La Llorona, The Crying Woman

My mom is a first generation American. Her parents moved from Chihuahua, Mexico to El Paso, Texas before she was born. The supernatural was very prevalent in both sides of her family. My grandfather claims that we are descended from the Apache warlord Victorio and that the spirit of Victorio appeared to him and his brothers when he was a young man. My mom had many experiences with ghosts and spirits but she said that none was more terrifying than her experience with La Llorona.

Her family lived in a decent sized house on the banks of a canal on the south side of El Paso. At the time, the family had three dogs. My mom describes all of them as the toughest dogs on the block. One night in the dead of winter, my grandfather was telling my mom one of his many great stories, when there was a loud commotion in the front yard where the dogs were. The dogs were barking to wake the dead. My mom and her dad went outside into the front to see what was going on. They were joined by my grandmother. They had not noticed this before but a fog was slowly creeping around the street. The air was chill, but different from the cold of winter, the cold went down to the very bone. The three dogs were barking towards the fog or more accurately toward the canal that was by the house.

Suddenly a blood curdling scream pierced the night air. My mom described it as the most terrifying cry she has heard in her entire life. She says that it lasted for a full minute before finally dissipating. When the scream left, the fog lifted and the dogs returned to the way they were before. My mom asked her dad what the scream was but all he said was, "La Llorona" and told her to go to bed. Naturally she couldn't sleep and instead listened to her parents debate over whether or not to call the cops and report a murder or something.

In the morning, when it was light out, my grandfather went down to the canal but unsurprisingly found nothing. When he came back he told my mom the legend of the woman who drowned her own children and is now fated to cry out for them on the banks of the river where she killed them. And to this day, my mom is convinced that she heard La Llorona on that night so many years ago.

Another close associate of mine who has had a close encounter with La Llorona is my former karate instructor and confirmation class teacher. He is Irish, and a devout Catholic, but firmly believes in the existence of ghosts and the paranormal.

When he was a teenager, he lived in New Mexico, close to the borders with Texas and Mexico. Like any good teenager looking for a rush, he liked to ride around with his brothers after dark and watch for ghosts in the old graveyards. One night, he and his brothers managed to convince a couple of girls they were sweet on to come along. They were sitting in their car in the middle of the desert when a deep fog started setting in. They were unsettled and decided to leave but the car wouldn't start! Suddenly, he says that everything went completely and utterly pitched black "like someone had thrown a tarp over the car..." My friend flipped but his brothers were frozen in their seats unable to move a muscle. He yelled but they still didn't move. He reached over and managed to finally start the car. He was fifteen and didn't even have a license but he drove out of there like a bat out of hell!

When his heart finally stopped racing, he stopped the car. He turned to his brother and asked him what the hell happened back there. His brother, with his face still white asked him incredulously, "Jim, did you not see her?" He shook his head no and asked his brother what he was talking about. His brother told him that when everything had gone black, a strange translucent white woman appeared outside of the car. She looked like a wicked witch. She reached her hand into the car, through the closed window for Jim's neck but stopped and drew back when she touched it. She than disappeared and that was when the car started.

Jim reached up to his neck and fingered the St. Michael medal he always wore. He firmly believed that the archangel responsible for defeating Satan protected him on that night. Whether the spirit was a demon, La Llorona or some other frightful specter does not matter. Jim is firmly convinced that it was La Llorona and that she was stopped from whatever evil she intended. And he never stops praying to St. Michael.

***This two stories were personally related to me by the person's involved, the first by Norma McIntyre of Brunswick, Georgia and the second by Jim Keane of St. Simons Island, Georgia***