Grandmother’s Ghost Stares at Me from the Foot of My Bed
Ghosts of Avalon documents lived encounters with the unseen rooted in a specific place: a nineteenth-century house in Avalon, Pennsylvania, and the generations who passed through it. These stories are presented as experiential narratives, not instructions for belief. Readers are invited to observe, reflect, and decide for themselves what reality means.
GHOSTS OF AVALON
Grandmother’s Ghost Stares at Me from the Foot of My Bed
By Janet Kira Lessin
When my parents brought me home from the hospital in Pittsburgh, I almost didn’t survive the transition. The air was thick with industrial pollution from the steel mills, and within hours, I was wheezing and choking, struggling to breathe. I was a sickly infant from the start, fragile in a way that made adults hover and worry. What no one realized at the time was that I was not alone in my crib.
THE HOUSE THAT REMEMBERED
Description:
A quiet, 19th-century American home built in 1848 but slightly remodeled (siding, green, yellow trim) in a working-class Pittsburgh neighborhood, still and watchful, as if holding memories within its walls.
Prompt:
realistic, photorealistic, cinematic lighting, soft natural colors, highly detailed exterior of a modest early 1900s American house in Pittsburgh, overcast sky, subtle atmosphere of memory and history, quiet street, emotional depth, landscape orientation
My grandmother had died of cancer while my mother was still pregnant with me. Because of the timing, my mother never had the chance to tell her she was expecting. I came into the world as a surprise she never knew was coming—and yet, somehow, she knew. From the beginning, I sensed that she was there.
I don’t remember a moment when my grandmother arrived. She was present, as though she had been waiting.
Later in life, my mother mentioned that Uncle Jim and Aunt Nellie were the ones who brought me home from the hospital. I still need to verify that detail with my brother, but even that uncertainty feels symbolic. From the very beginning, there was a sense of transition, of being handed from one set of arms to another—some visible, some not.
I believe my grandmother stayed because she was worried about me.
IMAGE 2: THE CHILD SHE WATCHED
Description:
A young girl asleep in bed, blankets pulled close, unaware yet guarded, as if sensing something just beyond the edge of consciousness.
Prompt:
realistic, photorealistic, cinematic lighting, soft natural colors, highly detailed interior bedroom scene, small child asleep in bed, blankets partially pulled up, gentle moonlight through a window, quiet nighttime atmosphere, emotional depth, landscape orientation
I was frail, frequently ill, and seemed uncertain of my footing in this world. She watched over me with a vigilance that did not fade with time. Night after night, year after year, I would wake to find her standing at the foot of my bed, staring at me in silence.
She never spoke. She never moved closer. She stood there, watching.
As a child, this terrified me. I learned quickly that pulling the blankets over my head did not make her go away, but it allowed me to pretend, sometimes successfully, that she wasn’t there. Occasionally, I would fall asleep again and wake to daylight, relieved to find the room empty. Other nights, curiosity or fear would get the better of me, and I would peek out from under the covers.
She would still be there.
IMAGE 3: GRANDMOTHER AT THE FOOT OF THE BED
Description:
An elderly woman in early-20th-century clothing stands silently at the foot of a bed, watching over a sleeping child, her presence calm but unsettling.
Prompt:
realistic, photorealistic, cinematic lighting, soft natural colors, highly detailed ghostly figure of an elderly woman in early 1900s clothing, standing at the foot of a child’s bed, no horror elements, solemn and watchful expression, quiet bedroom, emotional depth, landscape orientation
Friends who stayed over noticed her, too. They would whisper about seeing an old woman standing in my room, watching me sleep. No one ever mistook her for an intruder. There was no sense of threat, no malice. And yet, her presence was deeply unsettling. Being watched for hours by someone who does not breathe, blink, or speak leaves an imprint on a child.
This was not unusual in that house.
The home at 800 Orchard Avenue in Avalon had a long relationship with death. My mother was born there in 1922. My grandmother died there. My grandfather died there. In those days, people were laid out in their homes. Neighbors came to pay their respects in the living room. Death was not hidden away behind hospital doors; it was part of domestic life.
The house absorbed it.
The home at 800 Orchard Avenue in Avalon had already lived a long and complex life before my family ever moved into it. Built in 1848, the house stood for seventy-two years before my parents purchased it around 1920. By the time it became ours, it had already witnessed nearly a century of American history—antebellum years, the Civil War, Reconstruction, industrial expansion, and profound cultural change.
As of 2025, the house is 177 years old.
My mother, the third child in her family, was born there in 1922. She was the first—and only—child in our family to be born in that house. Long before her birth, people had lived and died within those walls, as was customary in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The dead were laid out at home. Neighbors gathered in living rooms to pay their respects. Death was not hidden away in hospitals or institutions; it was part of domestic life.
My grandmother and her mother died there. My grandfather died there. Other deaths preceded them—people unrelated to us, lives layered into the structure itself. By the time I arrived, the house had already been alive with memory for generations.
In that context, the presence of ghosts did not feel unusual. It felt consistent. I saw many of them. My mother saw the rest.
IMAGE 4: A HOUSE OF MANY DEATHS
Description:
A quiet living room from the early 20th century, suggesting wakes and gatherings, with the subtle sense that many lives have passed through.
Prompt:
realistic, photorealistic, cinematic lighting, soft natural colors, highly detailed early 1900s living room interior, subdued tones, empty chairs, lace curtains, atmosphere of remembrance and passage of time, emotional depth, landscape orientation
I lived with my grandmother’s presence until I was eighteen. When I moved out in 1972, just two blocks away from my parents’ home, I noticed something unexpected: she did not follow me.
Her vigilance had ended.
After that, I no longer felt her. I hope she was finally able to relax, to move beyond the veil, to explore whatever realms awaited her—or perhaps even to return for another incarnation. I like to believe that once she knew I would be all right, she let go.
Looking back now, I see this not as a haunting in the conventional sense, but as the beginning of a lifelong pattern. The dead did not frighten me because they were cruel.
They frightened me because they cared.
IMAGE 5: THE AUTHOR, WATCHING BACK
Description:
A reflective portrait of the author as an adult woman—petite, sandy blonde hair with bangs, blue eyes—calm, observant, and quietly strong.
Prompt:
realistic, photorealistic, cinematic lighting, soft natural colors, highly detailed portrait of a petite woman with sandy blonde hair, bangs, blue eyes, thoughtful expression, gentle natural background, emotional depth, landscape orientation
BELLS & WHISTLES
SERIES: Ghosts of Avalon
ARTICLE: Grandmother’s Ghost Stares at Me from the Foot of My Bed
AUTHOR:
Janet Kira Lessin
Author, Experiencer, Researcher of Consciousness and Memory
ABOUT THIS SERIES:
Ghosts of Avalon explores a lifetime of encounters with the unseen, rooted in place, lineage, and lived experience. These stories are presented without instruction on belief. The reader is invited to observe, reflect, and decide for themselves what is real.
RELATED SERIES:
- Experiencers
- Incarnations
- Avatars
- Life on Nibiru
TAGS:
Ghosts of Avalon, paranormal experiences, ancestral memory, haunted houses, childhood encounters, experiential narrative, consciousness studies, Avalon, Pennsylvania
🪶 AUTHOR BIO (FULL)
Janet Kira Lessin is an author, experiencer, and lifelong researcher of consciousness, memory, and anomalous phenomena. Her work explores the intersections of lived experience, ancestral memory, history, and non-ordinary states of awareness. She is the creator of multiple ongoing series examining ghosts, experiencers, incarnations, and the evolution of human consciousness across time.
Janet’s writing is rooted in direct observation rather than persuasion. She does not ask readers to believe—only to consider. Her work emphasizes personal sovereignty, compassion, and discernment in the face of the unexplained.
She is also the founder of Dragon at the End of Time, a long-form project examining history, consciousness, and transformation across decades and lifetimes.
👥 ABOUT THE SERIES COLLABORATION
Janet Kira Lessin authors ghosts of Avalon.
Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA) may contribute future essays or contextual material to the series but is not a co-author of this article.
📚 GHOSTS OF AVALON — PLANNED ARTICLES (WIP)
Series: Ghosts of Avalon (Work in Progress)
- When the House Almost Took My Parents
(Opening article — medical crisis, return to 800 Orchard) - Grandmother’s Ghost Stares at Me from the Foot of My Bed
(this article) - The Stairwell
(The forbidden door, latch, portal, and investigator) - Hands from Under the Bed
(Shared strangulation experiences: Janet, Bill, Louise) - The Basement Woman
(Civil War–era vision and later confirmation) - The Head That Floated
(Early childhood waking encounters) - When the Ghosts Left
(Mother’s post-death clearing of the house) - After Avalon
(Why phenomena follow people, not places)
📣 SUBSTACK PROMOTION (INSERT IN BELLS & WHISTLES)
✨ FOLLOW THE SERIES ✨
This series is being developed in real time.
🔔 Subscribe on Substack to follow Ghosts of Avalon as new articles are released, revised, and expanded:
👉 https://substack.com/@janetalexlessinphd
Subscribers receive early drafts, updates, illustrations, and behind-the-scenes notes as this work evolves.
📱 SOCIAL DESCRIPTIONS
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A 177-year-old house. Generations of lives and deaths.
Ghosts of Avalon explores lived encounters with the unseen—without telling you what to believe.
By Janet Kira Lessin.
Built in 1848, the house at 800 Orchard Avenue had already lived for seventy-two years before my family moved in. By 2026, it will be 178 years old. Many died there. Many stayed.
Ghosts of Avalon is a narrative series about memory, place, and encounters with the unseen—told without persuasion, fear, or agenda.
🛠️ STATUS
Series: Work in Progress (WIP)
Article: Publication-ready
Next Step: Article 1 (the “grabber”) or move to The Stairwell
