IT’S HALLOWEEN! This is one of my favorite holidays and I could tell you all about why, but that’s not the purpose of this post. Today is not only Halloween, but it’s also October Bloggerstock day. You can find my post professing my undying devotion to this magical holiday over at the lovely Seen and Said. Her blog is pretty stellar and worth checking out and this particular post features an awesomely embarrassing childhood photo of yours truly. Here on my blog, however, I get a post from the wonderful Lily of Is it too early for a martini? (answer: no, it is never too early…but that’s for another day.)

Enjoy!

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Hello readers of Sweeney Says! My name is Lily and I write for a little blog called Is it too early for a martini? I’m writing on Nicole’s blog because I murdered her and she’s hanging out in a Hefty bag. JAYKAY! We both signed up for this thing called BloggerStock. BloggerStock is a cool website where you signed up and everyone else who signs up gets the same prompt and we all write about the same thing and post and we all read everyone’s post… like a blog swap. But more like a ring. Also, be sure to check out my blog where you can read a story by Brandi from Muffin Logic. And if you really, really, really, really enjoyed this… sign up for BloggerStock! Anyway… since it’s October the prompt is to tell a scary story…

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I live in one of the most haunted cities in America. Chicago is home to a bunch of ghosts. There have been many tragedies here. From The Great Chicago Fire, to the Massacre at Ft. Dearborn, to the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre… mob fights, gang fights, random murders, you name it. And because of all this… there are alot of ghosts associated with the area. Not to mention all the graveyards and churches that also have their own ghostly folklore. 

But, I decided that I wouldn’t write about Chicago, and all the scariest places, and all the hitchhiking ghosts, and the haunted graveyards & churches, or even my house. I decided it would be more interesting to write about ghosts from The Motherland. The Motherland being Mexico. 

But even the stories I’ve heard as a kid are nothing compared to the things my grandmother tells. Like the one about the Weeping woman, who drowned her kids because her husband wass cheating on her and then drowns herself… and is damned to roam the street crying out “aaaayyyyy mis hijos” (my children). But, not as scary as the stories my abuelita tells me every time I visit. 

The last time I visited the Motherland, I was sixteen. I went during Spring Break with my mom because she wanted to spend Mother’s Day with her mom (my abuelita). I thought two weeks in Mexico would be better than two weeks at my dad’s being bored watching MTV. 

While there, we’d wake up early and have coffee with my grandma and she would ask me what I wanted to do so that she can force my cousins to do what I wanted to do. I would say “oh, I just wanted to sit on the roof and read something…” or “I was thinking about going downtown so I could buy a book so I could read on the way back since I read all the books I brought with me on the way here…” 

My cousins hate book stores… and I was like “whatever you guys, I was going to talk to you guys in English the whole time I was here, but you guys want to be douchebags, so my mom and I are going to the book store and then we’re going out to eat and you guys are going to be stuck at home doing homework… so effffff yooooou!” But, I said it in Spanish, and almost crying, and then ran off. 

I picked up two books that had scary stories and urban legends from the city my family lives in. When we got back home, my grandma said “oh you bought those? There is a book about scary stories from the neighborhood. I just can’t remember the name. You should have told your cousins to go with you…” Then I explained to her that my cousins were being douchebags, but I didn’t call them douchebags in the story I told her… because I’m was afraid I’d get a slap across the face for using “bad words”. 

It was late already, and usually at night, my grandma is having her cup of coffee and a piece of bolillo (bo-lee-yo … basically it’s just french bread, but like smaller and not as crispy) with butter. She offered my mom and me some.

She said, “Liliana, I didn’t know you liked scary stories… have you asked Noe about the time he saw La Llorona?” 

“Yeah, Grandma, but he was being a cry baby and told me if I wanted to talk about it, I should spend the night at his house so I could know what it feels like to see her. I really wanted to stay over there, but decided that even if I did she her he’d still say no, so I dropped the subject” I said. 

“Oh well, yeah, Doña Toña did a sweep on him and said that she felt a bad energy leaving his body”. A sweep is something that people get when they’ve been “scared” or are possessed… it’s really big in Mexico. It’s to rid you of evil spirits and whatnot. 

Then she turned around and started talking to my mom about Doña Toña. Doña Toña lived next door to my grandparents since they moved in to the house they live in. Doña Toña had become my grandma’s best friend over the years up until her death. 

She began telling my mom about the day she died. 

“I already knew she had died” She told my mom. 

“How abuelita?” I was really curious. 

“well,” she began, “I woke up in the middle of the night like I always do. And I was going to start making some new sheets for the beds, but decided I should go to the bathroom first” 

I sat waiting for her to tell my something like “but I got a phone call from Angelica (Doña Toña’s daughter) but she continued:

“As I was walking to the bathroom, I felt like I was just floating. Like I wasn’t even here. There were strange lights coming from gaps of the closed door of the bathroom. I just thought your grandfather left the lights on like he always does do I wouldn’t hit myself in the dark” 

My grandpa, a true gentleman, I thought. 

“When I opened the door, I noticed someone standing there in the bathroom. I didn’t know who it was. I didn’t think it was [one of my cousins’] because he wasn’t staying here that day. And as I began to fully wake up… I realized it was Don Benito (Doña Toña’s husband). He was just standing in the bathroom, looking at me. And I looked at him. It was about midnight. So I walked towards him and he disappeared. I wanted to ask him why he was in the bathroom before he did. I went back to sleep. The next morning, Angelica and Toño came to tell me that their mother passed away. I knew then that when I saw Don Benito in the bathroom that he came to tell me that she had passed away during the night. He wanted me to know first. I told them I already knew, but I didn’t tell them I saw their father.” 

Don Benito died ten years before his wife. 

Needless to say, I could not use the bathroom at my grandparents house for the rest of our visit. Mostly, I was scared that the ghost of Don Benito would come and scare me while I was emptying my bladder.