Happy Mother's Day!

I'm not a mother, but I am a daughter. My brother and I had a great mother. We're the people we are today, thanks to her and Dad. We learned to be independent and strong individuals. We have a strong sense of self-worth and, while we make mistakes, we learn from them. We both have strong work ethics and sense of right and wrong. We know that success isn't measured by what we have, but by who we are. We love God, country, and family.

She went Home nine, almost ten years ago. I miss her as much today as I did the day she left us. I say left, but of course that's only in the physical sense. She's still with us today. I had surgery five months after she died and I know that she was in the operating room watching over the surgeon's every move and God help him if he made a mistake! She was there the day I got married. Someday I'll tell you about her contribution to my wedding.

She had told me a story about things that happened after her own mother died. Seems that there were unexplained things happening such as rapping on the cellar door, and a breeze blowing a heavy, wet, woolen rug. It was in the middle of winter and the rug was hung somewhere (I don't remember where now) to dry. The rug began to ripple as if there was a breeze. But, it wasn't over or near a radiator duct and it wasn't near a door or window where a draft would be blowing on it. Mom was a very logical person and looked for an explanation, but never found it.

The first person to hear the rapping was my Aunt Betty. She was about nine when it began. She and a friend were in the kitchen when they heard rapping on the cellar door. Betty told her friend to quit kicking the door (the friend was standing with her back to the door and close enough to be kicking it). The friend said she wasn't and moved to the same side of the table as Betty. They heard the rapping again and ran screaming from the house. My uncles, John and Bob, had been at a movie and came home about that time. They heard from the girls what was happening, and being big brotherly wanted to protect their sister from whoever was pulling such a prank. They went into the house and down the stairs into the basement. This was the only way into or out of the basement. There was no other door, no windows, and no place to hide. There was also no one in the basement.

Mom and my grandfather were home by the time the boys came out of the house. Pap did his own search and decided that whoever had been in the cellar got out after the girls ran out the kitchen door and left from the front of the house. The neighbor's were out by now, too, and no one saw anyone but the girls come out of the house, but of course it was possible.

The rapping continued off and on. The boys heard it. Betty heard it again. But Mom and Pap didn't until one night. Mom was doing the dinner dishes when Pap left the house. A few minutes later, the rapping started on the kitchen door. Mom knew there was no one in the cellar because she had been there earlier and then in the kitchen ever since She knew no one was in the basement. Just as she turned around, Pap came running in the house and into the cellar. He had been waiting outside, waiting to see if he could catch someone in the act.

When he came out of the cellar he told Mom there was no one there. Neither of them could explain the rapping. It finally stopped. Mom never said it was her mother, but she never said it wasn't. I often asked to hear the story as I was growing up and it never changed, was never embellished, it was always the same.

Mom died about 1030 on a beautiful, hot, Florida morning. That afternoon, my Dad and I were at my brother's house. John was on the phone talking to someone. I heard someone rap on the garage door leading into the house and said to my sis-in-law, Judi, that someone's at the door. She went to answer it and no one was there. I was the only one who heard it. Guess what I was thinking about right then. Judi and I were standing talking about it, when we both heard the rapping again. We sort of just looked at each other when we heard it again. This time, John called out to Judi to answer the door. When Judi went to the door, again, there was no one there. Judi and I looked at each other and said, "Mom!" Dad came in from another room and asked who was at the door. We explained what happened. Judi was sort of joking about it being Mom. That is, until I told the story of the rapping after her mother passed away.

John had never heard the story, and if Dad had, he had forgotten. I was the only one who would have understood the rapping. To this day, I believe it was Mom letting us know she was there. She rapped on the door because she knew I would understand and tell the others. I never heard the rapping after, but there were incidents of flickering lights at my house and my brother's house. My niece in Indiana also reported flickering lights. And each time the lights flickered, if we said something to acknowledge Mom, the lights stopped flickering. It was Mom's way of letting us know she was there. The flickering stopped after awhile. She knew we were alright and she could go on in her new life.