Death Becomes Her
Cy Twombly »Angel’s Trumpets« Gaeta 2008
On grandmothers and ghosts.
We moved into Maude’s the summer before I went into seventh grade. It was uncanny living in a home I had been familiar with for years. The house was built by my grandmother’s uncle so that he could live there with his fiance. He died of a brain tumor before they could ever marry, but the fiance - Maude - lived there until her death. In the years after Maude’s death my grandmother used it as rental property and my father farmed the land behind the house. I would go with him when he would do annual walk-throughs and I would peek into rooms and closets. I imagined what changes I would make if one day if I were living there. Eventually, I was living there and I was left alone in the house.
Most twelve-year-olds would have been elated to be afforded the opportunity, but as a perpetually neurotic kid, I was terrified. Although my parents only left for the occasional dinner with friends or social function, I anxiously awaited their return each time. I was convinced that one night while my parents were out having fun, some man or creature would break into the house and murder me in cold blood. To prevent this from happening, I locked every door, turned on most lights in the house, and perched myself in their bedroom upstairs to watch television.
One night I was doing exactly that when I heard a noise come from downstairs. It was a clinking sound that wasn’t loud, but not quiet enough to be my imagination. I sat there for a moment with the volume turned down and my hand rested on the dog, listening for any further movement. After hearing nothing else, I grabbed my aluminum baseball bat and slithered down the stairs not daring to make a sound of my own. The living and dining rooms were just as I had left them, as were the office and the bathroom. As I approached the kitchen my stomach clenched. I scanned the room with my eyes trying to find the source, and as I was about to turn back I saw it. The silverware drawer was open and on top of the counter was a cluster of spoons, forks, and knives.
This was the first in a years-long series of encounters I had in the house. I’ve seen the rocking chair in the living room move on its own, the Christmas stockings on the mantel sway back and forth, shadows crossing through doorways. One corner of the office is distinctly cold no matter the time of year. One evening I got home after work and heard what I thought was my dad talking on the phone on the front porch. As it continued I went to see what was holding him up and realized no one was on the front porch, in fact, no one was home at all. I walked around the house trying to find where the voice was coming from until I realized it was in the basement. When I opened the door the voices abruptly stopped.
People are usually surprised to hear I’ve never been scared or even uncomfortable living in what is essentially a haunted house. The energy never felt menacing or dark, it was comforting. I liked to think it was my great great uncle looking after the house he built. Dead ancestors already haunt my family. They are often talked about as stories are passed down throughout the years. I know more about some family members that died decades before my birth than living ones.
When I told my grandmother about the incidents she playfully mocked me. “Hilton thinks the house is haunted,” she would tell people with her trademark mischievous grin. She liked to watch me go on the defensive and try my best to convince skeptics of what I had seen and heard. At first I thought this was because she herself was a skeptic, and it was only until a couple years in that I realized she was a believer. Nannie was one to play by her rules. Never in a rush, she would give you the information you wanted in her own time. So after many conversations about her uncle Forrest and my general philosophy on spirits, I began to get a clear picture of what Nannie actually thought.
She revealed that her mother (who everyone in the family referred to as Rachel despite that not being her actual name) had an ouija board that she would bring out when Nannie was a girl in the 1930s and 40s. Nannie, Rachel, and one of Nannie’s friends would commune with spirits through the board by candlelight. I was assured that once my grandparents were dead and we were cleaning out the house I would come across it hidden in the back corner of one of the eaves. Sadly, I never found the antique ouija. She also explained to me the practice of making a “table walk;” something else she did with her mother and friend. According to Nannie, you would close your eyes with your two hands resting on the table. Your thumbs would be touching each other and your middle fingers would touch the people on each side of you, creating a closed circle. Rachel would tell them to keep their eyes shut and to silently focus on the table. After a few moments you would feel your hands rise and upon opening your eyes you would see that the table legs were hovering a few inches off of the ground. And she had the audacity to make fun of me.
After Nannie had let her guard down we were able to talk more of our feelings about the afterlife and spiritual world. She told me that her mother’s curiosities had been passed down to her and now to me, and that maybe we were able to perceive things that other people couldn’t. When I went off to college I missed these talks, but it wasn’t long until we were having another discussion about life after death. At the end of September of my freshman year, Pop, my grandfather, passed away. Instead of leaving her alone in the house, I offered to spend a few nights with Nannie. The evening before his funeral we sat at the card table like we had many times before and talked about the past. We retold some of Pop’s favorite stories, half-laughing and half-crying through every detail. Nannie seemed sad just as any wife of over 60 years would have been, but she was confident their story wasn’t over and she would be seeing him again very soon.
I saw Nannie off to bed and I headed upstairs to write the brief eulogy I was to deliver at the burial the next day. I sat in the stiff twin sized bed my father had slept in as a child and wrote down my thoughts on a legal pad, pausing to look at the different artifacts around the room which were suddenly transformed by grief and nostalgia. Nannie’s snores from downstairs were the soundtrack to my writing. Once I finished, I turned the bedside lamp off and laid still staring at the shadow of the ceiling fan. After a period of silence I thought I heard something coming from the basement. I was used to hearing the old house settle at night with creaks and popping in the walls, but after a bit I started to get concerned. The noise didn’t stop and it began to sound like intentional movement. Then I heard the distinct sound of footsteps coming up from the basement towards the kitchen. I didn't hear the door open, but suddenly the footsteps were crossing from the kitchen to the den. My heart rate quickened as the steps went from the den down the hall towards Nannie’s bedroom.
I was convinced that there was an intruder in the house, and paralyzed by fear I decided to lay completely still. Someone else, a better grandson, would have dashed down the stairs and confronted whomever had broken in, but I couldn’t budge. As the steps got closer to Nannie’s room I noticed that her snoring stopped. There was complete silence for a moment and then the steps turned from her room and came up the stairs. I certainly wasn’t going to move now. I closed my eyes and kept my arms at my side, pretending to be fast asleep as best I could. I thought I was going to puke from the anxiety but the second the sound reached my door a calm washed over me. A feeling that started at the tip of my head down to my toes released all of the tension in my body. The footsteps came right next to me and a hand was placed on my shoulder. And like many nights before, I kept my eyes closed while Pop tucked me in.
The next morning at breakfast Nannie was uncharacteristically quiet. I could understand the somber mood considering we were headed into a draining day of ceremony, but something was not right. We made small talk and I finally asked her “Did you hear something last night?”
“Like what?”
“Like footsteps in the house. Like someone was walking around but there wasn’t anyone.”
“You think Forrest followed you from your house for a sleepover?” She said, feigning a coy look that couldn’t fool me.
“I’m serious Nannie. I heard steps through the house and I think it was Pop. I felt him next to me.”
And with that, the conversation was over. I knew that pushing Nannie only made her dig in her heels and that if I let it breathe she might come around. When I saw my mom later that morning I explained to her what happened and she was fascinated. Her favorite class in college was called “Death: Myth and Reality,” and she told me about similar stories her professor had shared. I even mentioned it to our pastor and he told me that he has heard accounts of the deceased showing themselves to their loved ones who didn’t get a proper goodbye after the death. A few months later when I was home from college Nannie and I were once again sitting around the table telling stories. With watering eyes she admitted that she heard, and felt, what I had that night.
_____
My mother tells a story of when I was first beginning to talk and the imaginary friend I described to her. I would tell her about the lady in a white dress that spoke to me as I went to sleep at night. Like a good mother, she entertained my babblings and encouraged my active imagination. One day when we were visiting her father, I pointed to a picture of my deceased grandmother and said, “That’s the lady in the white dress!”
I first heard this story as a teenager when we were discussing my grandmother. Although I never met her, she loomed large over my childhood. Stories from my mom and aunt painted a clear picture of a fiery and fiercely loyal woman. Pictures showed that her dark eyes, thick eyebrows, and wavy brown hair were passed down to me. She died only three months before I was born. In her memory, I have the same middle name that she was given. At 54 years old, her life was cut short and my family lost valuable time with her, and yet I never felt as though she was gone. I can recount many stories of her from before I was born as if I was there. As a kid I didn’t think of her as dead, just away while we all awaited her return.
When you come from a storytelling family, memories are tricky. If a story is repeated enough, you can imagine yourself present for the event. Was I there when my mom slipped on wet leaves after a school dance? Or when at a party someone went to put the family dog in the microwave because they said she looked like a gremlin? Or the many times my mom and aunt had to sheepishly call home to ask for help from my grandparents? I wasn’t around for any of that, but could tell the stories almost as well as they could.
I was never around my grandma, but I know her second-hand. Stories of her love, loyalty, temper and selflessness have kept her alive for my family that did know her. Once I learned of the story of the “woman in a white dress,” I started to think that it wasn’t only because of stories that I feel like I know her. Maybe I did know her and maybe she did talk to me every night. When I look at photographs of her there’s a knowing feeling that only comes from recognizing someone you’ve spent time with. When I close my eyes I can picture her mannerisms and expressions in a way that I cannot with other people who died before I was born. I spent my entire life feeling as though I know her intimately without being able to place the source of that knowledge.
Naturally, this and much more led me to a psychic medium. On my 23rd birthday, I dragged my friends Taylor and Derek to a part of town we had never been in to have our futures told. Taylor got advice about her career and how to protect her “aura” from a plotting coworker. Derek received guidance relating to his love life. This started out helpful and insightful, then quickly turned to warnings about love spells and urgings to take a sailboat out to sea for a few years. The session ended with her warning him of his duplicitous girlfriend. She told Derek that this girl was trying to entrap him and to be wary of her womanly tricks. To her credit, his boyfriend was feminine.
Finally it was my turn. I had paid for a psychic reading and a medium session. Her psychic warnings for me were meant to keep me from moving to New York, but if I must move I need to live in Hoboken and go on modeling casting calls. Besides a few stifled laughs, the psychic reading didn’t give me much. That was fine with me considering what I was really searching for was communication with my grandparents. I told her I wanted to talk to my grandmother first. I loved the conversation I had with all three of my grandparents, but I thought Nannie might have the most helpful thing to say. She was always who I went to for advice.
The psychic closed her eyes and swung a pendant over her palm telling me that my grandmother was “coming through strong.” I smiled, glad that Nannie was being a good sport. She said, “Your grandmother talks a lot and she’s very forceful.” I was immediately disappointed. Much like her warning Derek about his witchy girlfriend, she was way off. Nannie could be stubborn, but by no means was she forceful. She was much too understated for that. The psychic continued, “She has thick brown hair and I think she might be Italian.” I perked up, she wasn’t communicating with Nannie she was talking to my other grandma.
The psychic told me that she was picturing my grandma over top of my bassinet as a baby. I got excited recalling the story my mother had told me, but I kept that to myself. I knew not to give a psychic anything to work with. She continued, “but she was already dead when she was playing with you.” Taylor and Derek both looked at me. I revealed that my grandmother had died before I was born but I felt like I did know her. The psychic explained that I was not wrong for feeling that way. Babies and small children are able to perceive more because their minds aren’t polluted by the limitations of the world.
She went on to tell me that since I came into this world as my grandmother was leaving it, that our souls were connected. This, she said, explained why I felt that I knew my grandmother intimately. She had been with me all of my life and acted as a sort of guardian angel. The psychic encouraged me to seek out activities that would connect me to my grandmother. Go to significant places in her life, make her favorite recipes, meditate on her legacy. I left the session laughing with my friends about the ridiculous things that were said, but I knew that I had received answers I had long been looking for.
_____
About nine months after the trip to the psychic I was living in New York, not Hoboken like she had wanted. I was nearing the end of my period of unemployment, but I didn’t know that yet. I felt like a failure in every way conceivable. Defeated and depressed I was searching for anything that provided guidance or comfort. The anniversary of my grandmother’s death was on a Sunday that year, and I decided that I would take the psychic’s advice and try to reach my grandma. In order to do that I went to mass at the Catholic church down the street from my apartment.
My grandmother was a devout Catholic and was active in her church. She even worked in a parish office for a while. Much of her professional, personal, and spiritual life was centered around the church. I had been to mass with family members before, but never one like this. The church was big yet sparsely occupied. Families were scattered throughout the pews and I took a seat towards the back. At my own church growing up we always sat in the front, so I relish the opportunity to stare at the back of people’s heads during a service when I can. I don’t remember the subject of the homily, but I remember hoping it would be related to family or something to do with my grandmother. That is what would have happened had this been a scene in a screenplay. When the time came, I lit a candle for my grandmother and prayed for her to visit me. After the service, I took a long walk through Astoria park hoping she would materialize before me.
Ultimately the day did not provide any deep insights or dramatic moments, but it felt like a nice tribute to my grandmother. In the years since, I have practiced doing all kinds of rituals in honor of my grandparents. Although they do not visit me as Marley did for Scrooge, I have felt their presence. The uncanny feeling you get when you smell or see or feel something familiar and specific, miles and years apart from where you first encountered it. I’ll smell Pop’s pipe smoke or feel Nannie’s grip on my hand. They’re strange all-too-fleeting moments of recognition of something and someone that has passed.
If you have made it this far, you might think that I’m overly sentimental and naive for believing in ghost stories. You would be right. Like many southerners, and most of my family, I think about the past often. For someone who is not yet thirty, I can be consumed by memories of my previous life. Daydreams often take me back to my grandparents’ house. I can feel the itchy afghan as I doze on the couch. I see the smoke rings being sliced by the ceiling fan. I smell the mixture of old people and old furniture that filled the house.
It’s not that my current life is so dreary that I must look back. It is that my past life was so rich. I was blessed by three funny, loving, interesting grandparents. Although I have many sources of joy in my current life, like my friends and family whom I love and who make me laugh and think, they cannot replicate my grandparents. They cannot provide the sense of comfort that my grandparents gave me.
I never felt freer to be myself than with my grandparents. Not only were they nonjudgmental of me, they encouraged my silliness and earnestness equally. I could make up plays they had to act in one moment and then talk to them about my neuroses the next. They never tried to shape me into something I wasn’t and seemed to enjoy getting to know who I was. I’ve found that quality in others, but never in such a pure way.
So I will continue searching for them. Picking their favorite flowers, cooking their favorite meals, telling their favorite stories. Hopefully, they continue to haunt me and comfort me.
