The Mystery...
- Chris Seaborn
- Jul 9
- 4 min read
For the first five years my mother had no idea what she had gotten herself into when she had married my father on Halloween of 1952.
That would all begin to change on Christmas Eve of 1957. On my first birthday. (I was born on Christmas Eve of 1956.)
The first year and a half mother was quite busy. She was still running her law practice in Portland as well as helping her older and widowed mother run the Bel-Air Apartments that her mother owned in Portland, Oregon.
That coupled with that dad was spending a lot of time in Seattle, helping his step-father with the maintenance of his step-father's 62' racing sailboat, the Circe.
It was only with the birth of my brother, Charles, on April 12, 1954, that the inkling of a problem began to surface.
About six weeks after my brother's birth mom had been resting in their Bel-Air apartment bedroom when she heard a large crash come from the kitchen. Knowing that dad had been in the kitchen with my infant brother (preparing his bottle), mom went rushing to the kitchen.
She discovered my dad's 6' tall body spread out on the small kitchen floor. Dad was thrashing about in the middle of an epileptic Grand Mal seizure. My brother no where in sight.
It has been well documented that prior to either a Grand Mal or Petite Mal seizure, epileptics have an aura about them. Akin to the smell of rotten eggs. Clearly what was about to happen with my dad had not been something new to him. In that small kitchen there was a small space beneath the sink with two doors. A place where the pipes for the sink were as well as a place to keep cleaning supplies.
Sensing that something bad was about to happen in a matter of seconds, to protect his first and new-born son, dad had quickly placed Charles underneath the sink and closed the doors just before his body went out of control.
Dad had never shared with mom that he had epilepsy.
Being an older woman (mom was 38-years-old when she had given birth to my brother) - as well as having had, through her practice as an attorney, some previous experiences with clients having epileptic seizures - she was not alarmed nor in a panic. Surprised, yes. (Given that dad had never told her about his epilepsy.) But not alarmed.
Initially, with knowing both Charles was safe and dad would get through this, she figured it was just a twist on her relationship with her husband.
It would be another three-and-a-half years before this situation of the mystery of whom she was married to would begin to come to light. In a startling and terrifying manner.
On Christmas Eve of 1957, mom had our apartment all decorated for the holiday and my first birthday. On a small table in our living room was the tree with all the holiday trimmings. Underneath was an assortment of wrapped presents. With dad calmly smoking his pipe in the living room while watching some Christmas special on our black and white television, mom told dad that she was going to run across the large hallway in the three-story historic Bel-Air and say goodnight to her mother and wish her Merry Christmas.
With one last look in the bedroom which Charles and I shared (three-year-old Charles in his bed and me in my crib), she closed our bedroom door, headed down the thirty-foot long hallway to the front door of our apartment and, with the hall light left on, she left our apartment. Closing the door behind her.
As she would relay the story to me ten years later, she was gone from our apartment maybe ten minutes. Fifteen minutes tops.
As she left her mother's apartment directly across the hall she immediately saw and felt three alarming things.
First, where she had closed our front door when she left, the door was now wide open.
Second, where she had left our hall light on, now not only was it not on, but our entire apartment was engulfed in an eerie and ominous darkness.
Third, a cold Portland winter breeze was coming out of our apartment.
Rushing back to her mother's apartment, she pounded on grandmother's door.
"Mother! Mother!" mom hollered.
"What is it, Nora dear?" Grandmother Hitchman said, opening her front door wearing her robe.
"Something's wrong," mom uttered. "Something's wrong in our apartment."
With a cautious haste, together the two women crossed the Bel-Air hallway to our apartment. From the door they could see nothing. Where mom had minutes earlier left our apartment in the warm glow of lights and Christmas decorations, now it was dark. Completely dark. The coldness smacked then in their faces. It was so bad that grandmother held the top of her robe together at the top as they slowly ventured into the apartment.
"John?" mom said, calling out my dad's name. "John?"
There was no answer from the darkness.
The only sound was the crunching of broken glass beneath their feet as they entered the apartment.
In my book, DECEIT FROM WITHIN: A FAMILY'S FIGHT FOR SAFETY by Christian Benjamin Seaborn, discover the mystifying and terrifying landscape the two women found in our apartment that Christmas Eve night.
The paperback is available from Amazon at:
And the e-book can be ordered from Barnes & Noble at:
From Kobo at:
As well as available on all major e-book platforms.
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