Emily Zaluska, GPC Student
There is a tale that my mom, Linda, tells that is a perpetual thriller, but I delight in hearing it recurrently. This matchless narrative involves a bath, a ghostly vision, and a formidable phone call. There are various people who find the story to incredible to be true, but the majority of our family uncontestably believes it.
The account unfolds at the onset of twilight in November of 1963. Linda had just completed her homework, and was now preparing to habituate her school night bathtub soak. She grasped her favored floral flannel nightgown and her house shoes, and made a beeline for the bathroom. This room was located on the opposite side of the house on an isolated hallway. Linda traveled down the lightless, lengthy corridor on the double to reach the bathroom light. She hastily flipped the switch as she entered the room, and revealed a knotty, swarthy wood paneled bathroom where she entered, and deposited her clothing on the commode. She sat on the edge of the white cast iron bathtub, and proceeded to run the temperate water to flood the tub. When the water was sufficiently high, she entered the bath and prepared for a gratifying soak. While laying back for a moment, Linda began to feel as if someone were glaring at her, and when she cast a glance towards the closed door she spied a ghostly vision of her Granny Lela.
Linda immediately shot up in dismay, unable to take her eyes of the spectral figure standing before her. Granny Lela, a sturdy woman in her mid-sixties, stood closemouthed and motionless in her customary homemade potato sack dress, and well-worn blue speckled apron. Her bittersweet brown hair with flecks of gray was tied in its usual bun on the top of her head. Linda would not normally fear her Granny, but this apparition was a cause for alarm. Granny Lela lived at least ten miles away, and she had never before silently visualized in the form of a shadowy entity. Unable to speak and now brimming with trepidation, Linda turned her head away like a flash to look at the wall in front of her. She was although, not frightened enough to forsake her curiosity, and she turned around to look again, but found the apparition had vanished as if it had never existed.
Now being utterly terrified, Linda jumped out of the bathtub at a breakneck pace, and wrapped her soaking wet body with the nearest towel. Taking no time to dry off, she took flight down the obscure hallway slipping and sliding on the freshly waxed oak floor. Her only concern now was getting away from the bathroom, and into her grandmother, Big Mama’s, arms. While in flight, Linda gave ear to the resounding chime of the telephone. When she reached the end of the hallway, and entered the solace of the well-lighted living room she found Big Mama talking on the telephone with a lamentable look on her face. Linda stood within an inch of Big Mama’s body, shivering from fear, and still dripping wet. When Big Mama slowly reinstated the receiver, and turned toward Linda she was confounded by the state she found her in. She tightly embraced her, and related the mournful news that her Granny Lela had just passed away, and Linda was the last person she had spoken of. Linda sobbingly told Big Mama about the frightening incident that had just occurred, and Big Mama said, “She must have had something she wanted to tell you honey.”
My mom never did find out just what it was that Granny Lela wanted to say. I asked her if this bothered her and she said, “Well, yes, a little.” My brothers, sister and I often yearn for this real life ghost story, and we still wonder exactly what the mystery of the unspoken message is.