Haunted house

I don't think there has ever been a moment where I was totally at ease in my Oma's house. In the 21+ years she has lived here I have been terrified for almost all of them. Besides the traditional creepy crawlies: tarantulas, giant caterpillars, piles of inch worms and mice, her home boasts a series of ghosts that make you feel like you are being watched 24/7. When they moved here in the early 90's, the home was trashed by the previous builder/owner. Apparently during one of her all night mountain-side glitter cocaine orgies a young party-goer fell asleep in the garage and later perished inside a vehicle (my young self would assume this was because he fell asleep in the garage in the summer time and died of heat stroke). Another theory is that the home itself was built upon a mass grave site of later (not latter) Utah settlers who died tragically fighting a mass of already settled Mormons. The other ghosts that inhabit this place belong to my deceased relatives, they are all over the place here and (in my thinking ((that is something Oma ALWAYS says and it drives me crazy)) )live quite comfortably in this very suitable already haunted house.

First, there is my great aunt Pearl. She knew me as a baby and I feel that I remember her but I know I was much to young to really know her as a person. I have many of her quilts (regretfully) held in my storage unit in a chest that belonged to My Uncle Bill (he's further down in this story). Aunt Pearl had a lot of costume jewelry which Oma keeps in my grandfathers office. I don't necessarily feel she is "around" in the traditional sense but her stuff is definitely everywhere. I wear some of her old pieces but trust me, if you open a box practically anywhere in this house you will find an earring or some other shiny bauble just aching to be tried on. Like I said, she isn't wandering around the place...just leaving her calling card.
When I was about seven my family moved here. We lived in the basement which cannot even be called a basement because it is extremely finished and has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, wet bar and dining room. If I remember correctly, we had lived here about a year when Omi came to visit. Omi is my Oma's mother; she had severe Alzheimer's and dementia. Picture it: a frail, stooped, old, senile German woman who smells like mothballs and fixodent. Maybe this is the reason why I do what I do? I don't know, anyway, Omi was a real character. She only spoke her native tongue to my sister and I. She called us Rosie and swore we were her daughter-in-law. I had many instances of walking in on her doing something that seven year olds do not understand as being mentally unsound. She would comb her hair with a serrated knife, she would hoard food under her mattress in the upstairs guestroom to the point of mice infestations, she was slightly terrified of my younger brother, and she once full frontal flashed my unsuspecting father while he was on the computer. I live in the basement once again and yes, I do sometimes feel I can hear her meandering around me, mumbling in German. Her husband, my Opi, is in cremains in a jar in Oma's bedside table.
My Uncle Bill is (was) my Oma's eldest child. He died of heart failure from(what I imagine was) a wild night of lonely drug abuse. Oma had a local artist paint a very large portrait of him with his dog Rooster and that portrait hangs in her living room and watches me eat breakfast almost every morning in the solarium. When I was younger I imagined him alive and what he would be like. I struggled with so many of the same things he struggled with and I feel like I came out of it so easy, I never really felt addicted to those things. Was that My Uncle Bill? I don't know...but I like to pretend it was. Oma used to have his ashes in an urn on her mantle but has since purchased a plot in Kansas where My Uncle Bill is on one side and my Papa is on the other side and guess where Oma will be? Yup, in the middle.
Which brings me to my Papa. If anyone has a right to haunt the shit out of this house it would be him. Papa is (was) Oma's husband, my grandfather. The things I remember about my grandfather: He was usually working in his office, he only EVER ate oatmeal for breakfast, he would sneeze so loud it would scare you to death I swear, he loved hiking and skiing and I am glad I got to do both with him. The only place he still hangs out in is his office. If you think I am crazy, come over and stand in the office and then you tell me he isn't there...you won't be able to.
Oma has pictures of my cousin everywhere too. He took his life at an absurdly young age and no one will ever be able to convince her that there wasn't something that she could have done. Those cousins keep a deeper distance from us, they always have. So now she eulogizes him the only way she knows how' by hanging pictures of him and donating money in his name to charities he himself would never have given a thought to. 
I really do walk around this house expecting to see someone. Every doorway, hallway, or out of the corner of your eye glance. There are animal ghosts too. Shiloh, Rooster and Frankie are all cremated and buried in the mountainside. They have a beautiful lambs-ear plant growing on top of them. Shiloh was my first family pet and Rooster and Frankie belonged to My Uncle Bill. I have Carly downstairs with me; I have looked across my half dark room to see the coppery glint of her name plate perfectly shining in some stray beam from the closet light.









I just read this and I sound like a total lunatic. But seriously, this house is hell of creepy!