; Phantoms and Monsters: Pulse of the Paranormal

Saturday, December 26, 2020

The Lady at the End of My Bed

A man in New Orleans recalls the 'ghost lady' that he regularly encountered and talked to when he was a child living in Forney, Texas.

The following account was recently forwarded to me:

"My name is JP and I currently live in New Orleans, but I’m originally from Texas; about 30 minutes east of Dallas, in a little town called Forney. Anyway, this story happened there in about 1992, when I was around five years old, and living in a home with my mom, dad, and baby sister. I vaguely remember this incident for the most part; only bits and pieces of detail overall. But have since spoken with my mother about it, and as recently as a couple weeks ago brought it up again with her to make sure I had the details straight.

I had my own bedroom in this house. One afternoon while my dad was at work, I was in my bedroom playing with my Matchbox cars and other toys while my mom was in the kitchen getting lunch ready for us. According to her, she heard me talking. This in itself wasn’t out of the ordinary; as I usually would make sounds and create stories with whatever toys I was playing with (I had an incredible imagination back then, and still do thankfully). However, this particular occasion was different. She heard me carrying on one side of what sounded to her like a full conversation. As moms often do, she walked down the hall to the doorway of my bedroom and asked me who I was talking to. And sitting on the floor, I told her, very nonchalantly that I was just talking to, “the lady at the end of my bed”.

She played it cool, and didn’t outwardly show any sort of apparent fear or apprehension about what I said, but later told me that since she was home alone with two small children at the time, she was a bit freaked out. She asked the normal questions about this “lady”; was she young or old? Was she nice or scary? Etc. And I, without slipping a beat, told her that she was nice and was an older lady apparently, who was simply inquiring about my toys, and what I was doing. I didn’t seem scared, and acted as though this was no big deal. I will say that around this time, I did have an imaginary friend, whom I called “Harry". But let me be clear; this was not Harry, and I never had more than one imaginary friend, that I can assure you.

She and I have discussed this event only a couple of times in the years since. And I never gave it much of a second thought. That is until my grandma — my mom’s mom — somehow managed to bring up a similar, but separate event later on. She would come visit from Pennsylvania, (Pittsburgh specifically), for months at a time, mainly to help my mom with my sister and I while she and my dad worked during the week. My grandma was a very no-nonsense, but funny and gregarious old Polish woman. She wouldn’t take any guff, but was extremely loving and doted on us kids. When we picked her up from the train station one time when I was in junior high, we somehow got on the subject of ghosts and supernatural occurrences, when she then said something to the effect of; “...then there was that time when I asked who you were talking to alone in your room, and you said that you were just talking to the lady at the end of the bed.” She had about the same reaction as my mom according to her, and left it at that.

If those two conferred about it together, I never heard of it at least until that day in the car with my grandmother; but apparently they did compare notes when my grandmother mentioned the occurrence to my mom. That day in the car though, I got chills. I had only ever heard this story from my mother, and for all I knew before that, it had just been a dream or an occurrence I had managed to forget the bulk of. But the more I thought about it, the more I remembered that particular time, that room — and having the benefit of a photographic memory, I can almost see this lady in my minds eye. She’s older, silver hair, and had a gentle demeanor overall. That’s about it as far as my memory of her goes.

I’ve never forgotten this story. I’m 33 now, and from time to time my mom and I talk about it. Who this woman could’ve been. What she might’ve been visiting me for, and what was it about her that kept me from being afraid like a lot of  5 year-olds would be. Mom seems to think that she was some sort of guardian angel, or something like that. I’m convinced she was a ghost, a spirit — or whatever you wish to call them — that was just there to watch over me or was curious about this weird kid with a rich imagination. Who really knows? But I never gave it much stock until it was corroborated to some degree. I still think about that lady, and wonder what it was all about." JP


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