Tio Fili (Uncle Phil)

Part of growing up Mexican is hearing all the ghost stories from your family and all about the haunted places your relatives live in. This time I am going to tell you about my Tio named Filiberto, Fili for short. (I guess he'd be Uncle Phil in English, just like in "Fresh Prince!")

My Tio Fili was quite a character. He was actually my great-uncle but in Mexico everyone is your tio. Tio Fili was a man who devoted a lot of time to church. He was of the belief that one should never be vain about his or her looks. He wore the same old tattered clothes every day, topped off with an old hat. Another of my uncles and I even nicknamed him El Granjero (The Farmer) because of his clothes. I know, this was mean, but I was a child and my uncle was just as immature. Anyway, Tio Fili never wore new clothes. In fact, when he died my relatives found a wardrobe full of clothes that had never been worn. They had just been folded up and put away. Unfortunately they had been in there so long that the creases had begun to dry-rot and all had to be thrown away.

Being the gifted audience that you are, I'm sure that you have deduced that Tio Fili is dead. He died after being hit by a bus well over 20 years ago. Although I hadn't seen him since I was 6, I still had quite a few memories of him. Aside from the clothes, I remember walking into his room when I was a toddler and he would always offer me a piece of chocolate. I also remember how he liked to pinch cheeks. He lived in a one-room shack made of adobe on the same property as my great-aunt (his sister), my grandpa (my mom's dad) and us. To say that he lived a modest life would be an understatement. The mystery is that he received a pension check every month, but no one ever saw him spend it. As I said before, he never wore new clothes and jewelry and other luxuries were out of the question. It's entirely possible that he was donating all his money to the church, but some say that he left a small fortune buried on the property.

Ah yes, buried wealth. It is often said that spirits haunt the place where they left treasure of some kind. What does that have to do with Tio Fili? Well, even after he passed away he refused to leave his home for good. He was spotted around the property for years after his death. One of my cousins, who never knew him in life, saw him frequently. My aunt tells us that as a little boy he would come running into the house, sweating as if he'd been running. When she questioned him he would tell her that Tio Fili was chasing him and trying to pinch his cheeks. When he was even younger he would be in his crib and then start crying, claiming that the "strange man in the hat" was waving at him through the window and making faces at him. The descriptions that he gave fit Tio Fili, an older man with old tattered clothing wearing a farmer's hat. Like I said, he had never met him when he was alive and there were no pictures of him around.

As if that wasn't enough, it's possible that my brother saw him on one occasion as well. We were visiting one year and my brother asked us who the man in the hat was. I said that there wasn't anyone wearing a hat and he said that an old man wearing a hat had just walked by the window. We couldn't find anyone that evening where he saw him. It's possible that he had seen Tio Fili walking around.

Eventually no one saw Tio Fili anymore, at least I haven't heard of any recent sightings. Perhaps next time I visit my relatives I'll keep an eye out for him.