Tis the season for all things spooky; the time of year when tales of ghosts and goblins are on the tongues of many and so I thought I would ask the question; do you believe?

I do, and the reason I do is two –fold or three fold or perhaps it’s an infinite fold that can only be explained one or two ways, who knows?

When I was younger I had my first real experience with the paranormal, there was something or someone living in our apartment, we called him Simon, but only after we knew it was most definitely a boy. Things would go missing, like our can opener, for days on end and when we would finally get fed up we would say something silly like, “Okay Simon, bring it back.” And lo and behold the things would reappear as if out of nowhere.
Simon was especially fond of shutting off the bathroom light when we were in there. The light was located on the outside of the bathroom and it didn’t matter if people were home or if you were the only one there, that light would go out on you, mid-potty, casting you into pitch darkness. At first it was scary, then it was funny and in the end just became damned annoying. I don’t know if Simon is still earth bound, or if he’s free. I was too young to realize how to release him at that age.

As I grew, I learned more, studied more and started having things happen to me that I couldn’t explain and wouldn’t if my life depended on it. I was a wee bit afraid of what was going on in my head, and for a while thought I was just plain losing my mind, that is until I met a 3^rd cousin whom I’s never met before. Her name is Jenna and she made things make sense. Jenna was a psychic/medium and was eerily accurate in telling me events of my life. I was 14 at the time and she told me things that no one but I could possibly know. She knew my secrets and that in and of itself was scary. We got to talking about  the things that had started happening with me and she told me that I had a “gift,” like hers and that the choice to develop that gift or not was completely up to me.
She was also the one who hinted that I might well be a witch…she was right.

I didn’t start to develop my gift until I was in my 20’s. I just never really took it seriously, but when I was 24 or maybe it was 25 something happened and I could no longer ignore or tune out what it is that was happening.
I had a vision, clear as if I was looking out my living room window. Someone was going to find a baby, the baby was going to be perhaps two days old and the number 4 was involved. I told my husband that the baby would be found near hedges.

Two days later while getting my kids their breakfast with the morning news playing in the background the anchor came on saying that a baby had been found. It was a girl, she was two days old, she was found by a fence ( and in seeing the news report the fence had hedges.) I dropped the bowl of cereal that I had in my hand and ran to the TV yelling, “That’s MY baby!”
In hindsight I’m glad there weren’t and police officers around or I would have been hauled off to explain that statement. The child was officially adopted out on the 14^th of the next month. The media called her Baby Hope. I told my family that her name was Ann. Her adoptive family renamed her Ann-Hope.

I was right and I couldn’t ignore it. My children still say that she is their sister. It’s hard to explain things like that to children that young. Now they know better, but still like to tease me anyhow.

I’ve done readings, and the readings I do, I do for free. I am neither skilled enough nor greedy enough to charge for my gift. Sometimes I even do readings on people who don’t ask or see it coming. They don’t ask, but the other-side is clear on whom they want to talk to sometimes.

I have also scared people with the accuracy at times. My husband’s cousin will not speak to me to this day because I accidentally outed him on having a child that no one knew about and I almost caused his brother’s divorce when I mentioned his affair with an older woman when he was 17. Turns out he used to take his wife to the restaurant in which the older woman still worked and declared it “their” special place. His wife felt betrayed. Sometimes when this stuff happens there is mess to clean up afterwards.

I always tell people not to ask if they aren’t prepared to know all there is to know. Once I start, I can’t stop it until the other side is finished talking. Once they are, the purging is an ugly emotional thing that I have only ever shared with one person and it was especially hard on me because there was emotional investment for me; something that I work hard not to do is to read my family and those I am close to. I simply don’t want to know if something negative is going to come their way. There are times when I know things, but I keep them to myself for the most part.

So in answer to my own question… YES..ABSOLUTELY… I BELIEVE…

I believe… because I know… but I never tell anyone that they must believe in anything….