Hold your breath when passing a cemetery - Dallas Haunting

"Hold your breath when you pass a cemetery, or you'll breathe in a spirit and take it home with you."

"What? I never heard that before."

"My cousin was a jerk to me when I was a kid and told me that and I've always done it. I'm not going to risk it."

"Ok, well, this cemetery is long, and we have to take this road. It's a shortcut to the apartment."

"I can do it."

I held my breath as long as I could. Fifty yards before the end of Hall Street and my lungs were on fire. Lightheadedness kicked in. My eyes became watery. That large gasp of air was a relief from the pain I felt in my chest. That large gasp of air was exactly what the spirit from Greenwood cemetery needed to get inside of me. I was the vessel it needed to escape the cemetery and make its way to their new home. 

Our home.

Cemetery superstitions

The first part of that story has some truth. When I was growing up, I had some unpleasant times with one of my cousins. And by unpleasant, I mean complete torture. Humans are worse than any spirit. At least the spirits I have encountered never made me feel as bad as she did when I was six.

As one of her ways of torturing a young, impressionable child, she told me about holding my breath while passing a cemetery. The only good she ever did for me was telling this awesome superstition. I enjoy urban legends, folklore, and superstition tales. This one stuck with me. One minor incident turned this superstition into truth.

Before I tell you about that minor incident that may or may not be coincidental, let's talk about some other cemetery superstitions I found interesting.

- If the deceased lived a good life flowers will bloom on his grave, but if he has been evil only weeds will grow.

- A witch must be buried face down to prevent the community from further supernatural spells. If this doesn’t work, unbury them and turn their clothes inside out, then re-bury them face down.

- If you bury a woman in all black with no color on her dress, she will always come back and haunt the family.

- Being buried on the north side of the church is considered unlucky because of the lack of sun. That area is usually reserved for criminals and suicides.

- If you have an involuntary shiver, someone has just walked over your grave

- A corpse should leave any home or building feet-first, or else the corpse would be looking back at the building and calling for someone within to follow him in death.

What happened that night

Let me start with the set-up. My girlfriend works for someone as a pet sitter. Ms. E was temporarily living in an apartment in Uptown. A fancy part of Dallas. Her kitchen was being renovated because of a leak from behind her dishwasher. 

Ms. E owns a dog that she regularly looks after. This dog is pampered better than any person I know. Which is why the dog has a sitter and not stuck in boarding like the rest of them. Ms. E was out of town for a week and my girlfriend was called in to watch over the dog. We picked up the dog and drove down Hall Street passing through Greenwood cemetery. 

Greenwood was built in 1875 originally, and at the time was known as Trinity cemetery. Not long after the cemetery began to fall apart. Cattle roamed over the land because the fence that surrounded the property was no longer in one piece. In 1896 the land was bought by the Greenwood cemetery association and renovated. 

Before we turned on Hall, I told my girlfriend of the superstition. She laughed it off as one of my crazy stories and dared me to do it. I already was planning to hold my breath. But this was the first time down this street. I didn't know it was going to be so damn long. I failed.

Rest of the day was uneventful. A typical day and the night was no different.

You might be wondering what the incident was. The radio clock next to me on the nightstand went off at two a.m. out of nowhere. Scared the Hell out of us. Like a cat being scared, I was in the air. I frantically rolled over to inspect the radio. There was no alarm set. No reason for it to come on. It sounded like when you set your radio to scan for available stations. You know how you get a second or two before the radio determines whether a station is a station? That's what happened. A garbled mess of white noise spewed from the radio for two seconds in the middle of the night.

My girlfriend had been there for close to a week and not once had she touched or heard the radio on. She is the skeptic out of us two. As far she's concerned, everything in this world scares me. But even she didn't have an explanation.

The next day she blamed me for bringing a spirit into the apartment. In my defense, who's to say it wasn't already there?

What to pair with?

Kind of wish I was drinking that night. Maybe then I would've been able to fall back to sleep. I imagine some of the oldest spirits in the Greenwood cemetery enjoyed whiskey in their time. I would pair Crown Royal with this story, superstition, and these old-timey ghosts.

What your favorite superstitions? Anything paranormal happen to you? Tell me in the comments.

Enjoy your drinks with the unknown.

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