I have an unfair advantage when it comes to believing in something after the end as we know it by science.
I grew up with a ghost nanny. The house I lived in as a child was an old country place a couple of hundred years old. During the remodel my Dad found a crucifix in the north wall of the living room, my Mom still has it hanging from the rear view mirror of their car.
The whole time my parents lived at the house they could hang nothing on that wall that would stay for very long except a few things whose collected theme makes the story even stranger. Glass things always were short lived. I remember one time seeing a rod iron candelabras moving out parrellell to the wall, then falling. I remember it very vividly to this day, not so much a fall as a move and a drop....but I'm getting ahead of myself here.
Before I could remember anything at all and was just a baby; ever time my father worked an overnight at the steel mill my Mom would here footsteps going back and forth between my nursery and my sisters room. Occasionally through out the old section of the house..never the new rooms. They sounded to hear my grandfather, sister, aunt and cousin, repeat it... like healed shoes on a wooden floor.
This never happened when my Dad was home and would go away shortly after my grandpa arrived (though he did hear it also). Up until relatives besides my sister and mom commented on it, My dad thought Mom and Sis were nuts. (My Dad is not a big believer in what he can't see other than God, but eventually even he believed)
My Grandpa put my Mom in touch with a priest who odd as it sounds and contrary to the faith...put my Mom in contact with a fortune teller.
This teller is a story onto herself, but I'll keep sticking to the footsteps for now. She told my mom the footsteps meant her no harm. it was a spirit of a past women of the house helping my mom watch over the kids when the man of the house was gone. If we did not want it around all we had to do was say 'We believe in God the father and rely on him for protection, your doing more harm then good here and we wish you to stop.'
Upon doing that, the footsteps did stop, but 'she' never left I think, just got real quiet and ninja like. Other than not liking anything non-religious hanging on the wall of the north living room and always feeling like you were being watched and on occasion hearing a womens voice waking me when i was alone- which could have been like a mental alarm clock, not a spook- we never heard anything else. ( except for the eventual predictable crashes when we would hang things on the wall that were not religios themed. My parents had a two picture of two old people praying over bread, she left that alone.)
Along time ago, back in the days funeral visitations were held at homes where you could view the body, an old lady named Gladis who my parents bought the old farm from, said the living room was used for a wake for her relative (forget the exact relation) and the body was kept there for a few days, while family gathered. I'm not sure how that would work with the smell and all, maybe good old Gladis was senile? Still, Kind of strange.
Oh about the fortune teller....My mom and dad call me their miracle baby, they were told that the likely would have trouble having children if they could have them at all. They adopted my sister after being her foster parents and shortly after that I happened.
When my mom and aunt went to the fortune teller she told my mom among other things, that she saw her surrounded by children, to which my Mom replied not likely. The fortune teller continued though. She said no, your surrounded by children, many of them. then she looks at my aunt and says...thats when you will meet your husband.
That spring my parents hosted an Easter Egg hunt for their snowmobile club at the farm, a lot of kids. It's also where my aunt met my uncle.
She called some other stuff too, though vague. She told my mom that on the northeast corner of your home there is a body of water which turned out to be true, there is a pond there.) and somewhere near or in the water is something of great worth. (never found that other than the sand being a weird white color under the mud, oh and I use to love to play with the clay I found near it as a kid.) 🙂