Stranger in the Window

As promised, another ghost story this week. 

Author and Astrologery,  Hazel Dixon-Cooper has graciously agreed to share her ghost story with you today:

THE STRANGER

            I believe in ghosts. I believe that the spirits of the dead sometimes get caught between this world and the next and try to communicate with us. They might be confused or frightened. Perhaps they’re angry. They certainly get our attention when they show up.

            Although I’m not a psychic, I have intuitive flashes and periods when I pick up their energy and see, feel, or hear them. Although these encounters can be startling, most aren’t scary. A few have been chilling.

            One of the most frightening experiences I had was when a young man showed up at my home office window one summer night. I live near the San Joaquin River in a fairly new neighborhood built in an area that was previously wild riverbanks and farm land. That particular night I was on deadline, and working late. I’d opened the window a few inches to let in the cool summer breeze.

               As I worked, I began to get a creepy feeling as if someone were watching me. You know how you can spook yourself into thinking someone or some thing is right behind you? That’s how I felt. Only it wasn’t behind me, it was outside the window looking in at me. I tried to shake off the feeling, attributing it to the imagination of my tired mind. Until my cat, which had been sleeping on his corner of my desk, sat up, ears twitching, and stared at the window, then I froze. He jumped down and left.

Looking at my computer screen, I reached over and slid the window shut. Through my peripheral vision, I saw an arm in a white dress shirt and the side of a dark-haired young man’s face.

            I stood and closed the blinds, but I could feel that he was still there and that he wanted something from me. So I sat back down and thought about what to do next. He stayed at the window. After a few minutes, I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. He was sitting in one of the patio chairs. Again, I saw him out of the corner of my eye.

            Black pants, white dress shirt, black hair, only the right side of his face. Suddenly, I knew that I didn’t want to see the left side of his face. I didn’t think he had any face there to see. By this time, all four of my cats had disappeared, and I was on the verge of panic. He, on the other hand, was calm. Waiting. For what?

            I paced around the kitchen, into the den, and back to the kitchen. Finally, I decided to concentrate on why he had appeared to me. Confusion was the word that popped into my head. He was confused about where he was and what had happened to him. I thought he felt that I could explain it to him. Of course, I had no idea why he was there or what had happened, so I told him so.

            I turned my head slightly toward him, still afraid to look at him, and said, “I can’t help you. I don’t know what happened to you. But I think it’s okay for you to go now.” Then I walked back into my office and sat there trying to get a grip on what had just happened. There wasn’t any use in trying to work again, so I shut the computer off and went back to the kitchen like the stupid girl in a horror movie walks back to where the monster lurks.

            Only my ghost wasn’t a monster, and when I peeked at the patio chair, he was gone.

            The next morning, I wrote down the experience. I told my friends, the ones that believe in other worldly connections then slowly forgot about it.

            A few months later, my friend, Bonnie Hearn Hill told the story to a group of her writing students. Later that week, one of the women in her class told her that when she’d related the story to her mother who lives close to my neighborhood, her mom looked shocked. She told her daughter that a young man had committed suicide on the bluffs a few years before my neighborhood was built. He’d shot himself in the head.

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HazelDixon-Cooper has been a professional astrologer for more than twenty-five years, and is the author of the internationally bestselling Rotten Day astrology book series.
She is a research member of the American Federation of Astrologers and a member in good standing of the National Council of Geocosmic Research. 

Thank you, Hazel. That gave me the chills. I can imagine how I'd feel if I looked out my window on a dark night and saw a ghost looking in at me. At least he stayed outside!

Do you believe in 'other worldly connections?' (love that phrase Hazel)

Do you think the ghost was the same man that committed suicide on the bluffs? 

Have you ever seen a ghost that didn't frighten you?