For seven months, every single night at 2:47 in the morning, my husband would stand right next to my bed in the dark, just watching me sleep. He did it until the day I pretended to be asleep and heard what he was whispering.
And child—what I discovered destroyed my life forever.
My name is Hattie. Hattie May Ellington.
Today I am 91 years old. I turned 91 on March 3rd of this year.
I was born back in 1934 in Mon, Georgia, and I have lived through a lot in this life. I have gone through situations that, when I tell folks today, they don’t believe me.
But everything I’m going to tell you here is the gospel truth. You can ask my daughters, my grandchildren—anyone who knows me.
I do not lie. I have never lied in my life.
Before I go on with my story, I would like to ask a favor of you watching me. If you can leave a like on this video and subscribe to the channel Grandma’s Journal, it would make me very happy.
I know you young folks today like these internet things, and they told me this helps other people hear my story. And I want my story to be known.
I want other women to know they are not alone. So leave that like, subscribe to the channel, and tell me in the comments where you are watching from.
Are you from Atlanta or Birmingham, or maybe from Georgia like me? Or are you watching from far away in another country?
Tell me. I love to know.
My grandson always shows me the comments, and I get all emotional seeing folks from all over the United States and other countries watching me.
Well, now I am going to start my story from the beginning, because otherwise you won’t understand everything that happened.
I married Otis Washington on October 15th, 1955. I was 21 years old. He was 26.
It was a marriage sort of arranged by our families, as was common back in those days in the country. My daddy knew his daddy.
They were deacons in the same church and thought we made a good match. I barely knew Otis before the wedding.
We had seen each other about three or four times, always with our parents nearby. He was handsome, tall, strong, and hardworking.
My daddy said he was a serious man—a man of his word—and that he would take good care of me.
I got married in a white dress at the Baptist church in Mon. It was a big celebration with plenty of food, gospel music, and the whole congregation was there.
I remember wearing the lace dress that had belonged to my grandmother, which my mama had kept in a trunk.
It was a hot day, plenty of sun, and I was nervous as could be. I didn’t really know this man I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
After the wedding, we went to live on a small farm that his daddy had given us. It was about fifty acres of land near Cordell, deep in the Georgia countryside, far from everything.
The house was simple, made of wood—just three rooms.
There was a living room that was also the kitchen, a bedroom, and a small pantry in the back. The bathroom was outside, an outhouse.
We didn’t have electric lights. We used kerosene lamps.
The water came from a well in the yard.
Otis worked in the fields. He planted corn, collard greens, sweet potatoes, and raised some chickens and hogs.
I took care of the house, washed clothes on a scrubboard, cooked on a wood stove, and sewed our clothes.
It was a hard life, but it was the life we knew. Everybody lived like that back then.
My first daughter was born in 1957 on April 23rd. I named her Ruth because I liked that biblical name.
It seemed beautiful to me.
The birth was at home with Miss Sebastiana, the midwife for the region.
It was a difficult, long labor. I suffered a lot, but when I saw my daughter—my first baby girl—I forgot everything.
She was so tiny, so perfect.
In 1959, Ruby was born on August 8th. Another difficult birth, but this time I knew what to expect.
Ruby was different from Ruth. Ruth was quiet, calm.
Ruby was born crying, making noise, demanding attention.
Two beautiful girls.
And in 1962 came Pearl, my baby. She was born on December 1st.
A calmer birth than the others, thank the Lord. Pearl was small, petite, but sharp and smart.
Three daughters. Three girls.
Otis wanted a boy. He wanted a son to help him in the fields.
But the Lord gave me three girls, and I was grateful for each one.
Otis was always a very quiet man. He wasn’t one for talking, nor was he one for affection.
He never hit me—never raised a hand against me. I have to say that.
But he was never affectionate either. He never hugged me just to hug me.
He never told me he loved me. He never gave me a gift.
It was as if we were two strangers living in the same house.
He worked, I worked, we raised the girls, but there wasn’t that thing of a couple in love like you see in the movies.
There just wasn’t.
Sometimes I wondered if it had to be that way—if all marriages were like that.
I talked to the other women at church, at gatherings, and it seemed like, yes, that was normal.
The husband worked, the wife took care of the house, and that was it.
Love was something for young single girls. After marriage, it was obligation.
It was duty.
The girls were growing, time was passing, and life went on in that routine—waking up early, making coffee, taking care of the house, the girls, the clothes, the food.
Otis going out to the fields before the sun came up, coming back when it was getting dark, eating dinner in silence, going to bed, sleeping, and starting it all over again the next day.
I won’t lie to you. I wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t completely unhappy either.
It was the life I had, and I accepted it. I had my daughters.
I had food on the table. I had a roof.
Many folks had less than that.
That was how it went for thirteen years. Thirteen years of a quiet marriage—without great joys, but without big problems either.
Until January of 1968 arrived.
January 1968.
I will never forget it.
It had rained a lot at the end of December. The fields were looking good.
The corn had come in well.
Otis was even calmer—less serious.
The girls were on break from school. Ruth was eleven years old and already helped me a lot around the house.
Ruby was nine. She was in that mischievous stage—climbing trees, getting all her clothes dirty.
And Pearl, six years old, still little, but already sharp.
It was a Tuesday—January 16th, 1968.
I remember it well because the next day was a special prayer meeting at church and I always lit a candle.
So it was the 16th.
It had been a normal day. I got up early, made the coffee.
Otis went to the fields.
I stayed to look after the girls.
I made lunch, washed clothes.
In the afternoon, I mended a dress of Ruby’s that was torn.
I made dinner—grits and greens with a bit of cured ham that was left over.
We ate.
The girls went to sleep early because they were tired from playing under the sun all day.
Otis and I stayed a while in the living room. He was smoking his pipe and I was darning a sock.
Then we went to bed.
It must have been around nine at night when we lay down.
I always slept on the left side of the bed, next to the wall. Otis slept on the right side, next to the door.
It had been that way since we got married.
The bed was wooden, old, and creaked all over when we moved.
The mattress was filled with corn husks—hard and uncomfortable—but it was what we had.
I fell asleep.
I slept normally.
I was tired.
It had been a heavy day.
And then, in the middle of the night, I woke up.
I woke up suddenly, the way you wake up when you feel something is wrong.
You know when you have the certainty that someone is watching you? That was the feeling.
I opened my eyes slowly, still half groggy with sleep.
The house was dark—pitch black.
There was no moon that night.
Everything was black.
But child, I saw his silhouette—the silhouette of Otis standing by the bed.
Just standing there.
My heart started racing.
I got so scared that for a second I couldn’t even breathe.
I thought it was a burglar.
I thought it was something bad.
But then my eyes adjusted to the dark and I saw it was him.
Otis—standing on my side of the bed, watching me.
I was so scared I couldn’t say anything.
I just lay there, looking at him, and he kept standing there.
He didn’t say anything, didn’t move.
He just stayed there.
After a while—I don’t know how long, maybe a few minutes—he went back to his side of the bed and lay down without saying a word, as if nothing had happened.
I stayed awake the rest of the night.
My heart was pounding, my hands sweating cold.
I kept thinking about what had happened—why he had done that, why he had stood there watching me like that.
In the morning, when we woke up, I pretended nothing had happened.
I made the coffee.
Everything normal.
But I kept watching him, trying to see if he was acting different—if there was anything strange.
He was normal, just like always.
Quiet, serious, eating his biscuit with butter, drinking his black coffee.
I told myself it must have been something in my head—that I had dreamed it.
Or that he had gotten up to use the outhouse and stood there by accident.
What do I know?
I tried to convince myself it was nothing.
But the next night, the same thing happened again.
I woke up in the middle of the night, and there he was—standing next to the bed, watching me.
This time, I looked at the clock we had on the wall, an old wind-up clock his daddy had given him.
It read 2:47.
2:47.
He stood there for about ten minutes.
I lay there pretending to be asleep, but I was wide awake—heart pounding—trying to understand.
Then he went back to bed.
The next morning during coffee, I asked him,
“Otis, did you get up last night?”
He looked at me with a face like he didn’t know what I was talking about.
“Get up for what? To go to the bathroom or something?”
“No, I slept all night. Why?”
“Nothing. I thought I heard a noise.”
And that was it.
Subject closed.
He didn’t know, or he pretended not to know.
I don’t know.
But child, it happened again the third night, and the fourth, and the fifth.
Every single blessed day, always at the same time.
2:47 in the morning.
I started to get desperate.
I started to be afraid to sleep.
I would stay awake waiting for that time to come.
And when it did—there he was.
Standing.
Watching.
Saying nothing.
Doing nothing.
Just watching.
I tried to talk to him again.
I asked if he was sick, if he was sleeping poorly, if he had any trouble.
He always said everything was fine—that I was imagining things.
But I wasn’t imagining.
Every night, 2:47, he was there.
I started to lose weight.
I couldn’t eat right.
I couldn’t sleep.
I lived tired.
Nervous.
The girls noticed.
Ruth asked me if I was sick.
I told her it was just tiredness, but she didn’t believe me.
I saw in her eyes that she knew something was wrong.
February passed.
March passed.
April.
May.
June.
July.
Starting August—seven months.
Seven months of this.
Every single blessed day, 2:47 in the morning, he would get up, go to my side of the bed, stand there watching me, and then go back.
I started to think I was going crazy.
I swear to the Lord, I thought I was losing my mind, because how does a man do something like that every day at the same time and act like nothing happened in the morning?
I spent the whole day thinking about it while I washed clothes on the scrubboard, while I cooked, while I swept the house.
My mind wouldn’t stop—thinking, thinking—trying to understand what he was doing, why he was doing it.
At first, I thought he was sleepwalking.
You know those folks who get up asleep and walk around the house.
I had heard of that.
My Auntie Clara used to tell how her husband would get up at night asleep and go to the kitchen, open the cupboard door, and stand there.
So I thought Otis might be doing that.
But child, sleepwalkers don’t stand in the same spot every day, and they don’t do it at exactly the same time.
2:47.
Every blessed day like clockwork.
It couldn’t be sleepwalking.
Then I thought it might be a sickness.
Some sickness of the mind.
I had heard of people who got sick in the head and started doing strange things.
Old Mr. Jenkins from the general store had gotten like that a few years back.
He started talking to himself, seeing things that didn’t exist.
They had to put him in a home.
Was it that? Was Otis sick?
I thought about talking to someone.
But who?
We lived far from everything.
The nearest house was Miss Idella Banks’s place, about a mile away.
We didn’t have a telephone.
We didn’t have anything.
To go to town, you had to take the wagon.
It took over an hour.
And what was I going to say—that my husband stood watching me sleep in the middle of the night?
They were going to think I was crazy.
My mama lived in Mon, far away.
We didn’t see each other much—only at Christmas or sometimes at Easter.
There was no way to go there and come back the same day.
And even if I went, what was she going to tell me?
My mama was one of those old-fashioned women, you know—one of those who think a woman has to endure everything in silence.
You got married, you have to bear it.
She always said it wasn’t going to do any good to tell.
I tried to talk to the neighbors.
One Sunday after service, I was chatting with Miss Idella and Miss Sadie at the church door.
We were talking about household things, food—that women’s talk—and I took a risk.
“Have y’all ever had any trouble with your husband’s sleep?”
Miss Idella looked at me curiously.
“How do you mean, Hattie?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Like getting up at night, things like that.”
Miss Sadie laughed.
“Mine snores so loud it’s scary. Wakes up the neighbors, but getting up only to go to the outhouse.”
And I couldn’t go on.
I didn’t have the courage to tell.
They were going to think it was weird.
They were going to start gossiping.
Small towns are like that.
Everybody finds out everything.
At home, the situation was getting worse.
I was losing a lot of weight.
My clothes were hanging off me.
My face had gotten sharp.
I had deep, dark circles under my eyes.
I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize myself.
I looked like a ghost.
The girls were worried.
Ruth—poor thing—at eleven years old had already realized something was very wrong.
She asked me constantly,
“Is Mama sick?”
“No, baby. It’s just tiredness.”
“But I see you don’t eat right. You don’t sleep right. Is there something, Mama?”
“There’s nothing, Ruth. Don’t you worry.”
But I saw in her eyes that she didn’t believe me.
And I felt terrible for lying to my daughter.
But what was I going to tell her?
That her daddy stood watching me sleep every night?
A child of eleven wouldn’t understand.
Ruby was acting strange, too.
She was always the most talkative of the three—the happiest, the one who gave the most trouble.
But in those days, she was quiet.
Didn’t play like before.
She stayed in her corner, silent.
I thought it was just kid stuff—a phase—but it worried me.
And Pearl—little thing—six years old—also felt something was wrong.
Children feel those things.
She spent all her time hugging me, clinging to me as if she were afraid I would leave.
Otis kept on the same.
Working in the fields.
Coming back at night.
Eating in silence.
Sleeping.
And every early morning at 2:47, getting up and coming to watch me.
I started to be afraid.
Truly afraid.
Because you hear stories, you know.
I heard talk of men who killed their wives while they slept.
Of men who lost their minds and did terrible things.
What if it was that?
What if one of those nights he came with something in his hand—a knife, a pillow to smother me?
I started sleeping with fear.
Or rather, not sleeping.
I lay awake all night waiting, watching the clock.
2:40.
2:45.
2:47.
And there he came.
There was one night I pretended to be deeply asleep.
I breathed deep and slow like folks do when they’re really sleeping.
I wanted to see what he would do.
He stayed there longer than normal.
He stayed about fifteen, twenty minutes.
And I heard his breathing—heavy, agitated—like he was nervous.
At some point, he leaned down, got close to my face.
I felt his hot breath, smelling of tobacco.
I thought he was going to kiss me or kill me.
I didn’t know.
My heart was beating so hard I was sure he was going to hear it.
But he didn’t do anything.
He just stayed there very close, breathing.
Then he got up and went back to bed.
That night, I didn’t sleep anymore.
I lay awake until dawn, trembling, sweating cold, feeling like I was going to have a stroke.
The next day, I was so tired I almost fainted while making lunch.
I had to sit on the kitchen floor, dizzy, seeing everything spin.
Ruth found me like that and got desperate.
“Mama. Mama, what happened?”
“Nothing, child. Just a dizzy spell.”
“I’m going to call Daddy.”
“No, no need. It passed already.”
She helped me up, took me to the bedroom, laid me down, brought me sugar water, and sat holding my hand, looking at me with those worried eyes.
In that moment, I almost told her.
I almost said,
“Child, your daddy is doing something very strange.”
But I didn’t.
She was a child.
I couldn’t put that in her head.
I was getting sick.
Truly sick.
I couldn’t eat.
My stomach turned at everything.
I lost nearly eighteen pounds in two months.
Eighteen pounds.
I, who was always thin, was down to skin and bones.
My clothes were falling off my body.
Miss Idella found me at the store one day and got scared.
“Hattie, for the love of God, what happened to you? Are you sick?”
“No, Miss Idella, just tired.”
“Tired? Girl, you skin and bones. Go to the doctor.”
But I didn’t go.
The doctor was expensive, and he was far away.
And what was the doctor going to do?
He was going to give me medicine to sleep.
It wasn’t going to solve the problem.
The problem was Otis.
And I didn’t know what to do with him.
There was one night—it was already July—when I tried to stay awake on purpose.
I drank strong black coffee all day.
I didn’t lie down.
I stayed in the living room sewing until nearly midnight.
When I went to bed, I forced my eyes open, pinching my arm every time I was about to nod off.
I managed to stay awake until 2:30.
I was waiting.
I wanted to see when he was going to get up.
I wanted to catch him while I was awake and ask,
“What are you doing, Otis?”
But child, it didn’t work.
I fell asleep.
I don’t know if it was two minutes or five minutes, but I fell asleep.
And when I woke up with that same startle as always, he was already there—standing by the bed, watching me.
I got so mad at myself, I wanted to cry.
How had I fallen asleep?
I started thinking he knew when I was awake—that he waited for me to sleep to get up.
Did he lie there awake waiting for me to sleep?
Was that it?
That scared me even more, because if he waited for me to sleep, it was because he didn’t want me to know.
It was because he was hiding something.
I started watching him during the day.
How he looked at me.
How he talked to the girls.
Looking for some sign—something different.
But he was always the same.
Quiet.
Serious.
Working in the fields.
There was a Sunday we went to church.
We went every Sunday.
It was mandatory.
I was praying—asking the Lord for help, asking for protection.
And the Reverend preached about demons that tempt people, about evil things that get into men’s heads.
I left that service thinking it could be that.
That it could be the devil tempting Otis, making him do those things.
It seems silly, but that’s how I was raised.
Believing in those things.
And when you are desperate, you believe in everything.
I put a Bible under my pillow.
I prayed every night before sleeping.
I asked for protection.
But it didn’t work.
2:47.
There he was.
The girls were getting quieter and quieter.
Ruby especially was acting very strange.
I realized she had lost weight, too.
Her little face was thinner.
Her clothes were loose.
I asked her if she was eating well at school.
“Yes, Mama.”
“Are you sure? You’re very thin.”
“Yes, I’m eating, Mama. I just don’t have much appetite.”
It seemed odd.
But I didn’t insist.
I had so many things in my head, I couldn’t worry about everything.
Until one day—late July, early August—Ruby came home from school and went straight to the bedroom.
She didn’t want to eat.
She said her stomach hurt.
I went to see.
She was lying down, curled up, hand on her stomach.
“What did you eat, Ruby?”
“Nothing, Mama. I didn’t eat anything different.”
“Do you have a fever?”
I touched her forehead.
No fever.
“No, Mama. It’s just a stomach ache.”
“I’m going to make you some tea.”
I made her peppermint tea.
I gave it to her.
She stayed there quiet.
I left the room, but I stayed worried.
Later, when I went to bring her dinner, I went into the room and saw.
I saw she had been crying.
Her eyes were red, swollen.
“Ruby, are you crying? What happened?”
“Nothing, Mama. It’s the pain.”
But I knew it wasn’t just the pain.
There was something.
I stood looking at her, and for the first time in months, I stopped thinking about Otis and really paid attention to my daughter.
She was different.
Very different.
It wasn’t just the weight loss.
It was her manner.
Her way of looking.
Her way of talking.
There was fear in her eyes.
Fear of what?
I tried to talk, but she didn’t want to speak.
She said she was sleepy.
Wanted to sleep.
I left the room, but I stayed thinking about what was happening to Ruby.
That night, I couldn’t stop thinking about my daughters—about all three of them.
Ruth worried about me.
Ruby—strange, skinny, afraid.
Pearl—clinging to me all the time.
What was happening to my family?
2:47.
He got up like always.
Went to my side like always.
Stood there like always.
But this time, I wasn’t afraid of him.
I had courage.
A courage so big I felt like getting up and screaming,
“What are you doing? Why are you destroying this family?”
But I didn’t scream.
I stayed quiet—pretending to sleep like always.
When he went back to bed, I lay there thinking.
Thinking a lot.
I needed to discover what was happening.
I needed to hear what he was doing while he stood there.
Because he was doing something—thinking something—and I needed to know what.
That was when I had the idea.
I was going to pretend I was asleep—but I was going to pretend for real.
This time I was going to breathe deep, slow, like someone truly asleep.
I was going to lie completely still.
I was going to make him believe I was in a deep sleep.
And I was going to stay quiet—very quiet—to hear.
To hear if he said anything.
If he made any noise—whatever it was—I would mark it in my head.
Monday, August 12th, 1968.
It was going to be that day.
I was going to discover the truth that day.
I spent all Sunday nervous.
I couldn’t go to church.
I said I felt sick.
I stayed home thinking.
Planning.
Otis went out with the girls.
I stayed alone.
I went to the bedroom and looked at the bed—that old creaky bed where I slept every day, where I woke up every day at 2:47, seeing that man watching me.
Tomorrow I was going to know the truth.
I didn’t know if I wanted to know.
But I needed to.
That Sunday night, I ate dinner very early.
I took a bath.
I lay down early, too—around eight.
I said I had a headache.
Otis stayed in the living room smoking.
The girls went to sleep.
I lay there, eyes open, staring at the ceiling, listening to the noises of the house—the creaking of the wood, the wind hitting the window, the crickets outside.
Otis came to bed around nine.
He lay on his side like always.
He stayed quiet.
I kept my eyes open, waiting.
My heart beating fast.
My hands sweating.
I couldn’t mess up.
I couldn’t fall asleep.
I had to be awake.
I had to hear.
Finally, I managed to sleep.
It must have been around eleven at night.
A light sleep full of nightmares.
I dreamed of weird things—of Otis, of the girls, of the house catching fire.
I woke up in the early morning and looked at the clock.
2:30.
I still had fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes to discover the truth.
Fifteen minutes to go.
Fifteen minutes until 2:47.
Fifteen minutes until that man’s secret was going to have a name.
I was lying there completely still.
Body tense.
Stiff as a board.
I tried to relax.
I knew I couldn’t be tense like that or he would notice.
It had to look like I was truly asleep.
Deep sleep.
I breathed deep, slow.
I let the air out through my mouth real slow.
I let my arms go limp at the sides of my body.
I turned a little on my side in the position I always slept.
I closed my eyes.
Relaxed my face.
My shoulders.
My legs.
I lay like that, breathing deep and slow, trying to look like a sleeping person.
Otis was on his side of the bed.
I heard his breathing.
It seemed like he was asleep.
But I wasn’t sure.
Is he truly asleep, or is he awake waiting—just like me?
The minutes passed slowly.
Very slowly.
Every second seemed like an hour.
I wanted to look at the clock, but I couldn’t.
I had to keep pretending.
The silence of the house was heavy.
Only the wind outside and his breathing could be heard.
And my breathing—which I tried to keep calm, deep, like a sleeping person.
My heart was beating hard.
So hard I was afraid he would hear it.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Beating in my chest like a drum.
I tried to calm down.
I thought of peaceful things.
The garden.
The chickens pecking in the yard.
The girls playing.
But I couldn’t calm down.
Because I knew it was time.
Suddenly, I heard the bed creak.
He was moving.
I stayed still—eyes closed—breathing deep.
I heard him get up.
The mattress sank on his side when he leaned to rise.
The bed groaned.
He stood up.
I was waiting for him to come to my side like always.
And he came.
I heard his steps slowly—very slowly—on the wooden floor of the house.
Creak.
Creak.
Creak.
Step slow, careful, like someone who doesn’t want to make noise.
He stopped on my side of the bed.
I felt his presence there close.
Very close.
I kept breathing deep and slow, pretending deep sleep.
He stood there like he always did.
I felt he was watching me.
Even with my eyes closed, I felt the weight of his gaze on me.
My heart raced.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Beating very fast.
I tried to control it.
I couldn’t show that I was awake.
He stayed there.
How long?
I don’t know.
A minute.
Two.
Three.
It seemed like an eternity.
Then he moved.
I heard a noise like he had crouched down—got on his knees.
Lord have mercy.
He was on his knees next to the bed.
I stayed still—breathing—pretending.
And then, child, he started to speak.
His voice was so low, so weak, I could barely hear.
It was a whisper, almost a breath.
“Please, Hattie,” he said.
“Please, Hattie, forgive me.”
Forgive what?
What?
