My Life When I was a Kid: A Child Living near the Cemetery.

Monday August 30,2021

I can't think of any topics yet so I'll just gonna share something to you all again, lols. My life when I was a kid.

Just like what I have shared before I grew up with my Grandma and Aunt's care in Baguio City. As Mom left me when I was still a baby just to work here in Manila while my Dad was in a prison. Grandma is a fish vendor and my Aunt is a Highschool student. Since no one's gonna take care of me at home Grandma always took me with her in the market. As I remember I was just 6 years old back then. While grandma is selling fish I am also selling plastics. I guess that was the reason why I am a business minded person, I already had a small business at a young age, lols.

After a day at the market it's already time to go home. We always end up going home at night. And everynight is a scary night for me, lols. You know why? We are living near Baguio Public Cemetery. Since we also live in the mountains we had to go through the middle of the cemetery down to our house. There is still another way to get home but it is too far because we are in a mountainous area, so the nearest road is the cemetery only. Every time my grandmother and I go home, I almost don't want to let go of her hand and I almost close my eyes while walking. I can only see what my foot is stepping on.

Until I started studying. I still do the same thing every time I pass by the cemetery at night. Well, it's only at night that I'm afraid to walk through the cemetery but in the morning the cemetery becomes our playground, lols. I was only able to play outside our house once in a while. More often I am just locked up inside our house, because my Grandma and Aunt almost don't want to let me go out. They avoid me to play with my neighbors and cousins sometimes who are just bullying me because of my eyes as written in my Article about Bullying. But when I got out especially when Grandma and Aunt wasn't home, it feels like I had been released from prison, lols. And there in the cemetery I play all day with my other cousins ​​who are close to me.

Living near the cementery is FUN and SCARY. It was FUN because it's as if we own the whole cemetery, because there we can do all the things that we want, we can play freely and well. Sometimes we are making the house of the dead as our playhouse. We also play hide and seek, we play roller blades, kites and other games, all 90's children's games. SCARY because the people who live here have experienced various frightening stories. Various horror stories that are sometimes used to scare us by our elders so that we will not go out of the house and play at the top of the cemetery.

Some Scary Stories that I remembered back then:

A Horse in the middle of the cemetery.

One night when Grandma went home while she was walking through the middle of the cemetery, a horse allegedly blocked her path, the horse just looked at her, then walked again and suddenly disappeared. She can't believe what she just saw that time, she said it can't be a real horse since no one in our neighbors had a horse at that time. She even asked the people in the office of the cemetery, but they don't know anything about a horse roaming around the cemetery. What's more scary was it disappeared infront of her.

Santelmo

Wikipedia says, the Santelmo (St. Elmo’s Fire) or also called a ball of fire is a creature of Philippine mythology. The term santelmo is the shortened form of the Tagalog words “Apoy ni San Elmo ” (St. Elmo’s Fire).  St. Elmo’s Fire has long served as an omen of heavenly intervention to sailors.

One morning we saw one of my uncle full of bruise on his body especially on his face. He said the night before that he went home after drinking alcohol with some of his friends in the cemetery and he said when he was about to reach home suddenly he saw something like a ball with fire coming near him. Out of fear he rans fast home, and because of his speed he stumbled and rolled down on his way. Some of my uncles just laugh at him and teasing him that he was just drunk and imagining something that will just scare people but he insisted that he really saw it. Until one day one of our neighbors said he did saw the same thing while he was walking on his way home too, he did ran too and shouted for help but since he's still far from the houses no one heard his help. And the Santelmo just suddenly disappeared too like it was scaring him. I really don't know if they really did saw such thing sind I was just a kid back then. But as I remembered people did tried to avoid going home at night until the story about Santelmo passed.

KAPRE

The kapre is a creature that may be described as a tree giant, being a tall, dark-coloured, hairy, and muscular creature. Kapres are also said to have a very strong body odour and to sit in tree branches to smoke.

Source: Wikipedia

Not just one but few of our neighbors even one of my Aunts did tell us that they saw a Kapre on one of the trees on the cemetery. It does nothing to them, except that it just hisses when they pass by. Others said they could only smell the smell of cigarettes but Kapre did not show them. The elders told us that he had been guarding the cemetery for a long time and had no intention of hurting anyone. Just don’t touch the tree where he lives.

DWARFS

In myths and tales, dwarfs and elves are small humanlike creatures, often endowed with magical powers. Dwarfs generally look like old men with long beards and are sometimes ugly or misshapen.

Source: Mythencyclope

Stories about dwarfs are very common in our place. Especially when kids around our area will get sick or something happens to their body like rashes, swelling some parts of their body. Some people say they've seen dwarfs in different parts of the cemetery. when you see a bulging ground it means it is inhabited by dwarves, so you should avoid it. Do not trample and do not destroy. Because we believe that if you touch, step on it or destroy their house you will get sick. Most of the kids even I experienced it, I didn't see it but one time that I got sick and got lot of rashes my Grandma called an "Albularyo". Albularyo is a folk doctor that heals people who allegedly got sick because of supernatural creatures. They do rituals or prayers to drive away spirits that caused illness for the childrens or even for adults. The Alburyo did some candle ritual on me that time, he poured the candle wax on the water and he says a dwarf shape appears on the wax. So it means I maybe hurted some dwarf while playing around. Well I really don't know if this things are true but our elders really believe in this kind of supernatural thing. They did some rituals outside the house put some food as an "Atang" or peace offering for the dwarf that I was hurt unintentionally. Wether it's real or not or it's just simple rashes I will just leave it that way. Nothing will lose if we believe in gnomes.

WHITE LADY

We all know that White Lady is a lady ghost who typically wears white long dress. White Lady stories are already common in our place. Most of the people who lives our place have the same experienced with this White Lady. Who always appears at night in the biggest house of the dead in the cemetery called "Tiong San". Tiong San is located close to our houses. We always pass through it every time we leave and go home, because it is the only way to our houses. Tiong San is big and beautiful. It's nice to play and freshen up here in the morning. But scary when it comes at night. People said she was always there standing like she was guarding the Tiong San Mansion. She's not hurting anyone though, she's just there always standing and appears when someone is passing by. So everytime we pass by Tiong San we always say this words "Bari-bari apo" in Ilocano or "Tabi-tabi po" in tagalog. It's like you are asking permission to pass by and you don't mean to disturb anyone in that place.

Even I experienced the same thing here. I think I was just 8-9 years old at that time. I was at Grandpa's house playing with my cousins and stayed there until night. Grandpa's house is just infront of this Tiong San Mansion. I'm about to go home that time and I accidentally looked up at the top of Tiong San and in the middle of the stairs (right where my cousin is sitting in the picture) there was a woman in white standing. I can never forget that incident because that was the first and last time that I saw a ghost in my own eyes. Out of fear I went back inside my Grandfather's house crying so he just decided to took me to our house.

(Out of Topic: you may be wondering why my Grandfather's house is different from ours, hehe. My grandfather who was a Veteran Army was also a womanizer before and he had three wives and they lived all in the same place but in just different houses. That's why our family is so big. My Dad has 13 siblings with different Moms. Good thing Grandpa's wives get along and don't fight, lols.)

So there those are just a stories from the past that I really don't know if it really happened or not except for my own experience with the White Lady. Whether this Supernatural Creatures are true or not, I still believe that as long as we don't disturb them, they won't gonna hurt us.

I also have a lot of happy experienced living here especially when All Souls Day is coming. It only means I'm gonna have my own money again, lols. Whenever All Souls Day comes all of us who live here make a profit. My grandmother and aunt sells food and candles. And as for me I offer cleaning of the graves of the loved ones of the visitors coming the cemetery. When night comes my cousins ​​and I go around to get melted candles (but even the whole and new candles, we're still getting it haha). We also pick up plastic bottles and Gin bottles to sell. We even pick pots and flowers that we can sell the next day haha ​​(sorry for the pots and flowers I picked up I just needed to earn back then, lols). We also take the foods left by the visitors of the dead, chocolates, candies, bread, juice, junk foods and fruits that are whole and not yet opened, we take them to eat. Anyway we're asking permission from the dead before we get their food and I know it's okay with them because they can't eat that anymore hahaha.

Well that's the life we had in the cemetery, you can't act like you are rich there, lols. We just live simply and we do everything to survive. Thank you for dropping and reading this another story of mine. 😁

Related Articles with My Life Stories (just incase you're interested to read) 🙂

• My Dad is An Ex-Convict and a Gangster

• Bullying : A Child's Most Traumatic Experience

• Nobody's Perfect: A Story of my Mistakes

• Memories of My Angel