--- title: The Lesson Grandma’s Ghost Taught Me description: "A haunted bedroom, a missing month of nanny pay, and a music shop that paid late: how one ghost taught a writer to finally advocate for herself." --- [Inciter Art | Fractured Atlas](https://blog.fracturedatlas.org) # [The Lesson Grandma’s Ghost Taught Me](https://blog.fracturedatlas.org/the-lesson-grandmas-ghost-taught-me) Written by [H. M. L. Swann](https://blog.fracturedatlas.org/author/h-m-l-swann) | October 27, 2026 I’ve had my fair share of hauntings. The basement café—where I served tourists iced americanos all summer long. The hotel laundry room—where I pulled heaps of white linen down the never-ending shoot. In each of these hauntings, I look back and see a ghost. A shadow of myself that has evolved into the person I am today. Most notably, though, was my time working as a nanny and parking lot attendant while I shared a room with a poltergeist. ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ The rent was decent considering the size of my room. It had a balcony with access to the roof where in my youth I smoked American Spirits and wrote bad poetry. It also had its own sink, a large closet, and the spirit of my friend’s recently deceased grandmother. Grandma’s hauntings started small. Footsteps in the hallway coming towards the room. My laptop blasted music in the middle of the night, waking me up to her unique song choices. We didn’t have quite the same taste in music, but maybe it was her way of trying to bond. We were roommates after all. One day, I stopped by the house between jobs. I had just under an hour to change clothes, run to the bank, and clock in on time for my parking lot attendant job. All my house mates were out, and I weaved my way up the stairs to our shared room. I had just been paid in cash for a month’s worth of nannying and had carefully set the money on top of my dresser. I threw on my high-vis vest and turned to grab the cash. But it was gone. My stomach jumped to my throat. I swallowed hard, exhaustion and anxiety heightening my emotional response. It had to be here, right? What use could Ghost Granny have with my hard-earned money? I tore the room apart, looking. ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ Fast forward, and I was no longer working as a nanny or a parking lot attendant. I had landed a dream job. Working in a local music shop. There was an easy, dream-like quality to the space. This was the haunted mansion at the start of the movie when everything still seemed too good to be true. The sun reflected against the wall of brass instruments. The radio vibrated through the acoustic guitars. I hummed along with the sympathetic resonance. I liked the daily tasks. Restocking the accessory shelves so that everything was in harmony. Carefully pulling down each instrument to re-tune their ever-falling strings. Some of my favorite duties took place in the little workspace. There, I re-strung guitars. I cleaned the fret boards, uncoiled brand new strings, and carefully twisted them into place. When the work was done, I filled out the repair tag with the price for labor and materials. Only, the labor was charged under the owner’s name. He delegated tasks without extra pay or credit. Our usual customer was a 50-year-old denim clad man with a disapproving look. How would they feel if their guitars were being worked on by a young woman? I had to understand: not telling them was in the best interest of the store. It wasn’t cheap to run the shop, and soon, even my retail check came later and later. When I asked, I was met with passive resistance. The owner had been a part of my life for years—hell, he was even my emergency contact at one point—so rather than demanding pay or leaving, I sought other solutions. To supplement my delayed income, I taught music lessons to a small cohort of students. Families paid in advance through the shop, and I agreed to the small fee taken out to rent the studio space. I loved teaching. The students showed up excited to play music. The families promptly paid the shop and communicated with me clearly. But then, even the teaching money started to slow down, and I can only assume it was being allocated to other costs. Even with this realization, I felt guilty asking to be paid. I thought back to my experience with Grandma’s ghost. When the money was gone, advocating for myself made things right. In a way, she taught me that throwing up my hands to speak my truth was the only way forward. I saw the cracks. The power dynamic at the shop was no longer sustainable. I put in my notice and finally received the back pay I was owed. ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ Leaving the music store was no different than communing with Grandma’s ghost. I’ll never forget how desperate I was when I realized my nannying money was gone. Alone in my haunted bedroom, I had searched every inch of that room and relented that the months’ worth of cash had disappeared. Blood pressure rising and anxiety tightening my chest, I closed my eyes. I raised my hands up. *Look, I know I’m in your space. But you have to understand I need that money. I worked for it. Please.* When I opened my eyes, the drawer to my left had been pulled open. The bills were stacked neatly inside. It was a ghost that taught me it pays to advocate for yourself. [View full post](https://blog.fracturedatlas.org/the-lesson-grandmas-ghost-taught-me) ```json { "@context" : "http://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "H. M. L. 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