The ghosts are back. It’s their time of year, you know. All Hallows Eve is just around the corner, when the veil between the living and the dead grows thin. Don’t be alarmed. I know it’s never easy to face the dead, especially the ones who didn’t go gracefully. They might border on haunting, but not if you pay attention. Listen to them. Like all spirits, like the living, they just want to be heard.
It was that way once with my brother, Marty. He was an enigma to me, really, most of years we were alive together on this planet, so when he moved to the other side, our relationship didn’t change that much. Except that one year, when he came to me in my dreams, his photo on my end table bleeding so profusely, I woke up and turned on the light; a child again, frightened awake by a nightmare. “Okay,” I said out loud, to an empty room now washed with harsh light. “Okay, okay. Stop haunting me.”
It was November 1st, and my Day of the Dead altar was fully decorated and covered with photos of past loved ones. But not Marty. I dug through an old box and found a B & W of him from 1970. He was 18, his dark hair long and wavy, blowing in the wind. He had a smattering of acne, Grandpa D’s deep set eyes, Mom’s full lips: his two front teeth crossed over a tiny bit, just like hers did. He looked uncharacteristically un self-conscious, relaxed. He had his whole life ahead of him still, and was heading off to New College in Florida, trying to get far away from all the boring people he had to endure where he grew up, including his parents, and every conservative midwestern suburb he’d ever lived in. Later, after many arguments with Dad, he would head to Southern France.
“There,” I said out loud to his photo. “Are you happy now? I haven’t forgotten you.” I knew then as I know now that ghosts don’t want to be forgotten, but no one had ever reminded me quite so vividly in a dream. Subtlety was not one of Marty’s strengths, dead or alive, it seemed.
I have a photo of him on my fridge now too. After all these years, his ghost and I seem to have built a loving friendship.
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The prompt this time was the poem, “Ghost,” by Cynthia Huntington. You can read it here.
The Catalyst 