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My grandfather isn't a talkative man. He likes to sit back and watch the family he created, rather than interact with them at ninety-one years old. There is one story about his life that circulates in our family, even though no one can really get it right. Some like to tell it as a love story and some like to tell it as a paranormal story. I like to see it as a little of both.

When Grandpa Ted was eighteen, he went to a seminary school to become a priest. This has always baffled me because we are not a religious family. My mom’s immediate family was very much a "go to church on holidays" kind of family, so I can never wrap my head around Grandpa wanting to become a priest. At a certain point in seminary school, he began to miss classes. This was due to crippling migraines. He could not get out of bed – all he could do was lay there for hours with the lights turned off. Even reading hurt him. Now, anyone with a rational mind hearing that would think some kind of medical condition was going on . . . but not the priests. The priests in the school came to the conclusion that Grandpa Ted was, in fact, possessed by the devil himself. 

I can almost see why, if all you know is the Bible. All of a sudden, this student is spending days at a time alone, in the dark, on his back, not able to endure the light – the more you spell it out the more it makes sense. Because of this false possession, Ted got kicked out of the Seminary school. Saddened to leave, he packed his things and got the next bus back to Queens, New York. He finally gets to Queens, and just as he steps off the bus, who does he see but Jacqueline? We like to call her Grandma Jackie. I thank the priests at the seminary who unjustifiably kicked my Grandpa out of school. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here to tell this story. 

Rae Weyn González is an illustrator based out of New York City and the Hudson Valley currently pursuing an MFA at the School of Visual Arts.