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is not a bad thing. It s only bad for those left behind.
Sharon s prediction weighed heavy on my mind. I was
consumed by it. The very next day I flew to California to
visit my parents. I had been planning a fiftieth wedding an-
niversary party for them. I kept praying my mother would
make it to the party. At least all the plans for the event kept
my mind somewhat occupied, so I couldn t dwell on
Sharon s words.
Aldine called me in California to tell me that she was in
the hospital. She had planned to visit me in Louisiana for
Christmas, but came down with the flu, and it had not gone
away. Doctors came up with a variety of diagnoses, from the
flu, or pneumonia, to lung cancer. We never really consid-
ered the lung cancer verdict, preferring to believe it was the
THAYER S HISTORIC BED N BREAKFAST 321
flu. Two days later, when Aldine took a turn for the worse, I
called her daughter Florence, a college student in Min-
nesota, and made arrangements for Flo to fly out to be with
Aldine. I wanted to be there too, but with my parents gala
just three days away, Aldine insisted that I stay for the party.
Always the social butterfly, she ordered me to stay put. I
WANT you to be at that party. You know how much I love
parties.
I was still fearful about my mother s health, and I had a
large number of guests flying in from all over the country
for the event, so I finally conceded and agreed to stay. Then
I remembered that Sharon had prepared me for this dilemma
nearly two years before. I played the tapes from my previous
readings until I found it: Someone very close to you will be
ill. You will want to go see them, but you will be far away.
It is okay if you don t go. Wow.
The next day, Thursday, Aldine slipped into a coma. I
was so glad her daughter had arrived Wednesday night, and
got to visit with her mom. The lab results came back that af-
ternoon. Aldine had lung cancer the fast-acting kind.
There was nothing the doctors could do. Friday, February 6,
at noon, they planned to turn off her life support. I deeply re-
gretted not being there with my friend. I considered all the
places I could go to be with her at noon. I thought about
going to a church, or the ocean, but then I knew the perfect
place to be. Knowing Aldine, it was the ONLY place to be.
At exactly noon on February 6, I was at the mall, in Macy s,
way in the back at the sales rack, saying good-bye.
Finally a sales clerk asked me if I was all right. I was
standing there, tears streaming down my face, holding up
the marked-down outfits and asking aloud Aldine s opinion
of this one or that. Anyone observing me probably thought I
322 GHOSTLY ENCOUNTERS
was nuts. I stumbled out of the store and just drove for hours
along the coast. I pulled over once, at a record store, to buy
James Taylor s song Fire and Rain. Why wasn t it raining
outside?
Three weeks after Sharon s prediction, I lost one of my
very best friends. Aldine was like a big sister to me.
Sightings
Sharon has always been psychic, though as a child she
assumed it was a natural phenomenon that everyone
possessed. Sharon knew things about people without
being told, and knew what was going to happen be-
fore it did. Not only did she see dead people, she de-
lighted in playing with her kitties that had long
passed.
Sometimes being sensitive was depressing. When
Sharon first set foot in Thayer s, she felt an over-
whelming sorrow. A lot of bad things had happened
there, not only to the people who owned the hotel,
but to the guests as well. It was nasty, claims Sharon.
You could feel all the unpleasantness. The higher I
got in the house, the more I realized that it was
haunted, but not by happy spirits. I was really on
edge.
The hotel had made it impossible for any owner
to be happy there. Everyone had it bad. One guy had
a heart attack. Another had trouble with the law. A lot
of bad things went on in the hotel: beds would be wet
inside the covers; employees were trapped in the
THAYER S HISTORIC BED N BREAKFAST 323
freezer. It was nasty. They didn t tell me the stories
until after I bought the place, but I knew.
Sharon had been looking for seven years to find a
place to open a restaurant. The moment she walked
into the hotel, she said, It was like, okay, now I know
why I ve been waiting. In spite of the dreadful gloom
hanging in the air, I knew in that moment that I would
own the hotel.
Out of desperation I struck a deal with its other
occupants. I said, Here s how it s going to be. We ve
got to work things out. You don t like it the way it is.
I don t like it either. We will work things out. And it
changed. I know that s why it happened. I didn t do it
on my own. They did it.
The day she purchased the hotel, Sharon saw an
old lady on the third-floor landing, rocking, and said,
I know you don t like the changes, that it s difficult
for you, but just work with me. This place can be
pretty, let s work together. The lady smiled and van-
ished. She continued,
When I first started seeing them, I didn t
know who they were. It s like when you meet
someone; you really don t get to know them
until later. But when you live with them, you
learn they are profound. Having a ghost is like
having the bully as your friend. Everyone else is
scared but you re not.
Thayer s was built in 1895 by Gus and Caro-
line Thayer. Both Gus and Caroline visit us
often. There is a portrait of Caroline in the
324 GHOSTLY ENCOUNTERS
lobby. She watches us. When she is happy, her
portrait is smiling, but when she s not, she
frowns. Gus leaves pennies for us to find; I think
it s his way of letting us know that he s been
here.
There is a little girl who sits on the stairs,
about halfway down, with her arms tucked
under her knees. She is dressed in a plaid dress.
She just sits there and watches us. I spoke to
her, to find out what she was doing there, but
she speaks in a different language, and I can t
understand her.
We have a number of guests from the other
side who visit on a regular basis. One is a young
lady who spent her wedding night on the third
floor. She comes back often. She has blond hair,
and wears a stunning white lace duster from
around 1910. She usually wears her hair up, but
in her room she lets it down. She s cool, just
happy to be here.
We have two ghost kitties, also.
Sharon s husband Warren, who passed away, also
stays nearby. Before Warren s death, Sharon used to
joke to him that she wished Gus would leave quarters,
not pennies. Shortly after his death, quarters started
dropping out of thin air.
When Sharon learned that two women had visited
the hotel and told the ghosts to leave, she was fu-
rious. They did what! she screeched.
The ladies came in and told the ghosts they couldn t
THAYER S HISTORIC BED N BREAKFAST 325
stay and they had to go on, reported the bartender,
who overheard the ladies speaking to the spirits. The
ghosts are not very happy right now, he added.
How dare they, Sharon fumed. She stormed into
the dining room and passionately addressed the
spirits: You know this is your home, and you can visit
any time you want to. I apologize for the rudeness of
those people.
People sometimes ask, Why do ghosts haunt?
says Sharon. They don t haunt. They visit. Why do
they come back? Why do you go visit friends? They
know where they are. They come visit, they check in.
No big deal.
It s ridiculous to think that someone has to have
died a horrible death to haunt a place. You go see
someplace because you want to, not because you are
stuck there for eternity. It s odd that someone would
think that in order to have guests in your home, they
all have to be malevolent. Some are. You talk to them
and find out why, just like when friends come over
and are nasty. You talk to them and find out why.
One guest, Millie, the mother of one of Sharon s
friends, froze as she approached the hotel and could
not force herself to enter. She described her experi-
ence as a flashback, like instant recall. She remem-
bered being with an older woman with a lot of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]