Fourteen years ago, on the 24th of January 2006 the ghost of a young woman made an appearance in our home. At the time I was living in Benicia, California with my wife, Heidi and our two daughters. We lived in a second-floor condo with a beautiful view of the Carquinez Strait. I was working for a special events company doing corporate picnics, team building activities and I also had a beach combing and kayaking excursion business along with making sea glass jewelry and selling jewelry making supplies. Last but not least, l was also the president and co-founder of the North American Sea Glass Association. I had no interest in the paranormal, did not read books about it, watch shows about the subject or anything else. I had never set foot in a metaphysical bookstore or gift shop and was not close to people who were into such stuff. On that fateful evening fourteen years ago, I was a complete skeptic of all things paranormal.
I had a background in computer science and was programming computers as early as twelve. Logic was my friend and I while I had taken a break from working so closely with computers, I was still doing all my own web design and coding in HTML, Java and other languages. I had no time for ghost hunting and was busy with my work and family.
The day started out normal enough, after breakfast and morning coffee I sat down to attend to the eBay auctions of raw sea glass and jewelry as well as the sales that had been processed on my web site. Later that evening after everything for the day was done Heidi and I were brushing our teeth in the bathroom, I finished up ahead of her and walked out of the room, closing the door behind me as I entered the hallway and made my way forward, I began walking down the hall leaving the bathroom and bedrooms behind me has I headed towards the living room.
After taking a few steps I felt something or thought I heard something behind me, as I had just closed the bathroom door behind me, I was fairly surprised when I saw the figure of a young woman behind me, just outside the bathroom door. She was about the same height as Heidi who I at first thought she was, but very quickly it became apparent that she was not my wife.
My next thought was how odd it was that she had appeared behind me, at first, I thought that she had come up and over the balcony, but that seemed unlikely given what she was wearing. She had nearly black hair, long and straight, a somewhat olive complexion and dark eyes. Her clothes did not seem to be of this century. The figure had a long dress on that went down to her feet, it had small buttons on it and puffy shoulders. The dress was a light brown almost tan color.
I did a double take, I looked forward and back again, she was still there, only now she was much closer to me … and then she walked through the small of my back and exited my chest. I must have let out a scream or a moan, not sure what I did, I felt this electric chill pass through me coupled with this incredible sense of pain and loneliness as well as disbelief and confusion. There was anguish and many other human emotions barreling through me and playing out as through they were my own, though I did not understand what caused them – their origin.
Heidi at that point called out from the bathroom and asked if I was okay. I must have said no. She asked what was wrong, was it an earthquake? no? What, did you see a ghost? I managed to sputter out a yes as I began to recover from the encounter. At this point Heidi had joined me and we were sitting on the couch. Heidi asked me what she looked like and as I described the ghost to her, she confirmed that two years prior she had seen the same figure walking through the hallway from our daughters’ room into our bedroom. I asked her why she had not told me previously and she said that she didn’t want me to think that she was crazy. I told her well now there are two of us going a bit crazy – and that was that.
The next morning, we did not say a word to each other about the events of the prior evening. In fact, we went the whole day without mentioning it. That evening as I was standing in the bathroom brushing my teeth, I glanced up at the mirror to see the ghost from the night before standing beside me. I just went with it as I could understand her. Suddenly I felt as though the walls of the building were peeled away and I saw the past, the way the property was when she lived here. I saw a farmhouse of a very distinctive architectural style and I saw a grove of citrus trees. She began talking to me and told me that her last same was Silva, she gave me the names of her family members, their occupations, what year it was and how she was murdered while with child.
That night I did not get much sleep, I at once began researching her and what I found chilled me to the core. I had dug up an old map of Benicia online and according to it, the property we were living on was at one time a large parcel of land that had the name Silva on it! We dug deeper and found out that the house that I had seen was commonly built in the area at the time and that the land was a citrus grove.
One by one all the pieces fell into place and soon I had enough information to go to the town historical society, the newspaper and the police department. Everything checked out, we had the ghost of a young woman who had mysteriously vanished living with us, and the authorities had even tried to bring charges against an individual but lacked any physical evidence and had to let him go.
Her visits became a regular thing, every day – at first only in the evening. After awhile she would even show up during the day and then even when guests were over. Soon connections with other ghosts occurred followed by contact with spirits who had crossed over. Three months after she moved in with us, she crossed over with a little assistance, but the rest of the story is for another time.
