Where do people go when they die? Or as they are dying?
Here in The Bahamas, it is not uncommon to hear the term “traveling” in reference to someone near death. Many Bahamians believe in an afterlife and older Bahamians often reference the transition between life on earth and the afterlife as the traveling of one’s spirit. While present in body, one’s spirit wanders in between here and there, and may visit loved ones along the way. Mary Cartwright of Long Island recalls her childhood encounter with a traveling spirit. The experience was so frightening she and her siblings have not been able to forget it.
At this time electricity had not yet arrived on Long Island and lanterns were used for light. Outside was often cooler than inside, so spare time would be spent outside the house for as long as possible. It was late in the evening and Mary was preparing to sing in a Christmas program that was quickly approaching. She was outside going over the song with her two brothers and her grandmother. Her grandma had always liked to sing.
As the evening grew darker, her grandma asked one of the children to bring her glasses from in the house. They sung for a long time before they went back inside. Her grandma had placed the glasses next to the kerosene lamp outside. As the children filed inside, they noticed their grandma’s glasses on a table next to a different lamp near the hallway. “Did you bring the glasses inside? …David? Thomas? Mary? Grandma?” they asked each other. No one had brought the glasses in. As children, they became alarmed. They couldn’t understand how the glasses got there. Her grandma calmly told them not to worry about it, just leave the glasses there on the table.
The children sat in the living room and talked. They were not tired enough to go to bed yet. Mary and her brothers were entertaining themselves when they glanced over at the table and noticed the glasses were gone. Now they were sure they had a legitimate reason to be fearful. Everyone knew the glasses were last on the table near the hallway and nobody had touched them since. The glasses were being moved absent of anyone in the house moving them.
Their grandma had gone into the bathroom, but left the door ajar. She could hear the commotion in the living room from bathroom. When she came out, she stood in the hallway and said “now Rosa, if you took my glasses now, bring ‘em back! I can’t read without ‘em. I need ma glasses”. Her grandma left the hallway and went into the kitchen. The glasses were now on the kitchen table. She took the glasses to the bedroom where Mary’s grandfather had been sleeping. She woke him up and told him to hold on to the glasses. Mary and her brothers climbed into the bed with their grandfather, pulled the old, worn sheets over themselves firmly, disregarded the heat in light of the fear that had gripped them and closed their eyes tight. Before they knew it, they were fast asleep.
At about 1 am, while the children were asleep, their grandma and grandpa left to go to the house of their Aunt Rosa. Two days later, their Aunt Rosa died.
Mary’s grandma had a feeling the odd incidents were Rosa communicating, through mischief, that she needed to come and see her before she left her earthy home for an other-worldly resting place. Mary’s Grandma told her “right now this Rosa…Rosa say ‘well Karen ain’t come see me? Well I ga take her glasses’”.
It was by the nudging of a traveling spirit that Mary’s grandma ended up going to visit with their Aunt Rosa before Rosa died. Her grandma felt it was something she had to do. She took the odd incidents as a sign of Rosa’s traveling and that Rosa’s physical death was near. Mary says “Ms. Rosa was on her way out ‘cause she wanted her [grandma] to come and visit her”.
The names in this story were changed to protect the privacy of these persons.
