It was a house of spirits,
But somehow we always knew,
They were a gentle kind of ghosts
who never meant any harm;
They never broke things or made disturbances,
but simply made their presence known
from time to time,
like the time
when my nephew Ryan was a toddler
and he was in the living room alone
but talking to someone;
his mother asked him
who he was talking to and
Ryan replied “The boy up on the ceiling” –
“Oh“, I said, “he has seen the house ghost“;
we used the term singularly
but I came to believe
we had many such spirits
sharing the house and gardens
in the Arleta house.
Once, a girl my son was acquainted with
came to the house and walked around
the back yard,
saying she sensed a presence
and thought it was an Indian boy–
and once, when Kelly was very young
a voice called out to him one night,
from his bedroom window,
asking him to come out and play;
when he told me about the voice
I said “Just don’t go outside at night”
Another time, a psychic friend of mine
was visiting and as she sat on the living room
sofa, she said, “You know, there’s a cold spot here”
to which I blandly replied “so, sit somewhere else”
I knew the spirits were there; I knew they enjoyed
my presence amongst them and were happy
with the changes we had made to the old house
and the yard.
Everything we planted flourished
and trees grew where none were planted,
simply volunteers;
I surmised that the seeds were flying about
and thought oh, this looks like a good
place to land.
We had volunteer peach, loquat and nectarine trees.
We knew an old couple had lived in the house
at one time, perhaps when the original part
of the house had been built. (I sometimes thought
that old couple might be our spirit visitors).
I often thought I could sense a presence
when I was working in the kitchen;
It was a house of spirits and my heart aches
wondering what has become of them
and whether or not they are still happy spirits.
(I often think that if Bob were capable of doing any haunting, he would choose the Arleta house–he absolutely did not want to move away (neither did I for that matter) but he passed away in 2011 and I am still alive–and the house was being haunted long before Bob died)
–Sandra Lee Smith
Originally written June 17, 2010
Updated September 8, 2018
(“The House of Spirits” is an Isabel Allende title)
