In Which We Move into a Haunted House

I am so ashamed that I haven’t blogged once this year… and here we are nearing the end of May already!

Truth is, I have been so busy with the 5 boys, homeschooling, moving, etc etc…

And I haven’t really been in the mood to share much.  Lots of personal things happening, things I don’t want to talk about… you know how it is.

However, I have felt recently, that I need to start blogging again.  Writing is such a passion of mine, but like most of my hobbies, it’s been put on the back-burner for a while now because of all the special needs of my kids.  But I am going to try harder, I promise.  There is just too much fun and crazy going on not to share, or write down even if it’s just for myself.

The first thing on my list of crazy, is the fact that we have indeed moved into a haunted house… but let’s not get ahead of myself, I will start from the beginning…

Disclaimer:  This is a true story.  I am not making it up.  Every word is as true as I know it to be. But it’s up to you to believe what you will…

When my husband got his official orders last fall to attend Captain’s Career Course at Fort Sill, OK, we made the decision to live on post this time around. (If you remember, we were stationed here for a brief time almost 3 years ago and we lived off-post).  We figured that since we were only going to be here for 6 months, we might as well, just get a place on post and save us all the rental headache.

But housing only had a 1200 sq foot place available.  Now, you are probably thinking… oh, 1200 sq feet isn’t too bad!  Let me put it this way.  I have have 5 boys.  The oldest three have ADHD and various other issues, and I am homeschooling them.  I also have 2 toddlers.  Yes, 1200 sq feet is a HUGE problem.  We needed at LEAST 1800 to keep this mama’s sanity intact.

So we told housing that we just couldn’t do it.

And we started looking off post.  However, everything that looked good, either didn’t feel right, or it fell through.

Finally, we decided just not to worry about it until we actually got to Fort Sill and we would go look around and figure it out… but a few weeks before we were set to leave at the end of February, Housing called us and told us that a place opened up that was 1800 sq feet.  They told us it only had 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, but that they were huge, and that there was basement storage and an attic space.  We knew we wouldn’t get a better deal, so we took it.  They gave us the address and I did what every reasonably planning woman would do, I Googled the address to find pictures and a floor plan so I could start sorting things out in my mind where everything was going to go.

But instead of getting a map and some housing links, a whole bunch of posts and articles popped up about hauntings.  I was like, what the heck?!  So I started reading them… who wouldn’t be curious as all heck?!  And it turned out there were a whole bunch of accounts of people who lived not only in this same building, but on this street, that had crazy experiences of the haunting variety. I started doing some research into it, and there is a lot of information out there about famous Fort Sill hauntings.  So cool.

I was pumped!

I had always wanted to be haunted!!  How cool is that!?

But to tell you the truth, I kind of thought it was BS, but I REALLY wanted to find out if any of it was true.

The second week of March could not come fast enough for me.  The move went smoothly and we met the housing coordinator at the house to get the tour and the keys.  She was really nice and really went out of her way to get us the best place for our family.

Let me describe this house.  Built in 1907, it was designed to house the families of officers stationed at Fort Sill.  There are four separate 1800 sq. foot “apartments” in our building.  Our house is on the very end of the road, and only have neighbors (aside from the ones we share the building with) to the east of us.  To the south is a large, grassy, parade field.  To the west is a basketball court and then hills and forest areas (we hear the coyotes a lot) which curves behind us to the north.  Our street is quiet and it’s perfect for the boys who have made friends with many of the other kids that live on our street.

We are living in the lower west apartment, with lovely views out the windows of the green hills.  When the housing lady took us around for the tour, she took us up to the attic, it’s like a million flights up and the movers hated us when we had them take stuff up all those stairs.  But on the way up, I noticed that the apartment on the upper east side was unoccupied, I asked about it because she told us they keep these places full.  She paused for a moment and looked thoughtful like she didn’t want to say anything… then she said, “Ummm… yeah, we don’t rent out that unit… well, sometimes we do if a Colonel comes to visit for a couple days… but that’s all.” She wouldn’t say anything else, I was naturally super suspicious.  Of course, I just KNEW it must be the most haunted of all the units and they couldn’t keep tenants in there, right?!  That HAD to be it…

I was so wanting to see a ghost.  I imagined myself like a heroine in Supernatural or The Ghost Whisperer… because well, my life isn’t too exciting, and needed a super cool adventure!

But after two weeks of zero creepy happenings, or unexplained events I was calling BS on the whole haunted thing… I was so disappointed.  I even took a whole bunch of pictures of the front of the building to show my friends on Facebook, and then zoomed in on all the windows to see if there were any creepy faces looking out… especially in the suspiciously unoccupied unit upstairs.  But nothing!  I was so bummed.   Such a let down, and I figured if the ghosts (or spirits, as my mom insists they be called) didn’t show up by now, then it wasn’t going to happen.

Then my mom came to visit.

I don’t know what it is about her, but her presence seemed to stir the supernatural pot… and that’s when the fun began.

It started on the second night my mom was here.  She was sleeping in the dining room on an air mattress.  I’m not going to tell the whole story, because it isn’t my story to tell, but the next day my mom told me that our house was, in fact, haunted.  Over the course of the two weeks my mom was with us, she saw a young woman in a blue dress, and an older man with a white beard.  I kind of jealous… and not sure if I believed her… but I did …  I wasn’t sure what to believe… I felt so torn!

Then my husband and I had an argument.

I’m not one to air my dirty laundry around, and we really do have a wonderful marriage, but for the sake of the story, the reader needs to know that we had a disagreement because I think the feelings floating around the house is what triggered this particular spirit into action.

We were laying in bed late that night, my husband on his side of the bed sleeping, (typical of a man being able to sleep after a fight with the wife) and me huddled away from him crying on my side.  After sobbing for about an hour, I started to drift off to sleep.  I was in the fetal position facing toward my edge of the bed, with my knees curled up and slightly peeking out of the covers.  When suddenly, I felt a hand on my knee. I jerked my eyes open and saw a youngish man (I couldn’t make out too much in the dark, but it kind of looked like he was wearing an old uniform) kneeling next to my bed and he was patting my knee… like he was trying to comfort me.  I wasn’t scared, because I felt this strong feeling overcome me like he was really concerned for me (and I am pretty sure he was taking my side in the argument too).

Then I blinked and he was gone.

Since then, every time Ben gets a little snippy at me (which isn’t often, but once in a while) I feel this soldier around… I like to tease my hubby about my ghost boyfriend and he’d better be nice to me… Ben doesn’t think it’s very funny, like at all.

I think he went to Target with me once, my soldier ghost.

I had just taken the boys to target, this day in fact:

When we returned to post, we pulled up to the gate guard and I handed him my military ID.  Conversation as follows:

“Good morning, Ma’am!” said the gate guard scanning my card he looked inside my window.  Then looking at my EMPTY passenger seat he said, “Oh, good morning, Sir!!  I didn’t see you….” I looked over to the empty seat and then looked at the gate guard.  He was leaning in, blinking at the unoccupied passenger seat.  ”I could have sworn….” he whispered.  Then he turned red and told me to never mind and waved me off to get going.

Cue eerie music.

I think we also have a childish, trickster spirit that comes around once in a while.  My oldest boy heard someone jumping on one of the boys’ bed, but when he popped his head in to tell them to stop, there was no one there.

For some reason, the boys wouldn’t turn off their bathroom light.  One night, in the middle of the night, I got up to get a drink and their bathroom light was on… again.  They keep telling me they remember to turn it off, but here I was in the middle of the night, turning off the blasted light again.  I was muttering something under my breath about taking out the light-bulb in the morning, when I flipped off the switch, and just as I turned around, it flipped back on.  Just like that.  Kind of an in-your-face ghost with an attitude move.

These events absolutely happened.  And I have actually been debating whether or not to share them… I am sure y’all think I am crazy… maybe I am.  My neighbor certainly thinks so.  I asked her a couple weeks ago if anything weird has happened in their side of the building… she was like, no, and asked why.  I told her a couple of the things that happened and she thought I was crazy… she literally hasn’t spoken to me since.  Whatever.  I’m cool.  She’s missing out.  I mean, seriously, who doesn’t want a friend who thinks she’s being haunted?!  Hello?! Right?!

Screaming hungry kiddos call, I’m off!  Happy Hauntings!

-Cat