I work in the healthcare field, and have now for several years.  The majority of my years have been in geriatric care, working in nursing homes.  A lot of my coworkers over the years have talked about their “true experiences”, brushes they have had with things they cannot fully explain.  Some of these experiences have been from very reliable people, others have had to be taken with a grain of salt.  I worked with a nurse a couple of years ago who saw something one night in a resident’s room as she passed by the door, and it frightened this nurse to the extent that she would not walk down the halls by herself.  The majority of what my coworkers have related have mainly been shapes and shadows moving, human forms walking across the hall from one room to another.  I had a resident, of sound mind, relate to me once her own experience of seeing a man, in broad daylight, walk down the hall to the last room and enter it.  She told me she had never seen this man before, and being nosy, casually rolled her wheelchair to the end of the hall under the pretense to look out the emergency door.  The last room was a private room, with just the one way in or out.  She told me when she looked in the room, it was empty.  She told me she went into the room, but there was nobody to be found.
 
I have had two experiences.  Two experiences with the same apparition, or shadow person, or angel, or whatever it’s proper name or title.  I mean no disrespect.
 
Thirteen years ago I had just entered the workforce, and was working in a nursing home (which shall remain nameless here).  My friend and coworker one night saw someone cross the hall, from one side to the other, and she thought it was me.  The halls in this particular nursing home, at night, are dark.  The lights are out, except for wall lights positioned low to the floor that are lit on every other wall.  It was dark, but one was still able to see who the other was from opposing distances.  My friend, K., saw this dark shape cross the hall at the far end.  I heard her calling my name, and I stepped from the room directly beside her.  She saw me and instantly broke down in tears.  She told me what she had seen, and I went to investigate, thinking a resident had gotten out of bed and was wandering.  I went to the room she saw it enter, room 32, and there was no one there; no one that could walk, that is- the two residents, invalids, were bed.  I checked the adjoining room, number 33, and found the same.  I even checked room 31, a private room with just the one door to enter and exit.  Nothing in 31 either.
 
I dismissed K.’s sighting as a trick of light, and exhaustion.  And I didn’t think too much about it, until later when I saw it.
 
I was working the hall a couple of weeks later with J.  Now, we liked to scare each other at night, and the rest of our coworkers, and I can’t think of anyone I’ve worked with on the graveyard shift who didn’t like to make someone else jump every once and a while.  I was at the nurses station and glanced down the hall, and I saw someone standing in the doorway of room 32.  It was a masculine figure, black, like a solid shadow, it had weight to it.  It was of medium build, of medium height, and I thought it was J.  The figure leaned out from the door way; I could tell it had a hand resting on the door jamb, and it looked towards me and then stepped back into the room.  I thought it was J. trying to scare me, planning to jump out of the room and surprise me.
 
I headed down the hall, fully aware, ready for J. to jump out.  As I got to the open door of room 32, the closed door of room 31, the private room, opened.  J. stepped out of the private room with linen.
 
“Were you just in here?” I asked him, pointing to 32.
 
“No,” he replied.  “I’ve been in here,” and he held up the linen as evidence.
 
“Then who did I just see?”
 
We both searched room 32, and all the other rooms on the hall.  Every resident was where they should have been.  J. and I both felt uneasy on the hall that night.
 
Thirteen years later, I am working at a different nursing home now.  This one is better lit; not all the lights go off at night.  Recently, just a few weeks ago, we had a resident who was expected to pass at any moment.  My coworkers and I were in and out of the room, checking on the resident, helping the family.  I was standing at the foot of the resident’s bed, my hand on the door jamb.  I had a feeling of someone standing behind me, of someone looking over my shoulder.  I turned my head slightly, expecting to see the nurse, or one of my other coworkers.  I saw the black form again, the shape, the shadow person, standing at my side.  If it had been breathing, I would have felt it on my arm.  It was there and then it wasn’t; it was gone before I even reacted and jumped back.  Luckily, the family members did not see me, though one of my coworkers gave me a quizzical look.  Luckily, I didn’t scream, either, though I felt the urge to shout something.
 
It was solid.  It was right there, next to me.  I could have reached out and touched it; actually, I would not have had to reach out, I would have only had to lean slightly.  And even though I have shivers right now, as I did then, it was not a completely frightening experience.  I was startled, yes, but there was a measure of exhilaration also.  I feel privileged to have seen it twice, especially this second time with it standing so close to me.
 
Our resident passed away within the next fifteen minutes of me seeing the form.  With my first encounter, a resident of room 32 passed away one or two days later.  Is it an angel of death?  I don’t know.  Whatever it is, it is all the proof I need to know there is something to life more than us.
 
the_novacula
Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Mixx
  • Google Bookmarks