From One Generation to Another

We’ve always been able to commune with the dead. Well, not just the dead but other things that haunt our world as well. It didn’t seem to be unusual at the time. When I was a young kid growing up in the middle of the desert it was common to come across strange places, entities that crept through my grandparents home, or dark shadow figures that stalked around the old storage garage (where my father and his three siblings at the time lived with their parents before the big house was built.) 

Being surrounded by indigenous lands and being a direct descendent of the Raramurí tribe as well as steeped in Mexican lore helped pave the way for the commonplace demeanor I had with the other realms. It just seemed like part of the norm. I would spend countless hours alone in the fields around our property, watching figures roam around on the horizon, hearing voices casually speaking with me about the day, the sky, the clouds, the wind. We lived so far away from the local town, there was no cable, no other children to play with, no satellite coverage, no antennae reception, nothing. 

For the most part, I dismissed it all as part of my imagination. Back then, I was being raised in a strictly Christian home, and spent my Sundays and Wednesdays listening to how everyone was going to hell, especially those that spoke with spirits. They were the most damned. So I attempted to reason myself away from what I saw and heard and replace it with logic and reason. That worked for a few minutes, but I’d eventually abandon that tract and start up another conversation with whatever it was that came to me under the cotton oaks by the irrigation canals. 

Fast-forward thirty years and my own children are being approached by the same presences that hung out with me when I was their age. When my son was four, he had regular conversations with a very kind and protective soul of a woman that passed in his room before we moved into the house. She missed her family back in Argentina. She had moved to Houston for cancer treatment, and because her children didn’t have the means to visit her, she was unable to see her grandchildren one last time before she passed on. 

Then we moved in. Myself, my wife at the time, and my four year old son. Every afternoon, he would be in his room, talking up a storm with some “imaginary” person. At night, I would tuck him in, and sit at my piano, playing a few chords and lines before heading to bed. As I played, I would see her sit on the steps of the loft, listening to my work, and appreciating the melodies. In the morning, the facet would turn on by itself, or his toys would move and shift. She missed her grandchildren so much, but for some reason, couldn’t find her way to them. 

Then one night, the dark being showed up. 

My son woke me up screaming in his room at something in the corner. I came in, kept the lights off, to see him huddled in his bed, crying, blanket against his chest, pointing at the dark corner near his closet. “It’s there. It’s in the corner. It comes from the closet.” I looked over my shoulder to see it standing tall in the corner, looking at us, looking at it. I calmed him down with my hand rubbing his shoulders as we both looked at the being. I told him, “It cannot hurt you. It merely wants to scare you.” 

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t know. But that’s what they do. Imagine yourself, enveloped in a bright light, safe, and protected. That will drive it off.”

As he did this, the being vanished instantly.

The following three weeks were the same scenario over and over again. This being would occasionally make its way down the staircase, peaking at the family from around the corner, or take up residency in the hall. It knew we could see it, and demanded attention. I would chose to ignore the dark figure, since these beings are usually the equivalent of a huge, bored, house cat that wants your attention for no apparent reason. My son, however, was still horrified. 

One afternoon, he was playing in his room and speaking with the elderly woman that kept him coming. He kept telling her “Thank you” and seemed happier than usual. I smiled to myself, and ducked into the studio to record some guitar tracks while he was occupied. Later that evening, I was conversing with a medium friend of mine who told me what had happened the night prior. 

“The elderly woman who watches over your son. She got rid of that dark entity. She showed up at night and confronted it while it scared your son. She claimed the house, the room, and your family as her own, and demanded it leave. It had to, and so, it did.”

I smiled at the realization. Later that night, I sat down at my piano and played some of her favorite pieces of mine. She listened from the staircase, and I thanked her myself.

We sold the house before the divorce was final. As I walked through the empty rooms, I felt her drifting through them with me. She was sad to see us leaving under such circumstances, and I was to. I closed the door behind me, then handed over the keys. And life moved on.

Now my two eldest, my son and his younger sister, they play in their room when they’re with me. Occasionally the door will open by itself, or close slowly, sometimes things fall when they’re reading, or their lamp clicks on before they fall asleep. They’re unbothered by the occurrences, and continue with their games or thoughts. We shrug at one another, my children and I, like an inside joke from one generation to another.

Yesterday, my two youngest girls were playing in the room while I got out of the shower. As I finished dressing, I opened the door to see my two year old sitting on the bed, carrying on a conversation with someone unseen, standing in the room by the window. She introduced herself, then pointed to her baby sister and introduced the one year old jumping up and down in her playpen, eyes fixed to the spot by the window. The two saw her as well, the passerby between worlds, who came upon two beautiful girls and missed her children dearly.

I smiled at the unseen, and nodded to my girls who smiled back, an inside joke from one generation to another.