Do you believe in ghosts?

Are you afraid of what goes bump in the night? Creaking floorboards, distant footsteps, a door shutting or whispered voices in the dark. Random cold spots you cannot explain. Do you fear the dark or what may happen after sundown? Spirits, ghosts, goblins or misty specters. However you choose to refer to them, I believe they are real and they are among us. For 45 years, I have had personal experiences with spirits of the deceased. At 6 years old, I was having conversations with spirits. Most assumed I simply had an imaginary friend. However, what my mom and dad didn't realize was that I was seeing the souls of people who had passed on. I was never frightened. I grew up in an old house that was once a bed-and-breakfast. Every room in the house was connected. There were seven bedrooms in total, three of which were on the third floor, the attic. My older sister and I would play up there during the day, but at night we feared what was shuffling from one room to the next. Every night, until we finally moved in 1991, we would hear footsteps pacing the rooms above our heads. There was the sound of nails clicking across the hardwood floors, like a dog following its owner as they paced back and forth all night. My sister would wedge her desk chair under the doorknob every evening to try and keep whatever, or whomever, it was from getting out. Every morning when we awoke, the chair would be in the middle of her room, and the attic door would be open. Let me not forget the older gentleman who started showing up at night. This figure would appear at the top of the stairs, then slowly move into my room. He would stay for a few minutes in the doorway, then move into my sister's room, then into my parents' room before disappearing into the shadows. As many parents would, our mother always said, "You girls have an overactive imagination." But when my grandmother lived with us for a short time and watched us, she asked us to explain the man we were seeing. Excitedly, we gave her every detail. She smiled and said, "Hold on, let me get something." When she returned, she was carrying a box of black-and-white photos. She shuffled through them and handed us a photo of a well-dressed man wearing a fedora and a long overcoat. My sister and I immediately said, "That's him. That's the man we've been seeing." My grandmother reassured us we had nothing to worry about because the man was our great-great-grandfather. He had passed away in the house where we were living. I have been fascinated with the paranormal ever since. In adulthood Over the years, I have visited multiple haunted locations, some of which I did not expect to be haunted. One experience stands out above the rest. I was in an old, abandoned homestead, alone, photographing the property when a solid wood door suddenly slammed shut and locked me inside. There was no strong wind or breeze. I tried everything to get the door open. Finally, after about 20 minutes, I said aloud, "I am not here to harm you. I am not here to remove anything. I only wanted to take photographs." A short time later, the door unlocked and opened on its own. It was one of the most unnerving experiences I have had in more than three decades of investigating the paranormal. I have witnessed shadow figures, heard disembodied voices and seen objects move on their own. I have seen full-bodied apparitions in grocery stores and public restrooms. Yet what drives me is curiosity. When I hear or see something unexplained, I want to know more. I want to understand it. I want to find proof of life after death, regardless of what form that proof may take. Like the old saying goes, "Inquiring minds want to know." That's me. I'm the one who follows the sounds, the voices and the mysteries to see where they lead.