This post is admittedly a bit off the wall, full of speculation.
Have you ever noticed that some people seem capable of causing others misfortune or even harm just by their thoughts? Are they unintentional witches, necromancers, or what?
My father’s sole surviving sister back in Southern Italy was one of those people, or so it’s always seemed to me. Perhaps her strange power came about when she was about 16. She had became seriously ill with typhoid fever. Her sister, who was a couple of years older, was very concerned and she reportedly prayed to God, “Take me and spare my sister.”
My aunt survived, but her sister ended up dying shortly thereafter. I don’t know the cause of her death.
When I was a boy back on my family’s farm, my father one year raised a herd of rabbits, about 200 of them. They were an adorable sight, the fluffy mass of them. My father raised them as livestock, anticipating a nice profit for his efforts. At the time, rabbit meat was a staple in many Italian homes.
Around that time, a man who regularly raised rabbits came around to visit. He declined an invitation to see the rabbits. He told us that he never let anyone look at his fluffy herds. “They are very fragile and skittish, never too far from death,” he said.
Nonetheless, my father proudly showed off his penned up rabbits to my aunt. “Oh, how beautiful!” she declared.
The next morning, all 200 rabbits were dead.
Another time, a man came from a neighboring town to buy a calf from my aunt. They went back and forth about the price and he steadfastly refused to meet the extra 1,000 lire my aunt wanted. (1,000 lire today would be about 60 U.S. cents) She reluctantly sold him the calf. After the man left, my aunt complained bitterly to my father, “He wouldn’t give the 1,000 lire I sought. Let him fall under the wheels of a car.”
In the meantime, the man, new calf in tow, walked back to the town where his farm was located. As he crossed a street, a car mowed him down, killing him.
If nothing else, my aunt sure had a powerful tongue.
Then there’s this, although it is a kind of reverse curse, the opposite of what happened with my aunt. Once, I was hanging around with some friends at a small grocery shop in my town, as I always did. Along with my friends and the shop owner was the owner’s dad. In the course of our conversations, the dad declared that nothing bad ever happened in our neck of the woods. “We are in il ventro della vacca (the cow’s womb),” meaning, safe and secure.
About 24 hours later, on November 23, 1980, came the devastating Irpinia-Basilicata earthquake, the strongest one in the Southern Apennine area in 80 years. I have posted previously about what happened to me and others on that date (see post 37–Dealing With Disaster Part 2). FYI, the man who erroneously proclaimed our area safe survived the quake, passing away many years later of natural causes. Still, I have often wondered if he had somehow tempted fate.
My aunt, too, lived to be in her mid 90s, clear-minded, humorless, and healthy. As her husband had died decades earlier, she raised five children on her own, keeping them well-fed, well-dressed, and with a roof over their heads.
Does it ever seem to you that people who are sweet and kind, well-liked by those who knew them, are often struck down in their youth, either by maladies, violence, or accidents? Yet, other folks who are the opposite often have long lives? My wife has a theory that the acid that flows in the blood vessels of unpleasant, even evil, people is what helps preserve them into old age.
Maybe she’s on to something.
Let me know if you like this post and if you have a comment. Has anything similar happened to you?
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What aunt was really like – Lightner Museum, St. Augustine FL
courtesy of “Mrs. Anton”
ANTON CIRCLES HIS WORLD 