Thirty-four years ago, when I was eleven years old, something happened to me that "haunts" me to this day. The event took place in a small town in the southern part of Illinois.

I had, as long as I could remember, a dread of my grandparent's house. I did not mind being with other people in the house but did not ever want to be in any part of this house alone.

One afternoon, my friends and I went to the movie theater which was about five blocks from my grandparent's house. Through some mix-up, my parents failed to pick-up me and my pals after the movies. I decided to walk the few blocks to my grandparent's house. I figured that my parents might be there and, if not, I would get a ride home from my grandfather.

It was dusk as I arrived at the house and as I stood on the front porch about to knock on the door, I heard lively conversation coming from within. Thinking that I had found my parents visiting my grandparents, and being a little angry about not being picked-up as expected, I did not knock on the door immediately. I sat on the porch, listening to the voices and comforted by the knowledge that my family was closely within. However, as my apprehensiveness grew with the darkness, I knocked on the door. No one answered. I now noticed that no lights had been turned on inside the house. There was, in fact no light in any part of the house - nobody was home!

With my heart pounding, I ran several blocks to my house to find my grandparents visiting. I don't remember much being made of the incident but it was to renter my thoughts again.

Six or seven years later, long after my family had moved from the town, I began having a recurring dream that was set in the living room of the house. In the dream, an old lady wearing a shawl and busy knitting was sitting in a rocking chair in the living room of the house. There were other people sitting with her but I did not recognize anyone. As I walked toward the room, I paused and the old lady waved to me to join them. I was reluctant to enter the room and the dream ended.

Being close to my sister, one day I told her of the dream that I had been having. She was very surprised to learn that we had been having the same dream. Furthermore, I found that my sister and brother had always shared the same dread of our grandparent's house. We decided to talk about this situation with my mother, hoping to find some answers to our questions.

My mother was obviously disturbed when she heard a description of the old lady in our dreams. The old lady fit the description of my great- grandmother, who neither my sister nor I had ever seen, even to the details of her sitting in her favorite rocking chair while knitting. My great-grandparents had once lived in the house and were fond of spending evenings in the living room visiting with friends and relatives. Furthermore, both my great-grandmother and great-grandfather had died in the house and were waked in the living room (in a time when most people's wakes were held in their own homes).

Had the voices, that I heard coming from the empty house when I was a boy, been the sounds of a long past summer evening among friends? Or were the voices the sounds of a long ago wake? Why had I been having the recurring dreams which never came back after I had determined the identity of the old woman (along with all the other facts)?

Just a few years after learning about the history of the house, my sister died suddenly at the age of 28. Was the beckoning motion of my great- grandmother in our dreams, an indication that one of us was soon to join her in an afterlife, an invitation to get to know her by making us get more details, or just a non-sensical event in an equally non- sensical dream?