I have a ghost. Her name is Susie and she lives in the cupboard above my kitchen sink. Susie isn’t a harmful ghost, she just peacefully exists alongside my family and I. She’s certainly mischievous though. Each member of my household has had one encounter with Susie at some point.

About two, maybe three, years ago I had my first ever encounter with Susie. I was giving the little trash in my room to my dad to take out to the garbage bin. My mom was at the store so it was just my dad and I home. I walked back into my room and notice that my disorganized pile of shoes had now been stacked neatly. I stopped and stared at my shoes. “I didn’t... No. No, there’s no way I would’ ve- unless…?” I stuttered to myself. When my dad came back inside, I asked him if there was any way he would’ve stacked my shoes. “No Mija,” my dad said, “I don’t go into your room and even if I did, I wouldn’t mess with your things.” That only left my mom. When she got home, I asked her the same thing. She laughed at me and said, “Why would I stack your shoes?” “That’s exactly what I was thinking!” I exclaimed. The incident, in general, was a really bizarre occurrence. 

When I was in 6th grade, my dad experienced his encounter with Susie. My mom woke me up one Saturday morning at around 6 AM. I drowsily trudged into my parents’ room where my dad was digging through a pile of dirty clothes. He asked me if I had taken any money out of the pocket of his pants. “No dad, I don’t take anything from your pockets unless you ask me to.” I replied. When I asked why he was asking me, he told me that he had $90 in the pocket of his pants the night before and now it was gone. “What? No, that’s not possible dad. It has to be here somewhere.” I gasped. I started looking under my parents’ bed, in the laundry basket, everywhere in the room. My best friend Desiree was spending the night that night, so my dad cautiously said, “I’m not accusing her of anything at all, but is there any possibility that Desiree could have taken the money?” Of course, I immediately told my dad otherwise, seeing as Desiree was everything EXCEPT a thief. The three of us continued to look a little longer before my dad just angrily gave up and left for work. To this day, the $90 still hasn’t been found. I’m pretty sure my dad is still upset about that. 

My mom has never really had any major run-ins with Susie other than she’s seen her. My mom says that Susie is a little girl who wears a long white nightgown and only about 8 or 9 years old. The one-story we bring up the most is the time Susie stood behind the curtains. My mom was on her way from the kitchen to the living room when she noticed something strange. The sheer, meshy curtains were flowing outward. This was in the dead of the night and none of the windows were open. There were no ACs on or anything either. My mom went up to the curtains and said “Alright now” out loud before smoothing the curtains back down with her hand. There are also multiple times my mom felt someone standing right by her, only to look and see that no one was there. When my mom was attending school online, she would often be up in the middle of the night working on her papers. There would be no distractions since both my dad and I would be asleep. My mom says that sometimes while she would be typing something, she would feel a presence beside her. “Hold on a sec,” she would say, assuming it was my dad who had gotten up to use the bathroom. After she would finish whatever thought she was typing out, she would turn to see acknowledge who was there. She was shocked to realize that there was no one there. 

Although Susie really hasn’t been that active as of late, I know she’s still here. I see her all the time. It’s not exactly how my mom has seen her. I’ve never seen the Susie that my mom has described. The Susie I see is more in the form of shadows, and figures that zip out of the corner of your eye but are gone by the time you look. We don’t know how she got here or who she is but what I do know is that she’s just a friendly ghost who lives in the cupboard above my kitchen sink.