My Great Aunt

by Shelby nelsen
(Staten island)

My great-aunt recently died and it's been very hard on my grandma who is/was her sister. I have a few stories, one I did not experience myself, I will tell you that one first.

The day of my aunt's death my cousin Joseph went to my aunt's house (his wife Maryanne is my aunt's daughter). When the emergency people came after they had finished turned off everything in the house (lights, TVs, radio etc.) and closed all the doors. When Joseph had gone later that day he heard talking. Now all the doors were locked, windows shut, nothing broken into, so who the hell was talking?

So he walks into the house turning a few lights on (as not to add too much light) and stuck his keys in between his fingers to protect himself. He goes upstairs to follow the noise. As he's following it he gets lower, but he's getting closer. He sees a light coming from my aunt's bedroom and the door is open a crack. All the doors were closed earlier that day and everything turned off like I mentioned before. He goes into her room opening the door slowly... her radio was on. When he told my grandmother this she replied slowly that she didn't use the radio, only the TV. She wanted you to know she was still here.

A week or so after she had passed me, my mother, and stepfather went to her house with my grandmother. My mom asked my grandma if she could borrow something that had belonged to my aunt. My grandmother said yes. My mom went downstairs to get it and heard things moving. She went to come back up and there was a dresser in her way that wasn't there when she went down. My stepfather went down to help her and it was gone.

Another thing that happened that day was my cousins Maryann and Joseph had come while we were there. We were all in the dining room, not in view of the front door, and we heard the door slam shut. Now the way her door is she had a regular door and a screen door. We looked. The only thing closed was the screen door, but the front door was the one that slammed.

As everyone went to see I stayed where I was which wasn't very smart. I was next to a dark kitchen. I heard something moving and looked. Out of the corner of my eye I saw what I believed was my aunt and ran to my mom shaking.

The last incident was when we were all leaving. Me, my cousins, mom, stepfather, and grandmother. We walked outside and my cousin Joseph was closing the door. It slammed in his face. When he locked it and went to close the screen door it slammed closed, opened and slammed again. There was no wind this day. Needless to say my aunt was there that day.