The Hauntings

"When people believed the earth was flat, the idea of a round world scared them silly. Then they found out how the round world works. It's the same with the world of the supernatural. Until we know how it works, we'll continue to carry around this unnecessary burden of fear." - Dr. John Markway

Darkness had fallen while my two little brothers and I were playing in the front yard that summer evening. The inside lights lit the house up like a Christmas tree and the light post on the corner gave the look of daytime. The ice cream truck had stopped earlier, and we were covered with melted ice cream, so we got the water hose and sprayed each other till we were soaked. The street over, we heard the mosquito spray truck, so we hid in the garage until it passed by our house. Giggling . . . always giggling. I now wonder how we could have had so much fun that summer.

I could hear the locusts in the distance, my favorite divine melody. As we say in the South, "I could listen to them until the cows come home." Crickets and grasshopper covered the soil below the post light. The night sounds – the sound of nature - was the one thing that lightened my heart.

The light from our now vacant house kept distracting me. A very important person was now missing. My thoughts drifted to that horrible night the ambulance rushed her to the hospital.

 Daddy was now a shell of a person since the loss of his wife, our mother. His two vices were Camel cigarettes and strong coffee. His addictions began during WWII. We had all undergone a terrible tragedy since that night Mama had been misplaced. However, Daddy suffered the most. Our small minds could not yet understand the loss or the magnitude of events that would naturally follow.

Daddy worked the second shift at Cantex, so that night when we ran into the house yelling and kicking each other, he was stuffing a sandwich in a paper bag. His coffee thermos was sitting on the counter. Daddy turned and looked at us . . . he looked so forlorn when he said, “You kids get ready for bed.”

I looked around the house and every light was on. He knew our first night alone would be terrifying. We looked at each other horrified. Who would take care of us? Daddy was a man of few words, so he had not prepared us for this night. It would be our first night alone in the house. I was the oldest, so I slowly walked toward my bedroom with two little brothers following close behind. As I turned around, Daddy wore a scowl, and I could tell by the movement of his jaws, he was gnawing at the inside of his mouth.

Once in my bedroom, Daddy told us to jump onto my bed. He looked at us sternly and said, “Don’t you kids get out of the bed for any reason.” Morris and I climbed up first and turned around to pull Joe up. Joe was the baby so he crawled in between us. Little Joe was already crying and tears welled up in Morris’s eyes and mine. We pleaded with Daddy, pulling at his work clothes, not to leave us alone, to let us sleep in the car. He was firm with his answer, but said he would sneak away on his breaks to check on us.

As Daddy turned and walked away, we cried after him to take us. We heard the door close. You could have heard a pin drop. We sucked up our tears and scooted close to each other. Back in the fifties, no one locked their doors, but we heard Daddy lock the door, so we scrunched up close with our arms hugging each other tight. Every time we drifted off to sleep, a noise would awaken us.

 One of us had to pee, so we would have to disobey Daddy. That is the very first time I became aware of the closet in my bedroom. During the day, I avoided it whenever possible, and at night, I kept it closed, but not knowing why. I just knew there was something in it, something eerie.

I remembered Daddy telling us the story of the parcel of land he had built our house on. I also thought of the strange happenings while he was building it. Once while he was on a ladder, a hammer flew toward him from out of nowhere. It barely missed him. Then, there was the invasion of the Texas's biggest scorpions. Many strange things happened in the building process.

Lying there reminiscing, I felt an aching in my chest. I missed Mama, and I was homesick for our old home in Pasadena Heights where we were happy. Since we moved into the new home, our once happy life - as I knew it - slowly became a nightmare. When asked questions about Mama's whereabouts, they went unanswered. Instead, Daddy's eyes welled up with tears, and he would quickly turn and walk away.

Morris interrupted my thoughts by asking me to tell him the “cowboy” story. Not knowing the affect it would have on us, I began telling the story. Once in the 1800’s an old saloon and horse stable sat on the very ground beneath us. Ruffians and drunks hung out at the saloon and stable, which resulted in many fights, shootouts, and killings. An old well used by the property owner still remained in our backyard. There was a story about the well, but I have forgotten it. Nevertheless, I remember Daddy trying to cover it without much success.

After we calmed from the stimulation of our minds by the “cowboy story,” we heard a loud in the house. My heart was pounding so hard, I could hardly breathe. Our house had always made loud noises during the still of the day or night, but we gave it no never mind. However now, three little ones in the bed telling the story of what might have happened on our lot, instilled fear in me like I had never known. Suddenly, I was thinking very clearly . . . ghosts.

That was the night of the first haunting. I hear tell to this day that if you happen by the old home place, bizarre happenings still occur. There is much to be said about the spirit realm, so I will leave it to the experts, who have written great books on the subject.

That night, the year of 1958, the spiritual realm became a very real part of my life. However, all things have their place in our lives, don’t they? There is much, much more to this story, but another post will tell more of the story.

I now understand the anguish on Daddy’s face, but to three little ones under the age of eleven, we could not have understood our family life, as we knew it, no longer existed.

For who can wonder that man should feel a vague belief in tales of disembodied spirits wandering through those places which they once dearly affected, when he himself, scarcely less separated from his old world than they, is for ever lingering upon past emotions and bygone times, and hovering, the ghost of his former self, about the places and people that warmed his heart of old?  CHARLES DICKENS, Master Humphrey's Clock