Stewart The House Spirit

In my mother's country of birth, it is believed that every home has a spirit protecting it. You could call it a guardian angel or intelligent haunting, it doesn't matter. They're always there. It was my belief that if you feed the house negative energy, they won't protect you in your home (like in a case of a robbery or something), and if you feed your spirit positive energy, then you will be safe.

I have been living in my parent's home until recently and these are a few experiences I've had in my parent's home growing up over a total of 19 years.

My mother is a flight attendant and comes home rather late into the night. Several times when coming home, she would open the door and hear me laughing from down the hall in the bathroom. I was 5 at the time so she thought it was weird for me to be out of bed at that time of night. She creeped into the hall to see me sitting on the floor of my bathroom, staring at something in the shower (right out of her view), and laughing like I couldn't even breath. She had called out to me several times to which I didn't respond until she shook me. I just looked at her and told her she scared away Stewart. It happened almost every month until I was the age of 10.

Some nights, I would wake up and look into the hallway from where I laid in my bed (my parents were always paranoid so I slept with the door open) and I would see a man standing at my doorway. He was tall, taller than the doorframe (I'm guessing 7ft or so) and he would just stand there. He would lean down, poking his head into my room and making sure I was in my bed. He would usually smile at me and then move down the hall to my brother's room to check on him, and then moved into the hallway to my parent's room. Sometimes I would follow him into my parent's room (when I was younger) and watch him stand over my sleeping parents before disappearing in front of my eyes. When this first started happening to me, I would wake my parents and tell them there was a strange man in the house, but later I learned it would send my parents into a panic so I stopped.

Growing up, I began naming this spirit Stewart. He would only laugh when I call him that and do his usual rounds around the house.

Stewart would sometimes like to play pranks on my mother, making her drop glasses if she made something he wanted to eat. So when we make something good, we would leave out a small plate for him. Sometimes, a small portion of the food would be gone.

On nights where I couldn't fall asleep (or wasn't sleeping right), I would hear my music box go off. Note that I'm a pretty short Asian girl and these music boxes were on the highest shelf in my room. Hadn't been touched since I was 3. Stewart's favorite one to set off is my Cinderella Castle music box/snowglobe that sings "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes", only because I think he knows I've always wanted to be a princess.

My current boyfriend is also sensitive to spirits. When I first brought him to my parent's house, he found Stewart to be a very kind spirit (like a stocky dad who always smiles and laughs at his children's antics). He's had a couple of experiences with Stewart but that would be for another time.

To this day, when I sleep over or when I come to visit my parents, I will see Stewart and he will check on me in my bedroom before checking on everyone else. I've never felt safer than in that home.