad I knew the difference. I always talked out loud to them, the DPs, especially as we made repairs. I could sense their concern, wondering what we were doing. After all, this was their house first. And this is why I feel spiritual awareness and respect is so important with old homes. Ghosts were people too. They loved the home as much if not more than we do. They have protected me and done some really funny stuff. I'll tell that story another time.

I'd like to spread the word that if you live in a house you worry may be haunted, with the exception of negative cases, just treat them with respect. Talk to them. Let them know you respect them and the house. You might be surprised how calming an open line of communication is.