I don’t know where else to talk about this. I don’t even know where to start. The beginning is always a good place I guess. MY great grand mother, big momma, and I had a great relationship. Sundays, after church, we’d have a big dinner with all our family in the city, cousins, aunts, uncles, everyone. Big momma loved to cook, and all her grand kids loved to help. This is where our closest moments happened; you see me and big momma had one thing common, we both hated pumpkin pie, sweet potato is superior, just a fact. And while she made 3 or 4 big pumpkin and pecan pies for the family, she’d always make us both a tiny personal sweet potato. She’d hand out dessert and sit right next to me with our tiny pies and bowls of strawberry ice cream. Every Sunday I’d stay when everyone went home, shed kiss me on the cheek and watch me till I fall asleep.
I recently lost my Great Grandmother. At her funeral I went to view the body, they made her look so nice; she had a short wig on, a blue dress (her favorite color) and her favorite pearls. I leaned in kissed her cheek, and said “I’ll be watching you till you sleep for the final time.” Just then I felt a grip on my wrist I jumped, fell to the floor, but when I looked the body hadn’t moved. I chalked it up to nerves, I probably should have said something, I didn’t don’t ask why. Fast forward to last week, I was having trouble sleeping my wife was worried sick, I wrote it off blaming it on grieving. I don’t remember most nights days are starting to blur together. It was Tuesday when the hallucinations started.
I went to bake myself a sweet potato pie since it’s something me and my wife still do since we left our hometown before big mommas passing; when I heard it, her voice, reminding me to add cinnamon, “the cinnamon baby you want it to have flavor dontcha.” I turn and am alone, my son, at school, wife at work, I was sure because it was my first off day in weeks, I had a big calander posting with an alarm on my phone, truly a day to celebrate. The next one was that evening I walked past the bathroom and smelled a cigarette, no one in my house smokes them, the only person in my family that did, was big momma, she thought we didn’t smell them when she smoked in the bathroom, but who’s gonna question the matriarch? If you you’re braver than I, I swing open the bathroom door the smell is gone. No one there everyone asleep.
At this point I’m starting to loose it I call my grand mother tell her what’s going on, she tells me “scoot you just have to let go of that sadness, we all miss her; but you have to remember she’s never really gone.” This should’ve made me feel better. But it made me feel more paranoid. I took a drive back home it’s eight hours there and back, so I decided to stay in big mommas old home, it was just as I last saw it nothing had been touched. I began cleaning dusting mostly. I must’ve gotten some from the ceiling fan up my nose because I began to sneeze, rapid fire at that. I fell backwards and knocked over big mommas stack of books on her coffee tables two bibles and some text books never really thought too much of them before that day, one of the bibles the red one, fell open, this Bible was….strange to say the least, for one the words were written in French, now a bit of background my great grandmother was over 112 years old, we’re African American, and her mother was a practitioner of the old ways, I know some of our culture, but big momma always called those ways evil against God. I read through some of the French creole written in red ink. The little bit I know, it read “the blood we share shall bind us so that neither of us shall ever truly be gone.”
I thought to myself “well that’s a weird Bible verse” closed the book and re stacked them. I should’ve studied my creole more then I wouldn’t have been where I was later. I finally catch some shut eye, but as I sleep I feel something cold press against my face I jump up and see a silhouette in the door way panicking I grab the firearm in my bag and aim but when I look back nothing is there just….doorway. I jump up run to the living room clearing each room along the way. No one nothing, I call a friend in town, let’s call him Steven, Steven comes right over and sits with me a while, we light up a few let’s call them fun sticks and I fill him in. Steven says “maybe big momma Is trying to talk to you, you should get a ouija board dawg” I think to myself ‘that’s some white people shit buuuut, let’s get it.’ So we wait until morning and hit up the closest hobby store, we get back with the board, we begin playing with it and ask “Lucille are you with us.” The planchet moves rapidly spelling out Y E S B A B Y I A M H E R E. This was the moment I should’ve made a decision to leave, cus after that the board told me to kill Steven that was a week ago, and he’s starting to smell, I haven’t been able to leave as big momma says I have all I need right here like I said who’s gonna question the matriarch, you’re a braver one than me if you can
Part two: updates
So it’s Christmas as I’m writing this things have been strange, Steven is fine he woke me up yesterday reminding me we had to take a flight home. “Dude you ok? You’ve been sitting there all night.” I remember now we both jumped at the first message and put the board away. The rest after is foggy I’ve lost like three days or time now. We boarded a flight instead of driving Steven decided to come with me, filling me in on the last week. “Yeah and we went to her grave it was undisturbed, and the flowers your aunt planted have blossomed well.” He showed me pictures, lovely blue Camellia. Camellia I always liked that name, it’s the state flower where my home town is aswell, a symbol of big mommas devotion to alabama, she attended marches, soup kitchens, and community outreach up until she just couldn’t. Something about these pictures was off; while at first beautiful, a thought soon crossed my mind. Camellia usually don’t bloom blue in our state, I dismissed it as my aunt being extravagant, she had an eye for theatrics, and stories; I assumed it was a literary reference and didn’t say anything. When we landed and I made it home Steven escorted me inside, I had been spacing out for 30 minutes to hours at a time. Seeing my family however, I soon began to feel myself I slept in my bed next to my wife, all was good until around midnight, I fell asleep with the TV on, I know sleep experts are yelling at me in the comments right now, you tube playing, suddenly drummer boy blared through the speakers I jumped up grabbing the remote turning it down, but it kept screaming the song at me as I got up sleepily, I checked the remote the batteries were gone, normal in my house so I just unplugged the television, as the screen went black I looked over at the open doorframe and there she was, Lucille “big momma” Jackson looking back at me I jumped back and woke up again in bed, the drummer boy playing softly in the background. My wife soundly asleep, I go into the hall to grab some water from the kitchen, there it is again that cigarette smell from the bathroom, I think it’s Steven he’s staying with us for the holiday, I look at the mirror in the hallway and Steven is curled in the corner staring at his phone, I swing open the door, on the outer ledge of the open window, a Virginia slim menthol big mommas choice, my wife hearing the commotion came in as I was examining the cigarette she lost it assuming I had started smoking again, I explained to her it wasn’t me and that I had only come into the bathroom moments before her, “well then who’s is it, Steven doesn’t smoke cigarettes and I was asleep, furthermore you’re stressed, and upset I get that you miss her so you picked up a pack, just tell me where it is and we can keep you on the straight and narrow.” I hate not being listened to so I put my foot down asserting, “Bae this ain’t mine I don’t know who’s it is but I just got here 5 seconds before you look at how low this thing is you think I had time to smoke this wit no smell?” She thought about it and asked, “D…do you think, she’s here right now?” I shrug my shoulders and ask Steven to bring out the ouija board, it gave us no message tonight unfortunately, I’ve started leaving things in certain places and placing traps on windows to stop anyone else from opening them without me knowing. I’ll make more updates as they come. Signing off for now.