When I was about 12, I woke up in the middle of the night and realized my mom was standing in the doorway to my room. I asked her why she was there, and she didn't answer. She just stared at me for a few minutes and then I closed my eyes and fell back to sleep. The next morning, I asked my mother why she was in the doorway and she told me she wasn't - she hadn't gotten up at all during the night. So, being the stubborn mule I am, I said, "Sure you were. But you had on a a long, flannel nightgown.." and I went on to describe the nightgown in question. She got a little pale at that, and told me that I'd seen her mother - who wore this long, pink flowered flannel nightgown during the winter.
When I was 17, my grandfather (who'd lived with us forever) died the Saturday after Thanksgiving. A month later, My boyfriend and I went down to his shore house to clean it out. He was in one of the back bedrooms, boxing up some stuff, and I was in the kitchen, which overlooked the front walk. All of the sudden, I could hear this odd noise. It sounded like footsteps, only every other step was a scuffing sound. I heard it all the way up the walk, and it ended just outside the door.
My grandfather had broken his knee in a construction accident years before I was born, and could no longer bend or straighten his leg all the way. When he walked, it was step-scuff-step-scuff-step.
I've heard my dog, Bear, who died five years ago. And our cat, Casey, who died over the summer. I heard Casey jump off the kitchen counter about a month after we lost her. I also saw her sitting there, where we'd kept her food dishes. She'd been gone about two months at that time.
I've also known things had happened before anyone told me - the same guy I'd been at the shore house with had been in a car accident and I knew it about three hours before I got the call. Same with my mom. If I say, "You know who I haven't heard from in a while..." it's guaranteed they will call or show up within the next 24 hours. I've been places for the first time, yet knew where everything was - that sort of stuff happens in my family so much, we don't think twice about it. My husband thinks it's kind of cool, actually.