Paranormal By Design
Karen Dale Stefaniak
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 Karen Dale Stefaniak Trask
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Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book is free. However, copyright infringement by copying and distributing for monetary gain is strictly prohibited. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Author’s Note: In 2010 I came up with Paranormal By Design as the title for a Blog page. Near the end of 2011 I came to the realization that I would also have to have a website to better market my books and other creative endeavors. So as I was preparing to launch my website, Paranormal By Design, I found myself becoming so attached to the title that I thought, well of course…I should write a book by the same name. And this book would be about…My memoirs.
Okay, so…though I may only be 56 years old at this moment in time…Hey, why not?! No better time like the present and all that. So first I started out by designing the cover, utilizing a couple of my designs and now it’s time to write the rest of the story. All 56 years of it.
Granted, the time for putting together one’s memoirs is usually at a much older age, but as you read you will discover that I’ve had more than my fair share of interesting experiences, real and paranormal, at a much earlier age than most.
As many writers do…I write what I know, and when you read my other stories, (please and thank you!) you will see where I’ve tucked some of the non-fiction of my life into the pages of my paranormal suspense fiction novels.
Consider it a little insight as to why I am…Paranormal By Design…
And to quote the late, great singer and songwriter, Jerry Garcia from his song, Truckin’…
“What a long, strange trip it’s been…”
Roll cameras…cue music…
Chapter One
At 1:02 p.m. on a Friday, the 27th day of May, in the year of Our Lord, 1955 I had no idea if it was sunny or raining or what the temperature was outside, so I cannot set this opening scene for you the way I had factually hoped to.
I never thought to ask my parents what that particular day was like, not that they’d be able to actually remember it, that is if I had ever gotten around to asking them. And while I can only hope that it was a beautiful sunny day, with flowers blooming and birds singing…something leads me to believe that it was raining, with intervals of thunder and lightning.
And possibly that’s why I start my stories…with my characters looking out at the rain.
Regardless of the weather, whether it was sunny or rainy, or if there was thunder and lightning booming about outside…What I am quite certain of is…
That at 1:02 p.m. on a Friday, the 27th day of May, in the year of Our Lord, 1955…
A gift was given to me. No, make that…The Gift.
I would like to believe that I didn’t know about The Gift at the time, because at that very moment I was making made my entrance into this world. So, per William Shakespeare…
If…all of the world is a stage and (if) we are merely players…
I feel as if I would have made my entrance…from stage left.
However, it seems as if it I made my entrance via the usual type delivery, not a cesarean, no complications, and it was a single birth. I don’t know if I came in crying, screaming, or with a smile on my face. The details of my birth were not talked about, were never told to me, and…well...I never asked.
Whether I never thought to ask, or just knew better than to ask, is up for question also.
I also don’t know how long my mother was in labor but I’m guessing that I was awake in her womb sometime after 4:00 a.m., getting ready for my entrance into this world…my first journey in life. I believe this to be the case as I’m an early riser to this day. I do my best work, my best thinking early in the morning, and my brain is pretty much useless later in the afternoon.
However, at 1:02 p.m. on a Friday, the 27th day of May, in the year of Our Lord, 1955…
I do believe I noticed something…as in…
Wow, the scenery just changed! Quite astute for a newborn, don’t you think?
I can also be fairly certain that somewhere, someone said…
Welcome to the world, Karen Dale Stefaniak!
Chapter Two
Lest you have already forgotten…in regards to this gift, The Gift… that was given to me, precisely at 1:02 p.m., on a Friday, the 27th day of May, in the year of Our Lord, 1955…
The Gift did not appear all wrapped in fancy paper and ribbon, nor was it surrounded by all the other gifts of flowers, cards and telegrams sent to me or my parents by relatives and friends.
The Gift…was a quiet and a very unassuming gift.
And like all gifts of its nature…hidden in the shadows.
It was not a gift to be opened right then and there. It was to be opened later.
Several years later. Opened again, and again…and again.
Lucky me.
Oh! And also as luck would have it…
I went from the hospital in Detroit, Michigan to the place that would be considered my home and my hometown for the next nineteen years.
I was to grow up in a very special place, a place of significance not just for me, but also for the rest of the world. The place? Dearborn, Michigan.
To me, Dearborn is where my roots are, and a piece of my heart will always be.
Yes, this was the hometown of Henry Ford, the car-maker. And I consider myself most fortunate that my parents chose to have a house built in Dearborn in 1954. Living in Dearborn allowed me to be educated in what is probably the best school system in the country, and to have The Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village, among other significant pieces of history, basically in my backyard.
Well, okay…within walking distance of my actual backyard…on Roosevelt Street.
A great collection of history was always visible, in one’s line of sight even, which was a constant reminder to me that our history should be preserved. Historic Preservation was something that was ingrained in me from a very early age, whether I knew it at the time or not.
Ironically, history was probably my least favorite subject in school…my father didn’t work for Ford Motor Company, or any other car manufacturer or supplier for that matter.
And most ironically…I’ve never owned a Ford.
But I loved the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village and felt quite a connection whenever I visited there. At times it was as if the walls could talk, and I was being welcomed home by old friends.
I also lived in a house that was a bit different from the others in the neighborhood that I grew up in. Like in many cities across the country, most neighborhoods in Dearborn were made up of “cookie-cutter houses”, one or two styles and their mirrored layouts. One friend’s house was just like another friend’s house…
Except mine. While it was not one-of-a-kind unique, there were apparently only two dozen houses built in the whole city that was like my house. To this day, including mine, I know of the location of only 5 of those houses, and I’ve always wondered where the rest of them are.
When it came to houses, I guess my parents wanted something different. But they never told me why they chose that that particular style, and of course I never asked.
What information that was shared by my father was that the style of house was called The T.V. House because it had a lower wall between the kitchen and living room, apparently so one could watch television while standing at the kitchen sink, or eating at the snack bar.
Just like the television, the house was new and quite different for that time.
Emphasis on the word…different.
Just like one person who used to live there.
And that one person in particular would never have lived there if it wasn’t for her parents, Ben and Florence.
Ben and Florence were of Polish heritage, with both sets of their parents coming over from the “Old Country”. My mother used to say that we were born into a Polish-Russian-German heritage, depending on who was occupying the territory that my ancestors lived in at the time.
I consider myself Polish…a lover of fresh Kielbasa, Pierogow, Golabki and Chruscik.
In regards to my immediate family history, all I know of my mother’s parents is that they settled in the Detroit area of Michigan, and my father’s parents settled into the Sugar Notch area of Pennsylvania, via somewhere in Ohio and possibly New York State. I know precious little of my mother’s family history, and just a tad more of my father’s family history.
But what I do know is…
My parents were raised by “heavy-handed” parents, who were probably also raised by “heavy-handed” parents, so from what few stories I did hear about my parents upbringing it clearly did not seem like either one of my parents were out having picnics somewhere in the middle of a rose garden. They were both taught the lesson of responsibility at a young age.
And while my parents taught me to be responsible, yes, via a “heavy hand”, there were also several picnics and rose gardens in my life, and that’s what I choose to remember.
Yes, wonderful gardens and roses…lots and lots of roses.
I may have received The Gift…but I didn’t inherit the green thumb that that both sides of my family obviously had.
Chapter Three
At some point between the first word of this book and the last sentence you just read, you’ve probably wondered, either aloud or perhaps silently to yourself…
When is she going to tell us more about The Gift?
And what does the City of Dearborn, the type of house she used to live in, her parents, and her Polish heritage, her lack of having a green thumb…have anything to do with her being…
Paranormal By Design?
Well, apparently it all has everything to do with it. Absolutely everything.
I just never knew it at the time. Didn’t find out, or figure it out until some years later.
I just went through life for a good many years chalking up incidents as curious coincidences until all the puzzle pieces of life started putting themselves together. One by one.
Maybe it wouldn’t have taken someone else as long to figure out this little mystery of receiving The Gift. But it’s one of my beliefs (and I’ll talk more about those in the next chapter) that everything happens when it’s supposed to and not a second sooner or later.