Rate this encounter: Davina, Freeport, Florida, 1997

One evening, in my old Florida trailer with only a space heater for heat in the winter, I was sleeping soundly when I got a hard jab in the ribs and heard a whispering voice say, "Check the heater!" I woke up and immediately thought my husband had done it (ex husband now), but he was fast asleep on the other side of the bed facing away from me. So, being familiar with spirits as I am, I realized that's what it was, and I'd better listen.

I checked my heater, which seemed fine to me, so I lay back down and tried to go back to sleep. Just as I closed my eyes I got another jab to the ribs and heard, "Get up and check the cord!" No denying it this time, as I was not even asleep when it happened, so I knew it was a spirit for sure and not a dream. I got up and went back to the heater to check the cord and it's a good thing I did because it had been chewed through and was burning an orange, glowing hole through my carpet with little flames starting!

After taking care of that, I went back to bed with a heart felt thanks to whoever had been watching over me and went to sleep. As I slept I dreamed of the woman from which the voice had come. I didn't recognize her at all, but she knew me. After our talk she insisted I give her a big hug and kiss before I left. I really felt like she was my family somehow, but I just had no idea who she was, she hadn't said, or I didn't remember her saying. Well, the next day I remembered everything clear as a bell and decided to ask my dad thinking maybe he'd know who she was since I didn't have a name and only a description. He assumed maybe it was my Great Gramma Ruby who had cursed me with the ruby nose that she was so proud of. This happened when I was an infant visiting her on her death bed. But when he showed me a picture of Gramma Ruby, it was clearly not her.

Weeks went by and it was not so much on my mind anymore. Then one day I went to visit my dad, and on his dresser top was a stack of old photos and to my total shock, the woman I had met was staring back at me from the top most picture! I was so excited, I started saying, "That's her!" My dad said that he should have known by the rib poking. He happily explained that this was my Great Gramma Ruby's mother, my Great Great Gramma Donnie, aka Maggie Bell, who was a Cherokee Indian, who my dad had lived with along with the rest of his family as a kid. They all lived in our old family house which is over a 100 years old in Alabama, on what was once our family's cotton and peanut farm, where we had an outhouse, a well, and no running water up until 1995. It was my Great Gramma Ruby and her husband's house... they lived there with their eight kids and Ruby's mother (Maggie bell).

When my gramma had my dad, she stayed there until my dad was about three-years-old, when she married and moved out. Of course they still visited, though, and my dad loved his Gramma Maggie Bell dearly, he said she was so loving, humorous and protective. Her love and devotion for family was so strong that I guess she decided to stay around as our guardian spirit. She is often around to warn me of things, or just there to comfort me when I need someone. I am so glad to have the chance to know her even if it was after her death.