The Voice That Called My Name: A True Story of Grief and Ghosts

This story takes place around the mid nineteen eighties. I was probably around the age between four and five. We lived in a very small old house. It was a two bedroom house. It literally looked like a box. The roof was flat, so it was like a little square box that. We lived in. My mom is a single mom at the time. My little brother wasn't born yet, so it was just me, my older brother, and my mom living in the house. That day, it was just me and my mom home. While she was doing her chores, I was in her bedroom. I was sitting on the floor playing with my toys on her bed when I heard someone call. Out my name Andrea. I got up, went to the kitchen and I asked my mom in Spanish, I said Monday, which means like yes. She turned and looked at me and was like basically confused. I told her I heard someone call my name, and then she said no, she wasn't the one who had called me. Didn't think nothing of it, went back in the room, started playing again with my toys, and again I heard someone call out my name Andrea. So then I went again to the kitchen and once again my mom is like, no, I didn't call you I don't know who was calling me, but it happened twice. I didn't see anything, I didn't feel scared or anything. It was just like a h kind of moment. It was around December of nineteen ninety two. At that time, my mom had joined this program that was for low income families that would rebuild. Your home to a new home. We had knocked down our old house and the city of Stockton basically rebuilt our home. We finally went from having a two little bedroom house to a reasonable sized three bedroom home, and so finally I was able to have my own room. By this time, we did have my little brother, so being that I was the only girl, I was able to have my own room. But because prior I didn't have my own room, I didn't have any furniture. I had to sleep on the floor. The only thing I had was just my blanket, my pillow, and my little night light. Because even though I was excited to have my own room, I was still scared to sleep in the dark. Everybody was asleep, my bedroom door was closed. While I was sleeping, I literally felt somebody grabbed my feet and pulled them. I woke up. My heart was raising. I was trying to look through the dark because it's like the only thing I had for light at the moment was just my night light. I'm trying to see who yanked my feet. I didn't see anybody. As I'm laying there, my heart's raising, I feel my body very hot, I'm feeling anxious. I just close my eyes really tight, and I just start saying the Our Father prayer that I learned when I was in Catechism. Till this day, I. Couldnot sleep without my feet being covered. And if there's ever a time that I have to sleep by myself, it doesn't matter where I'm at. If I'm sleeping by myself, I have to have the TV on. I have to have some type of light on. I cannot sleep in the dark by myself. I'm just too scared. After that, there would be times where my mom's porch is made out of wood, and so the steps whenever anybody would come to the door, you can hear the footsteps of people coming up on the porch, and so at night there would be times where you would hear footsteps coming up the porch, but no one would bring the doorbell. Nobody would knock, And when we would go and check through the window just to see who was coming or who was there. There'd be nobody there. My mom did have the house blessed, but I don't think it really helped much because there was still little things occurring in the house. Honestly, I feel like because we knocked down that house and rebuilt on the same property, I think we kind of like woke in something. This is now the fall of twenty fourteen. We're now in like in a different house, me and my little family. In this house, we started having a little bit of paranormal stuff going on. We used to have this like old PlayStation that used to hook up to our TV, and at that time, the only way you can switch it to the PlayStation is you would manually have to push the button to change the HDMI. There would be times where the TV would just automatically by itself switch the HDMI or the PlayStation's disc tray would just automatically each act. It never really scared us. It just kind of like spooked us because we're just like, what in the world is going on here? Me and my kids have always been kind of like sensitive to like wear stuff like this. My kids's father, my younger kids their dad had kidney failure. His health it began to decline a lot. I used to serve him his plate of food in bed because he would feel so sick, like from dialysis and everything. I never kept track to make sure like he was eating. I always thought that he was eating his food. Our youngest daughter at the time was about two years old. She had went up to him one day and just told him, your mom says to eat, and mind you, his mom had been deceased since before him and I even met. He took it as his mom was communicating with our daughter to relay the message to let him know like he needed to eat. And so that's how I found out that he hadn't been eating, and that's why his house was actually declining a little bit rapidly because he was like giving up. His mom. Telling our daughter to tell him that it kind of gave him that little push to like fight in that house. The door to the garage was in the kitchen at that time. My two older kids had went with their biological dad's family, and so it was just me and my two younger kids at home. While I was in the garage doing laundry. I had left the door open so I can hear my younger kids, and my youngest daughter at the time, when she was about that same age, two years old, she walks into the kitchen and she goes my grandma. I was like, your grandma, and then I said my mom's name. And then she goes, no, my other grandma, And I said, your other grandma. Where's your other grandma? And she literally swings her arm backwards and points behind her and she says, over there. I didn't see anything, but I was like, okay, obviously his mom is making her present known that she's here. Back then, I used to have a friend who specializes in. Like tarot card readings. She does like readings with the shells, she does cleansings and all that. She basically had told me that the reason why we were having like little paranormal happenings was because of his health declining. It was kind of like the portal to the other side was more accessible, I guess, and that basically the people that are like popping in are just his like loved ones checking in on him. So she basically had me do like a little ritual where she gave me like this little how coach with some condiments on some powdery stuff and I basically had a sprinklet all around my house. And I just asked his mother, like if she wanted to check in on my kids on him, that you know, she's more than welcome to. But I just asked her like I don't want to see her. And I also asked her like, just please don't take her son yet, help him have the strength, like to just keep going. After that, we didn't have any more experiences in that house, but me and my younger kids, his dad, we started having some problems. We ended up separating for a bit in November of twenty seventeen. Unfortunately, me and my kids we had have moved back in with my mom. There was this one night, I was, of course, back in my childhood bedroom. I was laying down in bed, stressed out, just trying to figure everything out, like what are we gonna do? Just in my thoughts, mind you, everything was off, the light switch was off, the fan was off. The only thing was the lamp was on, and I was just laying in my bed and then all of a sudden, I look up and the ceiling fan is literally turning by itself. Not like in Speed One. It literally looks like someone had put their finger on there and they were pushing it with their finger. It was turning so slow. Of course, like I felt spooked, but again it wasn't like I was scared. I did tell my mom and at the time her older sister had came from Mexico. They told me basically I needed to pray. My mom had me standing up on my bed putting holy water on this van, and then my aunt she ended up giving me this wooden cross that came from Jerusalem to keep with me. After I did that, the fan didn't move no more. That was it. So now we're in October of twenty nineteen, my younger kids's dad passed away. He died in his sleep of a heart attack. At the time when he passed away, he was forty three years old. After his passing, my kids and I had to move back home with my mother. I had PTSD where I had the fear of going to sleep. So there was this one night I had fell asleep. I felt so weird. It felt as though I was asleep but kind of awake, but paralyzed. I couldn't open my eyes. At that moment when I felt paralyzed, I felt as though someone had climbed onto my bed and laid behind me and wrapped their arms around me and pulled me towards them. Then I felt a face snuggle into my neck. That's when I heard my kids's dad. I can feel his body shake because he began to sob very hard. In my neck. All I can hear him tell me. Was I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I love you so much. I love you so much. I can feel myself crying as well, and I was telling him, I'm so sorry, I. Love you so much. It felt so weird because at the same time, it felt peaceful for me, because before he had died, our relationship became so abusive and so toxic, and when he died in our bed, we had been arguing and not speaking. He died without us even making peace with each other. I feel like that night he was given the opportunity to come and make peace with me. After that, around three three thirty in the morning, I would wake up to the smell of cigarettes in my room. And mind you, no one in my house smokes, not me, of course, not my kids, and especially not my mother. But my younger kids's dad. He was a smoker. He always had a smoke cigarettes. There was another night when I was asleep and I literally felt someone sit at the edge of my bed. I felt it sink down, and I did not want to open my eyes. I did not want to move my foot so I can feel who's there. I know that it was nobody that had came into my room because at that time, my bedroom door was uneven to the point where in order to open and shut my door you literally had to either pull it super hard or push it super hard and it would rub on the carpet, so I would have heard if someone had came into my room. I just. Propped myself up, rolled over and felt the bed rise as though like they got off my bed. I didn't even try to see, like if I can see a premonige. Nothing. I was just like okay. But again it was like I wasn't scared, so I don't think it was like a malicious spirit or whatever. I always felt like it was my kids's dad that was like popping in. There was another time where me and my coworkers we had went to a Mexican store for lunch. My kids' dad he would call me Banduce, which is Mexican bread and my youngest daughter little Banduce because when I was pregnant with our daughter, he had brought home a bag of Mexican bread and I had devoured the whole bag, and so he told me, my baby's gonna come out looking like a b because you just ate that whole bag. That's how he gave us our nicknames, Aduce and little Banduse. This was around Christmas time and this was gonna be our first Christmas without him. We had went to the Mexican store and at that time they were giving out free calendars. There's different ones that have like the Vitrinuadalupe Jesus. One had like a plate of food, another one had like a big old serving bowl filled with different Mexican bread. Like it was just a variety of them. They told us, please take some, they're free. So I had grabbed a few for me and my family, and so then my friends from work they were like rolled up how the posters are like when you buy them from like the store or whatever. My friends are unraveling theirs and they got like different ones. Not me. Every single calendar that I got was the one of the bowl with the bandus. The Mexican bread all of them. That same night, our. Hospice facility here in Stockton, they host where they light up the Christmas tree. We can purchase a light in memory of a loved one. Being that it was our first Christmas without my kids' dad, I had purchased a light for him in honor of his memory. On our way to go to the lighting of the tree, as we're driving, there's a car that and the next lane they had a bumper sticker that literally said little Panduze. So when I seen that, I. Was like, got it, I get it. He's letting me know he is with us. I just always felt like he was always around us. Our loved ones are trying to communicate. We just need to pay attention to the signs. In August of twenty twenty one, we lost my aunt to liver cancer. September of twenty twenty one, I had been told that my mammogram had came back abnormal and that I would need to have a biopsy done to see if what they seen, if the mass was cancerous or not. I was petrified because after losing my kids's dad, I began to be like on this self care journey like doing my yearly physicals, my yearly women exams, my blood work, like everything, because I am determined to try to live as long as I can, because I'm literally the only parent that my kids have. So hearing this from the doctor telling me that I need to do this biopsy, I was freaking out. On my way to work. I'm in the car by myself, driving in the morning. Tears are just pouring down my face. I'm just crying and I'm talking to my aunt who passed away. Please just give me the strengths. Please just help me. Don't let this be cancered. Just please help me. I was ready late because I had literally got that phone call that morning, and so it made me run late for work. So at my job, we park and I park in garage. I was just like trying to hurry up. I parked in the first available one. That I seen. As soon as I got out the car, there was a broken chain with a metal on the floor and it look like the Virgin Mary. When I looked up which metal it was, it said that it was the miraculous metal, which is used when we need our blessed mother's comfort and protection. I took it as my aunt is letting me know she's hearing me, She's with me, and it's gonna be okay. I ended up going to my appointment for this biopsy. As I'm getting ready to get prepped for this procedure, I'm laying on my stomach and I'm trying to be strong, but my tears are slowly coming down my face, and I'm just thinking, like, oh my God, please let this not be ca answer. All of a sudden, I felt such warmth all over my body and just so calm and at peace, to the point where I was like so relaxed, I could just fall asleep. That's how relaxed. I was, just so calm. And then the doctor that was looking at my images to see where they were going to have to stick the needle to do the biopsy, she turns around and she tells the technician to do another mammogram, and so they had me go into the room and I do another mamogram. They have me sit outside the room, and then they call me in and they tell me, you don't have to do a biopsy today. What we thought was a mass ends up being sissed and they're outside the skin, it's not inside. So you don't have to worry about nothing. I just begin to just cry. Everybody, the doctor, the technician, like everybody was like, what is wrong? And so I tell him, like, oh my god, I'm just so happy to hear this, Like you don't understand. My younger kids's dad just passed away. And I've worked so hard to like try to stay alive, and so this is just good news. I a thousand percent feel like my aunt was with me. She was really with me. Now it's February of this year. My dad passed away. He had dementia and Alzheimer's. Because my mom and my dad have been separated, my dad was cremated. I got to bring my dad's earn home. I have them all set up in a glass case my home that I share with my kids and my current boyfriend. We have surveillance cameras inside and outside of our house. When we're gone. We always said it and so it'll alert us of any motions or anything. When I brought my dad home, I was at work. There was nobody home, my kids were at school, Me and my boyfriend were at work. I got the alert that there was motion in my kitchen when I. Click on the clip. You see this orb past the camera, and that's what set off my camera and that was the only time that I ever got an alert, and seeing the ORB, I. Feel like that was my dad. My mom, she's scared of my dad's ashes because he's like the first one to get cremated in our family. Everybody's always been buried for some reason. She feels like he's gonna come out of that urn. After he passed away, she was having like actual ghosts, I guess, seeing my dad in her room. So like when she would be asleep, she'd wake up and he'd be right there, but he wouldn't say nothing to her. I like to joke with her when she tells me like he's come to visit her. I tell her it's because you know, he's trying to tell her that he wants to go home, and so she gets like freaked out and she's like, no, I don't want to hear. My mom still has things happened to her at her house. So my older brother, his neighbor had passed away, and so they had an estate sale, and so my brother had brought her the TV. My mom swore that she thought it was the man who passed away that he was the one who kept turning on and off her TV. We replaced the TV with the new one, and this one you need like an actual remote control. It doesn't have any buttons. You have to use the remote to like turn it off on whatever. There's times when my mom's TV will turn off on its own, or to turn on by itself, or it'll switch to like Netflix. She has had incidents where there's like picture frames. Will like fall off the wall. Recently, she told me that she had woken up because now after my aunt passed away, the older sister my mom, she moved in with my mom, so now it's just them two that lived there. My mom told me. That one morning when she got up, she found one of her servings films right in the middle of the kitchen floor and it wasn't my aunt and it wasn't her, and it's only them too that live in that house. My mom still has like little things how like that, but she doesn't get scared. She doesn't feel like it's anything malicious. And even like when I do go to my mom's house, it's like I don't feel like there's anything malicious as well. I have three grandsons There was one time when my mom and my aunt had came to my house. The two older grandsons of mine were here. This was the first time that my mom had came to my house since I had my dad's earn. She was sitting in my living room. That's where I have my dad's earn. The way I have a set up in my living room, it's like the glass shelf that my dad's in. It's in the corner of my living room, behind my couch. She had sat down next to my couch and was kind of like trying to turn to the corner to look at the corner, not really and she was like, so, where's your dad at? And then I was like, she was telling me in Spanish. Unfortunately, my grandkids they don't know Spanish, so it's not like my oldest grandson could understand what my mom was saying. I had told her, oh, he's over there, and so she was kind of like peeking but still kind of scared to look next to his glass case that I have. I'm in. I have a big old poster picture of my dad that we had used for his funeral. My oldest grandson all of a sudden goes around the couch, picks up this picture and tries to directly bring it to my mom and tells her, here, here, here's my grandpa. And my mom was like freaking out, and she was just like no, no, no, no. And I was like no no, like I was telling my grandson, no, no, put it back, put it back, Leave grandma alone, leave her alone. I mean, we've always had like little experiences. My mom feels like that was my dad telling my grandson to do that. There's also been incidents with my older kids as well. I was a teenage mom, so I had my daughter when I was sixteen. So at the time, me and my daughter's dad, we were living with my aunt in the old house where my grandparents used to live before they had moved. My grandfather had already passed away, and my daughter was about two years old. We were in our room. And she was sitting in her little rocking shirt that she would have. She would get her little books and read and just look up and she would be like, pay attention, Grandpa, pay attention, I'm reading to you. Pay attention to me. I had asked her, who are you reading to? And she looked at me and was like, to my grandpa. I felt like my grandpa would come and visit with her because he loved her so very much. And then my oldest son, when he was about two or three years old as well. We used to live in this apartment that was like low income. My friend, the one that used to do my readings, she had came to visit. We were sitting in the living room, just me and her. We're just chit chatting. My son had sat on the couch and just began to like tell us the story. He told us that he would see the man with the red eyes and like he squinted his trying to show his with his fingers and like squinted his eyes, and he was like, I see. The man with the red eyes. But then there's another man that comes and he's really tall, and he told me that it was gonna be okay, and he told me I was at his funeral. I was shook because the only funeral that my son had went to was when he was like ten months old, and it was the funeral of my uncle who had passed the way in Iraq. My uncle was tall, and so that kind of freaked me out. But at the same time, it was like my uncle is here, still looking after us, protecting us. We've always had like little things happen to us. I truly believe that our loved ones, even though they're not here physically, they still pop in and check on us. I always feel like they're trying to communicate. We just need to pay attention. They're always there, and you know, losing my kids's dad, losing especially my dad. I truly believe they're still with us. They still look out for me and my kids. We just got to pay attention At