The Authentic Eclectic

There

A ghost Story

Listen –

yes, baby

listen. It’s going to be soon

no

I think so

no

Listen. I believe in life after death, I know there’s something after.

I don’t want to talk about it

I know, but listen — if I’m right, I’ll find a way to reach you. Not in a scary way honey, but if you feel something or see something and you think it’s a message — if you think it’s me, believe it, don’t dismiss it. It is me. I will be with you, I promise. If there is anything after — I’ll be there when you need me. Whenever you need me. Okay?

He hung his head. He hunched his shoulders. She squeezed his hand.

okay?

okay baby

say it again

okay

no, the other thing

okay, my one, my beautiful, my only

Even though you don’t believe — you’ll try to believe. For me? You’ll know it’s me and I’m with you?

I’ll try

And he did try.

At her funeral he saw the red and blue light of the stained glass window fall on their son’s face. She had loved stained glass. She had loved that magic light. He closed his eyes and pretended she spoke to him, saying It’s okay honey, I’m here, see how lovely the colors.

He sent the thought away; if she still existed in a state which precluded her being with him, it was too horrible to imagine.

But he’d promised.

He stood in all the warm places they’d loved together and imagined her with him. He watched the cat dancing in the patch of light; he imagined it danced with her. He waited for the flowers she’d planted in window boxes to grow; he whispered to them beneath the soil as she had done. He sat in his living room with the cat on his lap and waited to feel her near him. But he didn’t feel her anywhere.

Then, one night as he climbed into bed, acclimating to the silence and the lack of her warm, curled shape beside him, he heard a loud clang in the kitchen. He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He froze. She had liked to drink warm milk at night. She had clanged pots on the stove every night, and he had teased her about the milk because it made her gassy.

Now he thought, the pot on the stove, the pot on the stove. The sound is a pot on the stove. She’s in the kitchen. It was night and he was alone, so she became real. He climbed into bed and pulled the covers over his head and said, no honey, no honey, no baby. Please.

There were no other noises.

The next day he heard the clang again; it was the oil heater finishing its cycle.

His children worried. They called him and asked him if he needed anything.

I need your mother, he said to them in his head. Aloud, he was short with them. He told them to stop treating him like an invalid. After a while, his son stopped calling.

His daughter still called, undeterred, defensive but present. She asked him if he had food in the fridge and he said, Of course! What would I eat if I didn’t have food in the fridge? She said, Dad, you know what I mean. He said, yes, I know, and it’s insulting. I’m not a child.

She hung up, but she called again the next week and asked the same question.

He went for long walks. He talked to his wife as he walked, telling her things. He tried not to talk to her when people were near. He wanted other pedestrians to nod and smile, not hurry by to avoid him.

But. He saw the neighbor’s gigantic rhododendron, blooming white, pink, and perfect in their front yard. He said, It’s out honey — but he didn’t feel her. He didn’t feel anything except alone. He began to cry on the street. People hurried past him, heads down, avoiding.

He stopped going for walks.

On Thanksgiving he trudged up the driveway to his son’s house and imagined she walked beside him. He thought, Hi honey, here we are, and he felt a warmth — for a moment. Then the chill came, and he shook his head, no, no.

After dinner that evening, he looked across the room, through the people; he squinted until he could barely see and imagined her coming towards him. He tried to see her through the crowd — it felt safe to manifest her when people surrounded him. She was only a ghost in solitude; in company she was a warm memory.

He imagined she stood near the door. She peered at him through the crowd of friends and family. In her hand she held a pot for the milk. She was lost. She thought she was home. She’d followed him. She had never left, she was everywhere.

He closed his eyes tight and said No honey, no honey, I take it back, go away. I don’t want you like this. His son came to him, put a hand on his shoulder, asked if he was okay. He said he was. He realized he was sitting on the floor.

His son told him he was worried.

He was worried too.

The chill followed him home that night. It followed him through every room. She was behind him, but he couldn’t see her. She was around every corner. The patches of light on the floor were her, and the cat jumping at nothing was her, and every night noise was her. The flowers she’d planted bloomed in the window, menacing, grinning brightly. The warm places they loved together held her in every mean particle and every speck of dust.

He lay under the bedclothes and kept his eyes shut tight. He didn’t dare look into the dark for fear she’d be waiting for him. He was afraid he’d see her standing at the foot of the bed, or by the side of the bed, or sitting cross-legged beside him on the bed, watching, impatient for him to see her. He thought, I’m sorry baby, I’m afraid to look. I want you but I don’t want you like this. I know this isn’t what you meant when you made me promise. I’m sorry, baby.

He kept the covers over his head until he fell asleep.

When his daughter called that week, he admitted he was struggling. His daughter sighed with relief and came over. She cleaned the clean home and cooked him food that he didn’t need, and grimly watched him eat. She washed his sheets and made his bed, and she talked and talked to him about grief and how to deal with grief, and she made a list of books for him to read and videos for him to watch and groups for him to join and counselors for him to call. She hugged him so tightly it hurt and said, We’ll be alright Dad, I promise. He said Yes, we will, I love you honey. And thank you.

She cried and smiled, and said I love you so much Dad. He heard her crying in the car as she drove away.

He sat in the living room at his chair. The cat sat with him. Together they watched the lights dim and the shadows grow. He waited to feel the chill indicating she was near, which was her promise to him, and his promise to her. He said to the shadows and the cat, I am sorry this is the only way I can believe in you, baby. I wish I could believe in you, softly and warmly. Not like this.

The house made noises and the shadows looked so much like her shape. He put his hands over his eyes.

He didn’t read the books or watch the videos or go to the groups. But he did call a counselor.

He told his new counselor everything. She told him what he was experiencing was normal; that all people in his position had to navigate grief and loss, and this was his. Imagining his wife near him was beneficial to his process; together, they would work on techniques to connect with memories of his wife in ways that were not frightening. The counselor said his fear was a symptom of loss, fear of forgetting, of letting go. Not ghosts.

He did not agree with the counselor, but he kept up with the sessions because the chill did not follow him into her office; he felt safe there. He didn’t tell his counselor this. He didn’t tell her he’d kept his promise; he believed.

Believing inverted him and now he was inside out. He didn’t tell the counselor he wanted to take it all back, or what crept in his mind all day, all night. The wish, the terror, that she was real. He didn’t tell his counselor how much he wanted to tell his wife to let him go.

At home, he averted his eyes from every dark corner. Sometimes he said he was sorry, asking forgiveness for wanting to take his promise back. He told his wife he had to find a way to no longer believe, because he was losing her bit by bit to the shadows.

He sat in his living room and talked to her with his eyes closed and the cat on his lap, saying Please go away and let me go, my one, my beautiful, my only.

He didn’t tell the counselor that, either.

One night he lay in bed cowering, knees to chin and covers over his head; the chill was with him. He thought, I have to look. I have to look at her, she’ll let me go if I see her. She needs to be seen.

He trembled and he moved the covers slowly down over his head, so his eyes were free, and he looked at what was there.

There was nothing there. The room was empty.

She was everywhere but she was not there. She was not there but she was everywhere. He gave a strangled cry and pulled the covers over his head again.

And the chill followed him all the next day.

He could feel her behind him, before him, beneath and above. Waiting, watching, willing him to see her.

He could not see her because he was too afraid to see her. He knew that now. He would never be ready to see her.

He told her how sorry he was. He didn’t know if she heard him.

He told his counselor all about it.

His counselor said his instinct to reach out was his kind-mind telling him to face his grief, that it would be all right, that his sorrow wouldn’t kill him.

He couldn’t make his counselor understand.

He summoned his children and told them everything. His son said Dad, I can’t do this, and he walked out.

His daughter sat with her hands twisting in her lap, her shoulders hunched. She looked up at him, her face was twisted too. She said do you really think she’s here Dad? Do you really think she’s here?

He said, I don’t know and I’m so sorry honey, I didn’t mean to upset you, I’m so sorry. He got up and pulled his daughter to her feet and hugged her. His daughter cried and went home.

He followed the chill where it led. He sought his wife in every dark space and around every corner. He stared resolute at the patches of light on the floor, willing her to emerge, and he spoke to the flowers blooming in the window, daring her to peep through them. He haunted the chill in every warm place they had loved together, waiting for her to forgive him his fear. He sat awake at night watching and waiting. He said, I’m ready now, you can come, I won’t be afraid.

He sat in the living room with the cat on his lap and watched the shadows turn — watched them unwind into her. He said to the shadows, I’m here, I’m ready. I want to see you. He waited. The shadows merged with each other until the room was dark.

He fell asleep in his chair that night. When he awoke with the sunlight streaming through the windows and the cat on his lap, the chill was gone. His house was soft and warm again.

She had let him go. She had not come. He wept then, not knowing if his tears were of grief or relief.

Two years later he became ill. He went into hospice and his children sat with him. His son came one day, with his grandchildren who showed him pictures of the cat, and his daughter came the next.

His daughter was with him when he died. She told her brother about his last moments; he’d been looking at the foot of the bed at a patch of sunlight on the floor. He’d reached out toward it and said Oh, I do see, I do, and he’d smiled and smiled and stared at that patch of sun reaching toward something. . . and then he sighed and stopped breathing.

His daughter had looked where he’d reached, but there was nothing there, only sunlight.