Marlene and My Daughter

Witness: Victoria
Location: San Leandro, California
Date of Encounter: 1994

Let me start off by giving you a bit of history, I've never met my biological mother, just my biological father whom is still alive. My biological mother died as a direct result of a seizure. She died when my now 17 year-old daughter was one (actually a few days before her first birthday). Because my daughter could never meet her grandmother, I never talked about her before. I did not have any pictures of her either. I've only seen 1 picture of her, and she had my weight and my sisters looks. My sister actually had the picture I believe.

My now ex-husband was working for a blind company at nights (graveyard shift) which left my five year-old daughter and I alone at night. No problem, we went to bed as usual, then all of a sudden she woke up screaming, so I went and got her out of her room thinking that maybe she had a bad dream for the first time. She then settled down in my bed and I had the music on low to help her go back to sleep, when all of a sudden, she sat straight up in bed and yelled, "Mommie, Mommie make her leave, tell her to get out of here," and she was pointing to the hallway (I had my door open at the time). I looked, but didn't see anyone or anything, so I told her, "Nobody's there, look, there is nobody in the hallway."

But she insisted that there was, so I said, "Okay, tell me what she looks like, is she real tall, short, in-between, what?" She said, "Your height, Mommie." Then I asked her what color was her hair, she said "She looks like aunt Patty, but with your weight Mommie." I just about freaked as she had just described my biological mother that I've never seen. Well, stupid me, I quickly closed the door and locked it (like that will really keep out a ghost). I then proceeded to turn on the lamp for the night — I was now scared. We finally started to fall asleep when we heard the electric can opener go off, and I just knew that I had unplugged it. I got up to check and told my daughter to stay there. I went to the kitchen and it stopped! I looked anyways, and yep, it was not plugged in, nothing was plugged in. So I went back to bed thinking that I was just hearing things. About the time I got back and covered up, the can opener went off again! This time I'm thinking that someone has pried either the front or back door to our third-story apartment open. So I got my longest knitting needles (about 2 feet long, and aluminum) – I was holding one in each hand ready to attack whomever had broken in the house. I went through the whole house starting with the rooms closest to mine so they cannot backtrack to my room. I found both doors still locked, and the deadbolts were still locked, as well and the chains still locked. About the time I got into the kitchen, the sound disappeared again. I got so freaked, I knew that it was my dead mother's ghost playing tricks on us. I ran to the room, closed and locked the door, pushed with all my strength my huge dresser against the door, put the overhead bedroom light on, and the radio up loud. I stayed awake until my ex-husband got home that morning around 8 AM or so. I told him what happened and he didn't believe me.

One day when my daughter was 5 years old, it was summer time and she was in her room playing tea party and I was assuming that she had her bears set up around the play table and all like she usually did. I went to go check a bit later and was amazed to find that not only did her bears have their own place but she also had an empty seat and the plastic tea cup was afloat mid-air as if someone unseen was holding it! I asked my daughter, who is that? She said very calmly, "Marleene." I said okay, and that was that.

My daughter and I got used to this ghost, we even got her to "prove" her existence to my husband. We had a dartboard on the living room wall, and we kept the darts in the dartboard when not in use. They were in so tight that they could not come out without help. One day in front of my husband I asked Marlene, our ghost, to please pull out the middle dart and put on floor to the left. It took her about 10 minutes or so, but she finally did, and he couldn't believe his eyes. So then I told him to watch the picture of a celebrity that I had on a shelf. I asked her to take that picture down, about 5 minutes later she did, she made it float to my ex-husbands feet! He freaked out, then he became a believer.

My daughter became friends with my dead mother. They would play all the time. I remember one time my daughter got mad at my mother and started kicking the air where a leg might be, and my daughter went storming off. I asked her what was wrong, and my daughter told me that Marlene was being mean, teasing her, and she asked her to stop and wouldn't, so she quit being friends with my dead mother. They made up later, though.