Nothing is more terrible than losing a loved one.
Everyone knows that.
This reality hit home for me over 20 years ago when I lost the love of my life.
Updated 2/9/2020 – We had been childhood sweethearts and we finally married several years later when we were both 21 years of age, but I lost him on our honeymoon in a motorbike accident.
I felt guilty for surviving.
I’d always been afraid of ghost stories and was even more so after he passed away, doing my best to make sure I was never alone.
Even though I would’ve loved to see him again, the idea of seeing his spirit was just too much for me.
My family took me to stay in a log cabin in the woods, which my husband would’ve loved, as he was a nature lover.
Even though my parents cooked out and tried to get me involved, all I wanted to do was sleep so I could avoid the grief.
Early one morning, I felt like I was being watched and I freaked out.
I decided to get up and go for a walk on my own in the woods.
Seeing the mist put me in a dreamy frame of mind and I wandered along in a trance.
I tried not to think about my husband and the feeling I had when I woke up, but the sensation hit me again as I approached the top of the first hill.
Not knowing what to do, I stood still and looked around, totally confused.
My hair prickled and my blood froze when I saw the apparition of a woman in a crimson dress further up the trail.
I gasped when I realized her dress was totally soaked in blood.
I’d smelled the blood but put it down to being in the woods.
She kept her head bowed as her long black hair seemed to blend into the dress and the blood continued flowing onto the ground around her.
I could hear quiet weeping and sorrowful moans.
I started to slowly step backwards but she floated closer towards me with each step I took.
Shaking with fear, my mind scrambled to figure out what to do.
Then the woman slowly looked up from under the long strands of hair hanging over her face.
I saw large, dark eyes staring at me and her scarlet lips trembling as she wept.
When she brought her hands up to clasp together against her chest, I saw that they were covered in blood.
I turned and began to run down the hill but skidded to a stop when I saw her ahead of me, having zoomed to that position in a split second.
I darted off into the trees but it didn’t matter where I went.
She continued to appear in a flash, moaning, weeping and clasping her blood-soaked hands to her chest, all the time getting closer and closer.
I felt like I was trapped.
I raced away one more time and she materialized directly in front of me, now reaching her hands out and drawing me in for a deathly hug.
I screamed as I felt her cold, wet body squeezing me to her, feeling the blood seeping into my own clothes and smelling the scent of death all around me.
Her hideous face was only centimeters away from mine.
I yelled, “What do you want? Please let me go!”
I pulled away from her as hard as I could.
She looked into my eyes and chilled my breath as I panted in blasts of cold air.
She spoke telepathically to me, as I didn’t see her lips move – apart from trembling.
“I will let you go if you let him in!”
She leaned in and planted a cold, bloody kiss on my cheek.
Somehow I knew what she meant and I struggled a little more, until it dawned on me that the only way I could get away from her was to agree.
“Okay – I will. Just let me go!”
In an instant she vanished and I was left on my own – or so I thought.
I turned around and saw my husband there, surrounded in a golden halo and smiling with his arms out.
I ran to him and felt his arms wrap around me.
Sobbing into his chest I cried out, “How is this happening?!”
He stroked my hair and whispered, “I wanted to say goodbye.
She brought us together through her own grief.”
After the long goodbye, he vanished – but I saw the woman – smiling through her own sadness.
She slowly started moving further and further away, just as she had approached moments earlier.
I felt an overwhelming sense that she was still profoundly sad, but felt happy that she was able to give to us what she has longed for, just one more moment with a loved one who has passed away.