Kentucky Hauntings(25)
“You look a little pale,” one uncle said. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah,” agreed the other uncle. “You look like you've seen a ghost!”
Still a little shaky from the odd experience at the old house, she told them what had happened. Her husband confirmed the strange incident.
The uncles listened without interrupting. When she finished, they exchanged glances. Then one uncle spoke.
“I guess there is something you should know,” he said. “It might explain what happened.”
“Then tell me, please,” she said.
“The family never wanted you to know,” he said, “but when your mother was carrying you, she was having a very difficult time. Finally, it got too much for her, so she went to the doctor at that house to get an abortion. The two of us were at the house when she left, and we followed her to see where she was going. No one in our family supported abortion, so we rushed into the doctor's office just as he was ready to abort you! We stopped him and took your mother home. Your mother always regretted what she almost did and was grateful to us for stopping her from making a terrible mistake. Maybe that accounts for the way you felt.”
The woman and her husband thought about it and decided that maybe that was the explanation. Maybe somehow she had slipped back in time and felt what she may have felt in the womb when she almost became a ghost before she was born!
The Bathtub Ghost
We lived down the road from the Wilsons, so we heard Mr. Wilson tell this story often. We have retold it here in our own words.
Indoor plumbing was not a typical luxury for people in our neighborhood. We were excited to have an inside bathroom, and we never took our good fortune for granted.
Olivia and Luther Wilson lived on a small farm for many years without any modern conveniences like indoor plumbing. As they got older, they found it more difficult to take sponge baths in wash pans and to go to the outhouse. After he had an especially profitable year from his crops, Luther had inside plumbing installed and put in a bathtub for his “Livie,” as he called Olivia.
Livie had a touch of arthritis, and it eased her aching joints to sit in a hot bath. Luther warned her to be careful because the tub was slick. He tried to arrange to be inside when she got into the tub as a small measure of safety. That worked well in the winter, but when spring came Luther had to be outside most of the day planting crops.
One morning, Livie's joints were particularly achy, so she ran herself a hot bath while Luther was plowing the fields. She added some lilac-scented bath oil that she always loved to use and then eased herself into the water and relaxed. She rubbed her bar of soap up and down her arms and over her face. The soap bubbles got in her eyes and began to burn. She grabbed a towel and didn't notice that the bar of soap had slid down into the bath water.
As the burning in her eyes ceased, Livie decided to get out of the tub and dry off. As she stood up, her foot hit the bar of soap and she slipped and fell, knocking herself unconscious on the edge of the tub.
It was close to lunchtime when her accident happened, so it wasn't long until Luther came in from the fields to eat and found her. He quickly lifted her from the water and summoned help, but Livie never regained consciousness.
Luther couldn't believe what had happened. He was lost without his Livie. The work in the fields was all that kept him sane. He talked about her to anyone who would listen.
He blamed himself for her death. If he hadn't bought that bathtub, she'd still be alive. It was his fault that she was gone from him forever.
He had never thought much about the afterlife. He had left that kind of thing to Livie. Now he didn't know what to think. He just knew he needed her and she was no longer there.
And then something happened that made him think that our loved ones never leave us—that they are near after death and come to us when we need them most.
It was a bright summer Sunday morning. Luther was getting ready to walk the half-mile to the little country church as he and Livie had done while they had been married. His work in the fields had left him all dirty and sweaty and, even though he had washed up, he still felt the need for a hot bath.
He hated getting in the tub now. Every time he did, he saw Livie there in his mind, unconscious and helpless. Today, he didn't have time to dawdle, though. Time was slipping away, and he didn't want to be late for church.
He ran the water until it was hot and the tub was about half full. Then he carefully eased himself down into the water, ever mindful now of how easy it was to slip. The water felt good and he felt relaxed and sleepy. He was almost dozing off when he heard the clock in the hall start striking. He had to hurry if he was to get to church on time.