Doune Castle Ghost Story: April 2011
This event comes from the Great Scotland Adventure of 2011 when Betsy, Emily, and I roamed around the place having all kinds of fun. The two photos of Betsy below are taken just before and shortly after the event described. In the second one she’s doing her exaggerated “O My!” scared face which always made us laugh.
Coming down from the Highlands in Scotland, let me tell you this: it’s not for the weak. Betsy was driving and we’d plunge down this one hair-pin turn and then go whipping around another and it was all down and down and down and so fast I was having a complete mind melt-down hanging on for my life in the back seat and I honestly and sincerely could not comprehend how Betsy was actually driving this road. I mean, seriously, this was just absolutely insane. The cliffs rose up to our left toward lunatic heights of rocky crags and, to our right, dropped off into deep valleys of endless green which then tapered off into far off cliffs. Periodically there would be a small white house out in the middle of the valley or sheep or goats silently grazing high up on the sheer cliffs but, for the most part, there was no sign of civilization except for the slim ribbon of road we sped down and down and down winding back and forth.
Betsy would pull off to the side when she saw a spot to let people behind us pass and she’d let out a long sigh and breathe deep, release her iron grip on the wheel and flap her hands in the air for a bit as cars would fly past us on the right and then we’d be off again always down, down, down. I said to her more than once, “I don’t know how you’re doing this. If I had to do this we’d be back in Inverness waiting for a bus.” She always likes to drive on any of our trips though and this zig-zag down-hill terror ride was no exception. Have to say, though, when I was not in full-panic-we’re-Gonna-Die-Any-Minute mode the landscape was really incredibly beautiful. There really aren’t any words to describe it.
We were heading for Stirling and you should remember this bit of information if you’re ever coming down from the Highlands: just `cause you see signs for Stirling doesn’t mean you are anywhere near the city of Stirling because `Stirling’ is also the name of the surrounding area. So just when I thought that maybe the non-stop endless plunging down stomach-twisting inclines and suicide turns was ending, there was more of it – and then there was more of it and, after that, there was more of it. The whole trip down was very like being on a ride at the Dutchess County Fair which you thought should’ve ended after maybe five minutes but, Twilight Zone fashion, you find yourself still screaming and being flung into the air two hours later.
At long last the land began to settle down and even out and there were signs of human habitation. I felt almost dizzy with delight when Betsy told me to keep an eye out for signs for Doune Castle where we were going to be stopping for a rest. When we finally pulled in at Doune I almost leaped from the car to kiss the ground and Betsy raised her arms above her head and did a sort of joyful thankful dance. Emily didn’t think it had been a big deal at all and was talking about some goats she’d seen wandering around the side of the road. This was not surprising. When we were at the Culloden battlefield Emily was far more impressed by the sheep in a far field than the history of the battle or the monuments. Doune is a great looking and imposing citadel and we decided we’d pause on the Stirling journey and visit for a bit.
We walked toward Doune across the wide front lawn and I started to lose my happy, bouncy glad-to-be-alive feeling and it was replaced by a sort of gloom and sorrow. This didn’t happen right away. It was when we were approaching the actual castle itself and there was absolutely no reason for me to be feeling that way. Doune Castle is where they filmed part of `Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ and Betsy was singing this song, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” which is actually from `Life of Brian’ – as I’ve told her a thousand times – not `Holy Grail’ but there aren’t any songs in `Holy Grail’ – only chants – so she always sings the `Life of Brian’ tune whenever `Holy Grail’ is mentioned.
I know. It’s a problem she has where she’s always got to be singing. It doesn’t have to make sense, as she often points out, it’s just plain fun. It’s like when she says things like “mentally” instead of “fundamentally” as in “Well, mentally, all we really need to do today is organize the back room” and I’ll say “What that’s mean? `mentally’ We’re going to think about doing it?” and she’ll say, “No! Of course not! It means `basically’ like `fundamentally’. Duh.” Seriously, it’s like living with Humpty Dumpty from Alice in Wonderland where she makes every word mean precisely what she alone wants it to mean. Same with songs. She’ll start singing a song which seems to have nothing to do with where we are or what we’re doing but – BUT – if you follow the narrative line and can piece together the allusions it actually does make sense. Anyone reading this someday only has to ask Emily about this since I’ve lost track of the number of times Em has said, “What does that have to do with anything that we’re talking about?” and Betsy will give a long and often circuitous explanation which finally makes complete – if somewhat awkward – sense.
Anyway, she was singing her crazy song and was pretending to knock coconuts together like they do in the Monty Python film. Emily asked why they knocked together coconuts when they could have just had real horses and I told her “`Cause that wouldn’t be funny” and she said, “It wasn’t that funny anyway” and Betsy sang, “It was not that funny. That is true. But some parts of it were quite funny – at least to you” in a loud, operatic voice and we laughed. I do not know how these two don’t appreciate Monty Python after the two thousand times I’ve made them watch the various films. Mysterious.
So, you see, it was all bright and light energy and we were having a great time but it was right after she sang the operatic line that I began to feel the creepy, sorrowful, uncomfortable feeling I sometimes get just before someone without a body shows up. We went in and got tickets and all that and then left that little room and went up the corridor toward the wide-open courtyard of the castle and I said to Emily, “Really bad vibes to this place. You feel it?” She said she didn’t feel anything. I said, “This place is no good. Something really unpleasant going on here in the spirit world.”
We emerged from the stone corridor into the sunlight of the courtyard and there were people sitting and walking around and I tried to shake the ghosty feelings out of my head. Everything seemed so calm and reasonable with the people around but, as soon as we walked into this one cavernous room, all the gloom and dark feelings were back. We went out and Betsy started singing a song from one of Gabaldon’s `Outlander’ books, an old Scottish tune, and sang loudly – as she always did at these times – as we walked across the grass of the courtyard toward this staircase which rose up alongside the far wall of the castle.
And this is when things got weird.
Betsy stopped singing and was running her hand along the stone of the wall. We were standing near the bottom of the stairs and I felt this weird pressure on my lower back as though someone had their hand there and then a kind of `twist’ as though someone behind me had grabbed at my shirt and yanked it up tightly in a bunch and, a second after I felt that, I see Betsy suddenly fall up the stairs. She had been standing maybe a foot away from the bottom stair and then suddenly she was laying on the stairs with the toes of her sneakers just above the bottom one.
I moved forward with Em and said, “What happened?”
Emily and I helped her up as she said, “I would say I just tripped but I wasn’t walking. I think I was pushed.”
I said, “Are you sure? `Cause I was feeling someone yanking on the back of my shirt at the same time I saw you fall.”
Emily said, “This is creeping me out.”
“But why?” Betsy said. “What’d I ever do to him that he has to try pushing me around?”
Emily said, “How do you know it’s a `him’?”
“I don’t know,” Betsy said. “It just feels like a `him’. Maybe he didn’t like me singing.”
“No,” I said. “He probably didn’t like that you stopped.”
Emily said, “Better start singing again, Mom.”
So she did. She sang her way up the stairs and kept singing, sometimes quietly and sometimes loudly, all the way through Doune. Her voice lightened the energy of the place and lifted the gloom and the sorrowful feelings I’d felt earlier. It was a nice castle and it was interesting to roam through and I loved the big main room there and all the wonderful spiral staircases of stone. Sure, every minute I was in there I expected to see someone suddenly materialize and vanish away or feel someone trying to push me down – or up – a flight of these stairs but Betsy’s singing seemed to keep all the invisible people happy and at peace and there were no more incidents.
Note jotted down in my travel notebook for the day reads “Doune Castle – Betsy pushed up stairs by ghost. Creepy place with unpleasant ghost vibes until she sang our way through the place. Late afternoon sunlight on the castle walls as we leave and I look up at the empty windows expecting someone to be looking back who left the body many years ago.”
No ghosts showed up though and on we went to Stirling and the last days of our great 2011 Scotland adventure.
END
Betsy “Ghost” Stories: Fall 2018
I have plenty of actual ghost stories – as friends and family members can attest – but I’m not much interested in telling them anymore since Betsy died. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s as simple as, now that I’m living with a ghost, talking about past experiences with spirits – usually fleeting – seems somewhat trite and I’m just not interested.
I’ve had a number of very interesting “paranormal” encounters though and I encourage everyone to remain open to that kind of reality. The writer John Keel (best known for his “Mothman Prophecies”), notes how events which we call “paranormal” and “supernatural” in the modern world were considered “normal” and “natural” by the ancients – and, as an historian and history writer, I can attest to the truth of that claim. Ghosts were once regarded as simply another aspect of the human condition. The ancient Egyptians used to write letters to their dead loved ones and they fully expected – and seem to have received – an answer.
The following accounts were all first written between August 5th-November 7th on Facebook when I was updating people on Betsy’s antics after her departure from this life 4 August, 2018, 4:54 pm. They’re also on this website under the Betsy Stories Then and Now page but I thought maybe people would like to find them here too under Ghost Stories. I haven’t changed the content – though I have changed some sentences for clarity – and so they are brief, no-frills, reports. Someday I may turn them into something more fully developed but, for now, I’m just presenting them in their barely-edited and unpolished state:
August 5 2018: Thanks, everyone. I am loving the love and support. I don’t want people thinking I was up all night in some lunatic state of grief. Emily and I actually returned to watching this absurd show we’ve been re-watching with Betsy lately – “Charmed” – must pause for shout out here to fellow “Charmed” watcher Angela Phillips – Yeah, can you believe it? – and went to sleep early.
But around 2:30 this morning I thought I heard her voice and woke up. She wasn’t on the couch and my first thought was that she’d gotten up on her own and was wandering around the house and I had this panic like “Where is she?” and started running around the place to find her. Then I suddenly felt very calm – like out of nowhere – just very calm – and felt like I heard her say “It’s all right. Go finish our story on Facebook and thank everyone” and so I did.
And these are the last words she said to me alone:
“I’m sorry I gotta go but I’ll see you and my sweet little kid again on the other side. I love you both.”
And she loved all of you. And we’ll all see her again. In the words of the hymn `Be Still, My Soul’ – “Be still, my soul. When change and tears are past/All safe and blessed, we shall meet at last.”
Thanks again. Blessings to all from the three of us.
August 5 2018: Now later, here is a fascinating experience I just shared with Emily, Krista, and Heather here.
Betsy Mark died yesterday, August 4th, at 4:54 pm. She was a great singer who communicated best through song and I see that death hasn’t changed that about her since she’s still at it. Here’s what just happened:
I was doing the dishes and put on this `Music Through the Years’ CD mix tape that Betsy made for us years ago. This is an anthology of tunes we have loved from 1980 up to the present on multiple CDs and the one I put on was one she always especially liked from 1990. So I’m listening to the songs and missing Betsy, but feeling grateful for all the time we had together, and then Monty the Dog – a supreme egomaniac of little patience – had to go out – so I hit pause and went outside with him.
When I came back in and hit `play’ I should have then heard the next song on the June 26 1990 CD which would have been the Lesley Philips’ tune ‘When Answers Don’t Come Easy’ but instead what came on was Bruce Springsteen’s `Back Streets’. I was confused and reached out to hit the forward button, thinking the CD was stuck, when I realized that `Back Streets’ isn’t on this CD. Betsy and I have always been huge Springsteen fans and the `Born to Run’ album has always been our favorite. When `Back Streets’ ended it was followed by `Born to Run’, which was followed by `Jungle land’ and then `Thunder Road’.
Here’s the wonderful and elevating thing:
First – two of those songs are not on that CD and the ones that are on there
are live versions – `Jungle Land’ isn’t on any of the `Music Through the Years’
CDs at all.
Second – those were Betsy’s four favorite songs on the `Born to Run’ album.
Third – Betsy used to sing `Thunder Road’ to our daughter Emily when she was an
infant and used to ask me to play the `Born to Run’ CD in that order so she
could end it by singing `Thunder Road’ to Emily and she would act out the
song in dance and song. `Thunder Road’ is also one of the first Springsteen
songs Betsy and I listened to together and had a special meaning for us both.
And, Fourth – when `Thunder Road’ ended, the machine stopped playing anything.
As noted, this is a multi-album-length CD with many, many songs on it and
something should have come on after the song ended. It works perfectly and I put in another CD to
test and it worked fine. And I then put the `Music Through the Years’ June 26
1990 CD back in and it played as expected. I was amazed. When the songs were
playing, Emily and her two friends Heather and Krista were in the next room and
I said “You’ve got to hear what’s happening in here” and Emily said,
“Springsteen’s not our thing” and I said, “No, you don’t understand. I’m not
playing these songs. She is.” They were suitably freaked out.
So – I take this to mean Betsy got to the other side safe and sound and is sending us confirmation as in “All good! I’m here and I’m safe and it’s all right!” And that’s just the sort of thing she would do and just the way she would do it.
Magnificent. Well Played, my friend, well played.
Further, when I tried to replace the “potty seat riser” I could not do it. It had been somehow compromised so the screw on the left side would not work. I sent Emily and Krista out yesterday to pick up a new toilet seat but had not had a chance to put it on. So I am interpreting this experience of putting on a toilet seat at 1:00 am to Betsy further encouraging us to let go and, I don’t know, all put on our own respective toilet seats and enjoy the hell out of them.
I know. This is a very painful time for all who have known and lost her – but here’s the thing: you have not lost her as long as you retain gratitude for having known her because then you can draw true joy and healing and elevation from that. If you’re just mourning what’s been lost, and are clinging to the past, you’re not doing yourself any favor and you are NOT honoring the life of the person you are claiming to have loved. She would not want that.
We don’t have to “move on” or accept what has happened easily – but we can be grateful for what we had and honor what was lost with gratitude and grace and love. I am breathing deep and breathing deep and raising my arms to the sky and having a few beers and taking a few drams of my old friend Seagram’s 7 when I need to but I am not going to regret anything of our time together. Not even the end. It was all beautiful. And it should not be lost in grief. No matter how tempting that route is. No way to avoid the chest-wrenching pain and the tears, I know that, but don’t stay there and call it home.
August 13 2018: Earlier in life, when I posted the bizarre night of the Springsteen songs playing which should not have been playing, people posted about songs they’d heard which they either shouldn’t have heard or which had meaning for the person recently lost. I had to run a number of errands today and the first was to Home Depot for some solid soil for the Dogwood tree and this song – “We May Never Pass This Way Again” by Seals & Crofts – was the song that came on as soon as I walked in the door. The significance is that this is the – THE – first song Betsy ever played for me in 1980. It was her favorite song then and she always loved it and wanted it included on mixed tapes. I walked into Home Depot, heard it, laughed, and raised my arms and said, “Thank you.”
It wasn’t there this morning or this afternoon when I ran around shutting the windows against the rain and neither of us have seen it in years. We both remember her wearing it in Maine in 2007 when she got her back piece of the mermaid to go with her dolphins but don’t remember it after that and Betsy herself didn’t know what had happened to it and figured it was lost.
Wherever it went, though, it was found today and appeared perfectly spread out like a gift on Emily’s nightstand. THANK YOU, BETSY!
August 15 2018: SO – another fascinating experience. The dining room table we have here is the same one Betsy picked up at a St. James’ yard sale with her mom and dad the summer of 1987 just before we got married. She’s always liked its look and she’s never wanted it covered with any kind of cloth except at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I was cleaning up and getting rid of some clothes and tapestries of Emily’s that she didn’t want anymore and, just to put this one large wall piece somewhere while I sorted in the dining room, I covered the table with it. Then I sort of liked it. It was bright blue with an ocean/fish motif going on and it pulled in the colors of the wallpaper. So I put our wooden napkin holder in the center and straightened it out and it looked pretty nice. And on I went with the cleaning.
A little later, Emily and I were on the back porch when we hear a clatter from the dining room and go in to find the tapestry on the floor with the wooden napkin holder. No breeze, no wind, no open window, no cat running from the room, no reasonable or logical explanation for it other than Betsy never wanted the table covered with a cloth and she’s not about to stand for it happening now.
Can’t say I wasn’t warned. Eric Bernholc told me I’d better stick to her list or she wouldn’t be happy and I should’ve known better. It’s quite interesting. Years ago, I wrote a story about a guy who lives with the ghost of his wife but I never thought I’d someday be living it.
August 18 2018: The latest fascinating experience:
I wrote to Mike Whitman yesterday about doing some work around the place here that Betsy wanted done and he suggested this morning that I contact Kurt Hues for the job. I didn’t have Kurt’s contact info and wasn’t sure if Betsy wanted him for the job and went about various tasks here while thinking about it.
I was doing the dishes when I heard distinctly in my head “Look in email March 30th”. So I did and there was an email from Kurt Hues giving us an estimate on this very job. I’d totally forgotten Betsy Mark had him here to give an estimate months ago and wanted him for the work and I wouldn’t have thought of him on my own.
So thanks Mike Whitman for the suggestion. And thank you, Betsy.
September 3 2018: Fascinating experience early this morning which I’ve been going back and forth on sharing here and don’t know why. Unlike other experiences recently, I don’t have a clear “go ahead” feeling on sharing but, at the same time, I think the experience is pretty cool and people could draw something from it.
I woke at 2:30-something feeling a presence in the room. I whispered, asking if it was Betsy, because I wasn’t sure. It was a very gentle presence. Elevating. I don’t think I asked for a sign – just was asking if it was her in the room. I didn’t get any answer and everything was silent in the dark room and I just continued to feel this presence.
Then
Sammie the Dog, who was sleeping next to me, woke up and leaped off onto the
floor the way she does when she greets people and started running around and,
at the same time, the TV went on by itself. Now I could say that maybe I hit
the remote when I sat up as Sammie went racing around but the remote was maybe
two feet away from me on top of Sammie’s crate.
Then I saw it was 2:38 am and realized that today is September 3rd. It was
exactly one month ago, August 3rd, at 2:38 am, that Betsy told me her
dream-vision of the afterlife and how much she wanted to go.
The gentle presence seemed to fill the room. Sammie was still running around and then added her own special touch to the moment by throwing up on her floor pillow the way she sometimes will when overly-excited, as she’d get sometimes when Betsy came home from work. And I felt strangely elevated and light and comfortably warm as though the room was another room or in another place and I was hovering just over the covers and then it was like a switch turned off and everything returned to normal. Then I noticed the TV was weird, the channel I was on was not the channel it should’ve been and the programming on the TV was completely off, changed, nothing like it should have been.
This experience comes after a weekend of small incidents like objects being moved around on the glass shelves in the foyer and getting the feeling I should move her large photo from the service to another spot which made no sense to me.
4 November 2018: I’ve meant to share some Betsy stories but have been held up on two counts: 1 – and most importantly – I haven’t wanted to pull anyone backwards into the past. One can’t progress forward if one is always being pulled back to a point in the past. 2 – I’ve finally gotten back to writing for Ancient History Encyclopedia and it takes a lot of time for me now to construct each piece, much more than it used to, because I’m missing my muse.
But I was out back today talking to Janeen Samuels Martin and Bill and they asked me about Betsy Mark and I was telling them of her recent antics and realized I really should share them with others – and I hope they make you smile and don’t take you down backwards to a dark place – but I also got a message from the woman herself this morning which I have to share because it’s just, well, not only what she asked me to do but also so sweet and lovely.
She’s been pretty active around the place – and please let me know if she’s visited you at any time. There have been a number of episodes from moving pictures in the foyer to removing a mop head, to – just today – taking said mop-head out of the washer and putting it on top of the dryer I’d just cleared and cleaned off, to changing songs on the Music Through the Years CD. On Halloween day in the afternoon she switched the compilation CD from June 26 1990 to June 26 1991 and played one of her favorite songs – and one of the first songs we ever sang together in 1980 – `I’ve Loved These Days’ by Billy Joel.
But here’s my favorite recent antic and the one she wants me to share with you:
I have not been able to remember my dreams since she left. I always remember my dreams and I always dream in narrative form – my dreams always, or almost always, have a beginning, middle, and end – and I always remember them and I would write them down and send them to Betsy the next day in email or, in the old days, in letters.
Halloween night I had this dream where I was in a large building, many halls and many rooms, and I felt lost but also that I had to keep moving in a certain direction. After a while I came to a door and pushed it open and found myself in a concert hall and there were assorted people sitting in chairs and I knew they were waiting to audition for a part in a show.
And then I saw Betsy Mark and she looked up and smiled brightly at me like she was so glad I’d come and she waved. She looked so happy. And then I woke up.
Early this morning I had the same dream but, this time, after she waved, she jumped up and hurried toward me, hugged me, and said, “Tell everyone I’m okay, all right? Tell everyone I’m fine. I’m fine. And I love you all. And I’ll see you again. Okay? Okay. Thanks for the numbered days.”
And then I woke up. And the room seemed filled with soft light even though there were no lights on.
The “Okay? Okay” comes from John Green’s `Fault in Our Stars’ and was one of her favorite lines – she painted it on the wall of our garage – along with the line, “You gave me a forever in the numbered days and I am grateful” – which she also painted on the inner wall of the garage. So, on the third-month anniversary of her departure, she says hello and wants you all to know she’s fine – and she’s grateful.
7 November 2018: So interesting. We never know what’s coming next around here these days. Here’s the latest story:
This was a really productive and great day. I wrote a comprehensive history piece on the Kingdom of West Francia, gave an interview to a woman from Science Friday on cats in the ancient world and, besides that, it wasn’t raining for once.
But, as I know many of you know, when you have a great day after a loss and you’re feeling pretty fine, there’s that draw of emotional gravity that pulls you straight down. I’m fine as long as I’m writing in a day but, as soon as I’m out of the piece, I’m back to missing Betsy Mark and today, around 4:30, I was hit with the memory trip of how, once upon a time, she’d be coming home from work soon and we’d talk about the day while I made dinner and I’d tell her all about West Francia and the interview – and I started feeling pretty sad and then started feeling worse.
So I decided to start dinner and hit the play button on the kitchen stereo to listen to the Music Through the Years compilation CD I was listening to the other night. Instead of the song which was supposed to play, Lana del Rey’s `Change’ started playing. That CD was not the one in the machine from the other night and I haven’t changed it. I grabbed up the CD case for Music Through the Years and it was in there. I then dug down under and picked up the Lana CD case and it wasn’t in there. I then realized I was wasting my time acting like a jerk trying to figure out what was happening and just listened to the song and loved it as always. This song is THE theme song of the latter part of the cancer journey with her. I used to have to listen to it at least once a day to keep from losing it from May through August and then from August until October.
On the Lana CD, `Change’ is number 15 – not number 1 – if I’d somehow put the CD in there after Sunday night it would’ve started at 1 – but it didn’t – it started at 15 and, when the song ended, the CD stopped. It didn’t go on to 16.
It was so great. It was really so great. I felt like she was saying, “You don’t have to feel sad. I know all about what you did with West Francia and the interview and it’s all fine and here’s that song about change that meant so much to you and still does and, see? The song is true. The song is true. It’s all all right.”
I didn’t feel sad after that. I started laughing. Sure, I’ve done plenty of crying since she left and I miss her every day but it’s harder to miss someone when they’re constantly popping in to say hello and reassure. I love how, typically, she keeps communicating with us all through music.
END
Joshua J. Mark 