Yes, the only spin I put on my story is the humor part. But it is true. Mom wasn't as bad, mind you, but Aunt Crazy-eyes Esther sure as hell went into everone's home to seek out and find something that was demonized and insisted it be tossed or burned. She would go into my gramma's house and go through her personal stuff on the pretense of rooting out demonized items. How disrespectful. I remember the slaps, the hits with whatever she had in her hand to convey the idea that we kids were flirting with the devil's music, tv shows and stuffed toy bunnies.
OMG, corvin....this is scary. My mom was just like your aunt. The things she did were so fanatical I think she was the one posessed!
From the time I was a little girl, strange things happened in our house. It was built in the '40s, and my grandfather moved in soon after. It was huge with real dark wood walls. My uncle (anointed) told of "things" flapping wings in his face at night. My grandfather told us of being strangled by some unseen force. (Only he was a Freemason, so he had OTHER secret words he used to get rid of demons--or so he told me)
My mom supposedly saw rocking chairs rocking by themselves. Now, as I got older, my mom just got ridiculous! Anytime grandma didn't feel well, and missed a meeting, she'd go through the house hunting for "birthday cards," or things that my non-JW aunt would send my grandmother. She'd tear up the atttic looking for things. Once she found my step-dad's 1960's copies of Playboy. (He was an artist and drew nudes) She tore them up. Damn, I wish I had them now! They were mint!
My grandmother had all the original Tales From The Crypt comics, still in plastic. My mom burned them. I later found out they were worth about $100,000. She also set all my Beatles records on fire in the back yard, then claimed she had to keep pouring gasoline on them because they "refused to burn!!"
Even after my grandparents both died, she still went through my things and burned my books, (one was only about a mentally disabled child-but she said the artwork looked demonized!...didn't even bother to read the bookcover) and threw a necklace I'd bought at a yard sale over the bridge into the ocean.
But, to this day, there is one thing I can't figure out. When my daughter was about 11, and my niece was 10, they were palying in the yard of this same house. My younger son ( 9) was with them also, and several kids from next door who were "studying" with my mom. One day they came screaming into the house. I thought they'd gotten into red ants or something. They swore they'd seen someone with a black cape on, floating (they were very specific--NOT walking--gliding) in the yard.
They said they were all playing, and looked up, and this thing was standing at the corner of the house. My niece said she told my daughter to run around the other way and see who it was. My daughter did this, and whatever it was disappeared. All the kids saw it. So, we went looking for my mom, thinking it was her playing some kind of stupid joke. But, she was in another room studying. She said she wouldn't lie. It wasn't her. To this day, my daughter and my niece still want to know what it was. We didn't have any neighbors, other than the people next door. Our farm was miles from anyone, and in the woods.
My niece to this day will not go to that house. No one in my family lives there anymore. But it still gives me the creeps to drive past it. Maybe it's all the horrible childhood memories....and my evil mother!
