I am 43 years old, but this incident took place when I was 18. My father was slowly dying of a painful cancer. Since he was unable to walk, he often had to move around by wheelchair. One morning he was to be taken to the hospital. Not wanting to be seen on a stretcher, he arranged so that he could go down the stairs from his bedroom by bumping himself down on his behind. I will never forget the sight of him doing this before the medics carried him out the door to the ambulance.


My father died three days later in the hospital.

About a week after, I kept hearing noises such as those of a wheelchair being pushed around in his bedroom. Often I heard bumping sounds, as if one was being bumped down stairs. Being confused and upset -- and I admit scared -- I talked to my brother about it, and he heard strange noises too. My sister, who was 11 at the time, was so upset she went to live with her friend for a month.

I started to have dreams of my father standing in my room. In each dream he was wearing the same clothes. To this day, I remember the sweatshirt he was wearing in my dreams. It was gray and had blue lettering saying, "University of Ottawa." I had never seen my father wearing this shirt before, so I asked my mother. She said he was given the shirt by a friend in the hospital. I had never seen the shirt before, nor had I seen my father in the hospital before he died. I had no way of knowing that this shirt existed. I cannot explain why I saw my father's apparition wearing this particular sweatshirt.

Six months later, when my brother was away at school, he told me had a similar dream of my father wearing the identical sweatshirt. I try not to believe in the paranormal, but this experience has haunted me for the last 25 years.

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