Poetic License

I am no longer afraid of the dead as I was when I was young, listening to my paternal grandmother telling me stories about seeing her loved ones who had passed on, or about seeing Jesus. Her tales were the first such stories that almost drove me away from religion. More stories later did so completely. But I gradually overcame my fear of the dead. In the last few months, I have had more of my “coma naps” in which I sleep very deeply for about 3 hours and often dream of either loved ones who have passed on or about people in my life who are about to die. These dreams have happened more frequently over the last two weeks, for no apparent reason.

Those tales told to me by my grandmother rattled me. I was just a child, and while she seemed to be comforted by the visitations, all I could think of was either holding my pee all night or turning on every light on the way to the bathroom if I couldn’t hold it. You would think that, being a church-going kid, I would have liked the idea of seeing Jesus, but all I could think about was whether he would be glowing like an alien or would be showing the bloody wounds in his hands, feet, and side to me. I didn’t think I’d like that at all! I couldn’t understand how my grandmother could be so calm and matter-of-fact about the whole thing! (But then she took us all with her to her local church the next Sunday. That was even scarier, with people taken over by the Holy Ghost and twitching and jerking where they stood!)

The first time I heard spirits was when I was a pre-teen in Houston. I had what must have been a poltergeist in my bedroom. That house had once been the home of an extremely strange family – a mother, a girl about my age, and her older brother, who had some sort of mental disturbance. He might have been schizophrenic. He would sometime climb high into the chinaberry tree in their backyard, which was across the fence from my backyard, and shout things at his sister and I, all the while raining chinaberries down on our heads. For the life of me, I can’t remember the things he said, but he frightened me. His sister got me into trouble, too, and I ended up getting my mouth washed out with Ivory soap. Yuck! (For the record, I said “doo doo,” which I didn’t think was a bad word.)

We moved into their house after they moved away, probably because it was a slightly bigger house. At first, my brothers shared the room where that boy had once lived. They had twin beds and an old, but solid, dresser and a desk. One of my brothers built a shelving unit to mount over the desk. They had an old manual typewriter – a Royal or a Smith Corona – and loads of books and model airplanes. One of my brothers was an airplane fanatic, and the other was a scholar and electronics fanatic. I had the middle bedroom that I convinced my parents to make blue – my favorite color. Pretty blue walls, frilly blue curtains, and a beautiful blue flowered bedspread. Eventually my pleading for a piano meant that I added that to my blue room, as well. As much as I loved my blue room, though, the minute my youngest brother finally moved out, I begged my parents to let me move into the boys’ room. It was farther away from my parents and their incessant fighting, and it was a more grownup room, I thought. The walls were a pale green, and the boys’ furniture (and typewriter) stayed. That’s when I started writing, in the sixth grade, but it’s also when the trouble began.

Dad insisted on lights out–no night light. Normally that was fine, because he also insisted on doors being open, so I could still see light from the kitchen. Ever the insomniac, he would be up at all hours of the night, checking the doors and windows, and checking on me. It drove me crazy at the time, but now I think it’s kind of sweet that I had someone to watch over me. I don’t have that now. Mostly it doesn’t bother me, but I do wonder sometimes if I died in my sleep, would my pets feast on my remains?

But back to the poltergeist.

Not long after I moved into the room, strange things began to occur. At first, it was just a rattling in the closet. Eventually, I figured out it was the sound of wire hangers bumping up against each other. (Yes, Miss Crawford, we reused wire hangers from the dry cleaners.) Because it kept happening, I told my parents about it over dinner one night. My mother thought it was just a draft in my closet causing the hangers to move. I asked my father to check if there was a draft in there (because there was no window or air vent). He checked and confirmed there was no draft or source of air movement. My parents ended that with an admonishment to stop being silly.

Because I hoped beyond hope that it was a drafty closet, I moved the hangers apart so they wouldn’t brush against each other. That night, as usual, I heard the rattle of the hangers. The next morning (because I wasn’t going in that closet in the dark) I checked. The hangers were once again next to each other. I checked to see if the rod was bowed, but it was straight as it could be. I was as rattled as the hangers! I tried other methods, like hanging shirts between empty hangers, but somehow two empty hangers would always end up beside each other, rattling away in the night.

I almost grew accustomed to it. Then one night, the noise came out of the closet, as in footsteps on my side of the closet door! Each night, over a couple of weeks, I would hear the squeak of a floor board. The layout of the room was like this. The foot of each twin bed faced the doorway to the hall, with my bed being farthest from the closet. I was tucked against the far side of the room, and the dresser (which had a mirror, my toiletries, and a radio) was a few feet from the end of my bed, against the inside wall and next to a side window. Between me and the closet was a nightstand, the desk, and the other twin bed. The wooden closet door was shut tight every night.

As those nights went on, the steps went from the closet to the end of the other twin bed. My father must have heard it one night, because he pushed my door open wide and asked what I was doing out of bed. He flipped on the hall light and saw me in bed, wide-eyed, with the covers tucked in tightly around me.

“That wasn’t me,” I said. “Whatever is in the closet is walking out of it.”

My father then flung open the closet and turned on my overhead light. He rifled through the clothes and search to see if there was someone in there. He was always suspicious, and I’m sure he thought I wasn’t hiding a boy in there. (I was a pre-teen, as I said, and was only interested in the unattainable teen dreams in magazines – safe and distant!) Satisfied, he closed the closet and told me to stay put in bed. I asked if I could play the radio so I wouldn’t be scared. He told me I could turn it on at a very low volume. He waited while I did so, and watched me bury myself in the blankets again. He turned off the light and went back to bed.

Just as I started to drift off to sleep, suddenly the volume went up on the radio. I thought I could see the silver slider knob moving. I peered, bug-eyed, over the top of the covers and listened for my father to come charging back down the hall to scold me. He flipped on the light again and yelled at me for “blasting” the radio (it was louder but not that loud). I pleaded with him to believe me. I had not touched the radio. He turned it off and pulled the plug from the wall.

“Go to sleep!” he said, storming out of my room.

Later that night, around two a.m., my overhead light flicked on. Disoriented, I looked around and saw no one. My door was still ajar as my father had left it earlier. I was so tired and had to get up at six to get ready for school. Rubbing my eyes, I stumbled toward the light switch, which was just inside the door to my room. I didn’t have a light on my nightstand. As I approached the light switch, a stomping sound reverberated on the wood floor right in front of me! I froze in place.

To whatever was in my room, I said, “Okay. Just leave me alone!”

I inched backward toward my bed. I couldn’t see anyone there, but I felt them. It was a presence that scared me, but I was so tired. I crawled back into bed and put the edge of one of the pillows over my eyes so I could sleep. The next morning, my father was upset that my light was on (because, you know, we weren’t trying to light the whole neighborhood or make the electric company rich).

I told him about what had happened and told him I wanted to sleep in my blue room again for awhile. The plan had been for my little sister to sleep in there, but she was spoiled and didn’t want to sleep in her own room. She wanted to keep sleeping between my parents in their bed, like a baby. So I got my wish to go back to the blue room for awhile. Eventually the presence went away, but I will always feel it was somehow connected to the mentally ill boy who had once lived in that room. I never found out what happened to that family, but he was extremely troubled. Maybe he had conjured something, or maybe he had died and was haunting the room.

These days, I don’t experience the presence of any spirits, but I certainly dream of them. During a 3-hour coma nap early this afternoon, I dreamed first of my daughter. We were all together again as a family and were in this house I’ve never seen before. It reminded me somewhat of my aunt and uncle’s house in Irwinville, GA, which had once been the family farm. When my mother was growing up, it was her home. Later, my uncle took it over, as their parents were in their sixties and no longer able to work the farm. They moved into a small house at the bottom of the hill, while my uncle and his family lived in the big house and worked the farm. It had an addition on the back, with extra bedrooms, a bathroom, and a small den for my cousins. It had a big, eat-in kitchen, a big front room (where the piano was and where all of the fun happened) and a big bedroom up front where my aunt and uncle slept. The house in my dream was like that, but it was even bigger and had additional spaces.

It was so good to see my daughter again. I love the dreams in which she appears, because it feels like she’s been gone for so long.

I also discovered a room/shed in the back of the house that opened like an accordion when we found it. There was a huge wooden deck and shelves and various items that we discovered had belonged to a famous man who had once run a newspaper. His wife, we learned, had been the wealthiest woman on the planet. While he eventually became penniless – yet still famous for his newspaper – she had hoarded her money and traveled around the world without him. (Do I know how to dream or what??) It was a fascinating story, and all of the treasures we discovered in that lost part of the house were even more fascinating.

Over the course of the coma dream, I found more and more treasures, and then parts of the house morphed into a shopping mall. In part of the shopping mall, there was a bookstore that had some amazing treasures of its own, and then I came across a small sculpture or ornament of some sort that was Freddie Mercury at a piano, wearing a flowing black cape. As I continued to walk through this mall, I found the real Freddie, slightly older, at a piano, performing for the crowd. I encouraged him to put on the cape! After the impromptu concert, he and I chatted for awhile, I touched his hand, and then I was off again.

I don’t know what any of it means, but I was so happy to see my daughter. She had been in a room with her brother, and they were sleeping in twin beds. I thought she needed a bigger, more comfortable bed, so I suggested she try out the bed that was in the “L” part of this big room. She found that to be very soft and comfortable, and I left her happy and snug in her big bed.

I’ve seen apparitions – or at least their shadows – on more than one occasion since those late night spirit stories shared by my grandmother, but I’m still not a fan of seeing them while I’m awake. I prefer it when my daughter (or my mom, dad, or grandparents) comes to see me in my dreams. I don’t know if their spirits are really with me, but it feels real to me. It takes time for me to shake off the grogginess when I come out of those deep sleeps. They are strange but wonderful in their own way.

Sometimes I think that those dreams take me very close to or through the veil between this reality and that one, but I can’t say for sure. All I know is that sometimes it feels as though I don’t want to come back. I don’t pretend to understand any of it – the dreams, the visitations, the afterlife – but it is comforting to see the ones I love looking happy and well.

And now? I only use plastic or wooden hangers.

Happy weekend, Jude