Ghosts in the Family

by Monserrat Martinez Medellin

Ghost stories have always run in my family. They are an intrinsic part of our history, much like our secret recipes, idioms, and family gossip. Not all of our relatives are as religious as the older generations, but most (if not all) of them are to some degree superstitious. If anything could characterize the faith upheld towards vast sets of stories — from the Psalms and the Proverbs, to urban tales such as La Llorona or El Charro Negro — it was fervency.

The first story I would like to share originates from a summer in the 80s that my dad, his siblings, and parents spent with their extended family in Veracruz. The cousins, back then all children, would get together and pass the days outside, sliding down sand hills and playing marbles; their parents would organize barbecues and play cards.

During their stay, my dad and his brothers shared one room, and my grandparents another. One night, my eldest uncle, Luis, had just put on his pajamas when he noticed something outside, in the garden.

“Guys, come look! Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” At this point of the story, whoever happens to be narrating it has to act it out, imitating Luis. I find omitting this detail unfair to the story’s flair.

The middle uncle, Arturo, ran into the room and peered outside too. He screamed, and forced Luis to fetch their mother. She ran into the room, turning pale when she looked out, and hurriedly drew the curtains closed.

“There’s nothing there. Nothing. Go to sleep, it’s late.”

Whenever my uncles tell this tale, they never outright disclose what they saw. Instead, they’ll turn to one of their brothers and ask them to finish the story to prove they all witnessed the same thing.

“What did you see?”

“I saw a woman with long dark hair. She looked like she’d come out of the ocean, wearing a dirty and soaked, white dress. Her face was so dark you couldn’t see having had children, Rosa was diagnosed with cancer. When she ultimately passed away, neither Carmen or Luis could bear the thought of letting their parents know. Luis agreed to do it, but, strangely, waited until the day of Rosa’s funeral to do so.

When he arrived, he was surprised to find his parents getting dressed in funeral attire. When he asked, they told him that they had already been informed by someone else.

“By who?”

“Joaquin, the uncle of Manuel—” Manuel being Carmen’s husband— “came to notify us.” The Joaquin in question, however, had been dead for nearly two decades. To this day, no one truly knows who the messenger was, and whether it was Joaquin indeed.

I don’t offer either of these anecdotes as proof of some supernatural realm. To me, the focus has never been their content, but the sharing itself. It is done like praying, manifesting a connection with whatever — whoever — might be listening. Ghosts mean something different to everyone. They are and should have not’s of the living. They enlighten us about our anxieties, our hopes, and unfulfilled dreams. Not every ghost story is shared with the intent to scare. Some, like in my case, aim to create intergenerational bonds and help process the grief our forebears could not.

Ghost stories are universal, and stories like my family’s are abound. Stories about the dead, just like those about the living, are just stories. As long as some of us live and others do not, we’ll be crafting tales in the hopes of rekindling connections. We’ll keep sharing them, solemnly, to sustain what is left by those we have lost.