Published November 1, 2024

My dad died 44 years ago today. I’ve written about him every year I’ve had this website. This year, I thought I’d tell you a story you haven’t heard.

There’s even an unplanned fright near the end.

First, here is a version of something I shared with a few close editor friends just after 1 a.m. on October 17:

I hurried to toss garbage and recycling after midnight deadline and before the rain. And I saw I had bats.

My neighbors across the hall have lived here for a couple of years, yet we’ve barely spoken. I always worry that my buzzer will disturb them when I have a delivery. On Sept. 27, I saw they’d put up bats for October. I saw her a few days later and told her I loved them.

They quietly worked on my door tonight during my editing shift (I had no idea they were out there doing it). I had an awful start, knocking over something and spilling on my desk, floor, cables and more. I’ve got a lot of cleanup ahead of me. Let me tell you, it’s a mess.

This is so sweet of them. Oh, and Whitney was my dad’s name and his dad’s name, and I always thought it was a better name for a woman. If I’d been named Whitney at birth, there would probably not be a Carly on the front of their note or at the top of my post. I’d have probably kept the name when I began my transition. So this is extra special.

Earlier in the day, someone had left a surprise gift for me at my door. It was a good day.

I can’t imagine a better day of random kindness than this one. I’m overwhelmed and knew I had to share this. I am the luckiest person in the world.

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The lighting in my hallway is terrible. The photo above is from three years ago, when I lucked into an empty apartment door across the hall and a sunny day, which helped me take a decent picture of my decorations. I later added more, including pink ribbon and other identifiers. This photo is the best way for me to show you my door minus the bats.

It’s actually good there isn’t much light at my end of the hall. That makes it much spookier for Halloween, especially now that I have bats.

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My dad died shortly after 1 a.m. on Nov. 1, 1980. I’d just gone to bed. It still felt like Halloween.

I was afraid of everything when I was a child. Bats? Sure. But I liked Batman. I saw him more than I saw real bats, which in my neighborhood was just often enough to keep me worried.

Sometimes just the sound of my dad clearing his throat in bed on the other end of the house, or seeing the glow of his cigarette in the dark from the hall would be enough to help me fall back asleep after waking from a monster-populated nightmare. Sometimes I screamed until someone came to me.

Other times I crawled into bed next to him when I was allowed.

Unexpected scare last night

Just before midnight last night, Halloween night, I heard a loud noise, one of the loudest I’ve heard in years, and it was someone or something slamming hard into my apartment door. That’s almost impossible, given the layout of the hall and that I’m at the end of it, with the door facing perpendicular to any sort of running start someone might try.

There’s more, but I will withhold some details for now.

I used the security chain for extra protection, then finished my work shift. Then I debated whether to open the door, call the police, or what. We’ve had a lot of mayhem in my city lately, including  incendiary devices being set off in ballot boxes and a mall shooting earlier last night. The last report I saw was that the shooter was not in custody. (In case you’re wondering, I live about 6 miles from the mall, close to interstate and state highways.)

Unable to relax, I sat up in bed and waited for plenty of quiet. Finally, I opened the door.

The “Welcome” sign was askew, but the bats stayed in place. Nothing else seemed amiss. My neighbors’ bats were the way they’d looked when I’d last seen them.

If you’re reading this, the post went live as scheduled. I may finally be asleep.

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You can see that I like butterflies. My welcome mat has them, and they are all over my apartment. Blue. Purple. So many. I like to think now that my door is filled with shape-shifting  butterflies that turn into bats when they think it necessary, as my last line of defense.

This will be the year I hope to live long enough to remember as the one when I slept on Halloween night and on the next night, after two weeks of nights, knowing there were unflinching badass bats on my door, protecting me, and that they were a gift from a Whitney who sleeps about the same distance from me as the first Whitney I ever knew did on my earliest scary nights.

Something about it seems super sweet and lovely.