Home is Where the Haunting Is by Janie DeVos

 

     It’s hard to believe that it’s that time of the year again when the undead take over television and theaters, and costume shops, makeshift haunted houses and corn mazes can be found in every town and city across America.  Though the vast majority of people are afraid of death, or avoid thinking about it too much, we spend countless dollars each year getting as close as we can at taking a terrifying peek through that thin veil to the “other side”.  

I must admit, I love a good ghost story or tales about werewolf, Bigfoot or lizard man sightings.  I have plenty of books and a lengthy list of recorded TV shows to prove it, maybe more so than the average person.  But perhaps the reason for that is because I grew up in a haunted house, which, apparently, sparked my interest in the unknown. 

My old home place was one of the earlier homes erected in Coral Gables, Florida, having been built in 1925, by a well-known architect for his mother.  Mama must have been good to her boy for he built her place to withstand the 150 m.p.h.-plus winds of the 1926 no-name hurricane that nearly obliterated young Miami, and countless other storms, including hurricane Andrew, that had wind gusts of over 200 m.p.h.  And it was this mother who my sister and I believe haunted the place. 

Our bedroom closet door opened and closed by itself, a shadow of a woman’s head appeared on our bedroom wall, and whispering could be heard in the hallway when no one (visible) was there.  Doors also had a way of slamming shut when my we’d play hide-‘n-seek with the neighborhood kids in the old place while my parents were out playing golf on Sunday afternoons.  We figured it was the old lady’s way of telling us to get out of her house while my mother wasn’t there to ensure that we didn’t tear the place up.  It worked, too.  You’ve never seen little girls with bouncing ponytails on spindly legs rush out of a house so quickly.  Usian Bolt would have been awestruck. 

Oddly enough, I wasn’t scared of her, even during those times when I came home late at night to a dark, empty (to the naked eye), house when I was older and my sister was grown and gone, and our parents were up at their cabin in North Carolina.  I always felt safe coming home, and there was never a time when I was there by myself that the spirit-in-residence scared me.  It was as though she knew I loved the old place and meant it no harm, just like the rest of the family, and so she allowed us to share her home in comfort, safety and peace.  I think the old gal actually liked us, and appreciated the fact that my parents never tried to renovate the place.  On the contrary, they loved the old charm of it, as had the owners before us (there had only been three owners in total, including the old lady) and each owner understood the home’s limits with its old wiring and too-few outlets.  As a result, we’d simply accepted it as part of living in an old home, respected and adapted to it, rather than forcing the old place to adapt to us.  

Finally, after thirty-three years, my parents decide to sell the old house and move into a single-story, more-modern place, with plenty of outlets and wiring that could easily handle as many appliances as they desired, and all at the same time.  So, they sold it to a young couple who had a dental practice just several blocks away. 

The excited, young owners had been searching for a house to renovate to meet their own tastes and needs, while not having to undo a multitude of previous owners’ changes, and so our house was the perfect untouched architectural ball of clay in which the new couple could completely renovate it, turning it into a far more updated, modernized version of the pretty old place.  And that’s where the trouble began… 

According to my old neighbor (who still lives next door, and has been for nearly sixty years), the young couple had a terrible time getting anything done to the house.  Work that had barely gotten underway came to a complete standstill, and for the strangest reasons.  Projects in progress had to be delayed or redesigned or given up on entirely.  Contractors and project managers shook their heads in frustrated confusion about why the house was refusing to cooperate with them, like a petulant child—or ticked off original owner, who was none-to-pleased that some whippersnappers were trying to mess with her home and her son’s masterpiece.  I couldn’t help but think that the old lady was standing on the sidelines cackling with pleasure as she caused disruptions and headaches, one after the other.  Finally, after a couple of years, the changes were completed, but I’m not sure if they were completed to the new home owners’ satisfaction, or hers.  

My husband and I drove by the old house a few years ago when we went down for our niece’s graduation, and the place looked lovely but different.  It had taken on the style and vision of the young couple to an extent; my old bedroom window had a new fancy rounded canvas awning hanging over it, and the carport where we parked our banana-seat bikes in the 60’s had an elaborately designed gate closing out the world.  But the old house still looked much like my old home, too, and seeing that place that had protected and sheltered my family and me for so many years evoked a deep feeling of loving gratitude for it, as well as its ghost inside. 

Driving slowly on past, I tore my eyes away from it, but just as I did, I could have sworn that I heard a door slamming hard from inside.  Smiling, I turned in my seat to take one last look at the house through the back window, and whispered, “Yes, I remember you, too”. 

Happy Halloween, everyone!