The Woman In White - part 111
This is a continuation of Part 1 of this story - posted March 5th - and Part 2 of this story - posted March 19th. The Scene: After seeing a full bodied aparition of the Woman-In-White on the opposite side of a second story bedroom window - and having her scream at me to “get out now”- my bother, my boyfriend and I left my parents home in favour of seeking refuge. Our destination: the local hospital.
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The three of us piled into my boyfriend’s car and from there we went to the hospital. In that moment, I didn’t care where we were going…or what was going to happen when we got there. I just needed to get away from that house…from that woman…to somewhere safe. The further we drove, the better I felt. I began to relax. Ten minutes later, we pulled up in front of the emergency room doors and went inside.
I explained to the nurse at the admitting desk what had happened. She quickly put me into a hospital gown and had me wait for a doctor to examine me. When the doctor came behind the curtain, he asked me a bunch of questions, wrote things down and read through some notes. He looked at my eyeballs with a tiny flashlight and he had the nurse take some blood. I remember laying on the bed…holding a piece of cotton to the inside of my elbow…and waiting for them to return. Why were they taking blood samples? Why was I wearing a hospital gown? Why did they take my shoes?
A short time later, the doctor and the nurse returned to my bedside. “Your blood work came back negative…there are no drugs in your system.” The doctor looked baffled. I was too. The nurse set my shoes down next to my clothes.
“Drugs? I’m not on drugs,” I exclaimed. “You…you thought I was on drugs?” I was confused.
“Well…yes,” the doctor said, still puzzled by the test results, “of course we did. We figured that was why your brother had brought you in here…because you were hallucinating and possibly overdosing…but obviously you’re not if your system is clean.” He scratched at his head. I scratched at mine.
“Are you seeing things now?” the doctor asked me. “Have you seen things like this before?”
“No, I don’t see her now,” I snapped. “She wasn’t a hallucination. She was real. I…I think she was a ghost.” My cheeks became flushed and my stomach sank. I knew how bad that sounded.
“A ghost? Oh. Well…you can go now if you want to,” the doctors voice remained calm. “I can’t diagnose this or treat it. There technically isn’t anything wrong with you…not from a medical standpoint. You seem normal enough. I’m going to guess that you have an overactive imagination and that you were still dreaming when you saw this woman. I wish I had some better answers for you.”
The doctor and his nurse left me alone behind the curtain to get dressed. Then my boyfriend and my brother walked me to the car and we drove home. Nobody said much on the ride back to our house…we were all very quiet…with me feeling a little insulted and humiliated. After we got back inside, I went to sleep in my own bed instead of returning to my parent’s bedroom on the top floor of the house…and I slept soundly for the rest of the night.
I never saw the Woman-In-White after that warm summer night in August of 1986…and I was glad that she had decided to leave me alone. Her demand for me to '“get out now” came to be interpreted in time as my needing to move out of my parents’ home. I had grown up in a very dysfunctional household and - even though I was only sixteen-years-old - it was in my best interests to move away…which I did a few weeks later. But who exactly was the Woman-In-White…and why had she come to me? That question continued to baffle me for the next nine years of my life.
In February of 1995, I had a psychic reading - the first of many over the course of my life. That reading was a Tarot Card Reading and the psychic was a male…a total stranger to me. I was twenty-four-years-old at the time of that reading. My older brother had died of a drug overdose a few months earlier. My boyfriend from the previous leg of this story was now my husband. We had been married for eight years. We had no children. Our marriage was troubled and would be coming to an end…very soon. There was a lot of upheaval heading my way and the path ahead looked dark.
At the end of my reading, the psychic asked if I had any questions.
“Who is the woman in the white dress? She’s come to me in visions and dreams since I was a child. When I was sixteen she appeared outside of a second story bedroom window.”
“She was you in a past life,” I was told without hesitation…his gaze turning into a blank stare…as if he was looking through me instead of at me. “You died in an accident on an unpaved road. I see an overturned carriage. You were thrown from it. I think someone was chasing you…but I don’t know why.”
That was the ‘lightbulb’ moment of when the mystery of the Woman-In-White was solved. It wasn’t my grandmother. She was me…a bizarre twist that left me with more questions than answers. I asked how it was possible for me to visit myself - let alone speak to myself - and the psychic explained that all sorts of things are possible through the aid and manipulation of energy. He told me that my subconscious made it happen…because the message behind it was so important…as if I’d been acting as a spirit guide on my own behalf.
It took a while for me to digest the things that were said…I didn’t fully understand it for a number of years…but I was able to make my peace with it eventually and let it all go.
That is where this story was supposed to end.
In recent years, the Woman-In-White has resurfaced in my dreams. I’m shown the night of her death with a few additional details sprinkled in. I wonder if more will come of this story in time…perhaps Part 4? Feel free to leave a comment below and let me know what you think.
