10-15-2026 4:04am

Unexplained Stories Haunt Sandra Williams' Family

Lesley Misko Editor

Editor's note: As Halloween approaches, The Boyertown Area Expression is inviting readers to share personal experiences that have left them wondering: Could someone who has passed away still find a way to communicate with us? You need not prove that what happened was supernatural or convince anyone else that it was. Your story doesn't have to be frightening. In fact, some of the most memorable experiences involving those who have passed away are comforting, funny, surprising or even ordinary.

And you don't have to consider yourself a writer to participate. Just tell us what happened.

by Sandra Williams

MY MOTHER’S STORY

When my mother was young, she was at home one evening with her older sister when she heard her mother calling her, “Christina, Christina.” She told her sister that she was going to see what her mother wanted. Her sister just stared at her and said, “She’s not calling you. Mom’s not here; she’s in the hospital.” I don’t know if my mother had known that at the time or not.

Later that night, the family got the news that their mother had passed away around the time my mother heard her voice calling her name.

MY FATHER’S STORY

When my father was a boy, an uncle lived with the family. He had been ill for a while, and was bedridden. One day, he called to my father, “There’s a man upstairs waiting for me. Tell him to go away. I’m not ready yet.” He insisted again and again that my father tell the mysterious man to leave, even after my father had gone upstairs more than once and came back to assure his uncle there was no man waiting for him.

His uncle died that night. Ever since, my father had thought how mysterious it was that his uncle had been so certain someone was waiting for him. Was it the Grim Reaper?.

The Grim Reaper is a popular personification of Death in Western culture in the form of a hooded skeletal figure wearing a black robe and carrying a scythe, who “collects and guides human souls from their physical bodies into the afterlife.”