When I was a little kid, we moved into my late aunt's house that had been left to my mother years before I was born. My aunt had never had any children of her own, and had lived in the huge house for a lot of years alone after my great uncle's death until, she too, passed away. It was big, old and needed lots of work. When we moved in there were some very old locks and some very old keys. My dad kept saying they would worry about replacing them when they had the more important things done.

At least a year later, my mom was in her 9th month of pregnancy with my brother, and she went into labor in the upstairs bathroom. The locks had never been changed, the keys had long since broken off in the locks and no one was home, and all the doors were locked. My mom had a phone in the bathroom, so she called the police and explained her situation, so along with the ambulance, came a police officer to pick the door lock. He couldn't get it open, and my mom hearing all the commotion from the upstairs window, and out of desperation asked her Auntie Lou to please open the door. In just moments the commotion stopped, and my mom thought they had given up... then she heard the front door swing open, and she heard the sweetest voice say "hello." She heard the same voice telling the EMS people where my mother was in the house, and when the policeman asked why my mother hadn't said that her aunt was there, my mothers aunt said, "I don't think she knew I was here." The policeman told my mother the older lady walk to the back of the house to the kitchen and that was the last he'd seen her. My mother knew from the voice it had been her Auntie Lou.

We lived in that house until I was a teenager, and from that point on my great aunt never kept her presence a secret. If a pot was boiling over it was turned off. If lights were left on they were turned off. It a faucet was left on it was turned off. There was a time when my brother had left a gas burner on, and the flame went out. When we woke up, every window in the house was up, and it was freezing. As soon as my dad walked into the kitchen he smelled gas... she saved all of our lives that time. And many times, when we locked ourselves out by locking the door by accident, we would ask Auntie Lou to unlock the door, and you would hear the lock turn, and the door would be open. Once I forgot to say thank you, and the door slammed shut. I told my mom about it, and she said, that her aunt had been a stickler for manners, so next time, I remembered to say thank you, and I felt a soft caress on my check. None of us were ever frightened of her, she had lived in the house all her life, and I think she stuck around to take care of it.

After we moved out the house caught fire. It was arson, and while the policemen were out looking for evidence, they said an elderly women with just a cotton dress (it was winter probably and the temperature was probably below zero) walked over from the alley behind the house and said she had seen the owner set the house a fire. They began to look for evidence of arson, and found in the basement where some rags had indeed been set on fire. No one could have seen it except from inside the house. I have no proof it was my great aunt who told the police, but the description fit her. She must have hung around to keep watch after we moved.

I am not sure why the Lord allows some people to hang around, and takes the rest up right away, but I know that the Lord left my Aunt to help my mother care for the 9 kids she eventually had.

"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him"

(Colossians 3:17, NIV).