Uncle Buddy’s Ghost
When I first moved into what was formerly my grandmother’s house — and the house where my mother grew up — my mother was staying at the house, organizing old photos and sorting through slides. She left after about a week, and I had the house all to myself.
At first, it felt bizarre to be in this big old house alone, because it was my grandmother’s house when I grew up, and it was always full of people. Now it was so silent, and every noise in the house attracted my attention. However, there was one incident that was not the house settling but truly Uncle Buddy’s ghost.
Uncle Buddy paid off the mortgage of the house decades ago, and after my grandmother and her sister, Aunt Beth, died, he was the only resident of the house for years. He put my name on the house’s deed; he was trying to decide whose name to use, and my mother suggested me because I’m obsessed with old architecture. I moved into the house about a year after he died.
Shortly after I moved into the house, Uncle Buddy’s ghost bid farewell.
His ghost was in the front yard and walked up the front steps onto the porch. He walked through the front door, He crossed the entrance hall to its back door… and through the door into the kitchen. He continued walking, straight through the kitchen and out the back door. He kept going — down the back steps, and across the yard. At the…