Ghosts

It started today with my father-in-law's groaning ascent of the stairs as I made the morning coffee. I even turned around to watch him climb up, smiling, making exaggerated sounds with each raising of a knee. My mother-in-law sat in the living room, content to be waited on for once; my mother was already in the kitchen, thirty years cleaving away like the soft block of mozzarella under my knife; maybe we were making the wedding cake, that other night in a long-ago late July. 

Funny, how the poignancy of leaving hasn't really hit me, except in these shadowy presences that somehow decided to make themselves known today. I pour the coffee, gaze out the window at last things: the reddening apples, the tall white shafts of hosta blossoms, the budding hydrangeas that won't fully blossom until we're gone, the tight green blackberries, the white-throated sparrow anxiously guarding her nest... and everywhere I go in the yard, the catbird precedes me, flicking his tail in the low shrubs.

In the afternoon I had to do an errand, and found myself on the street we always took to see my father-in-law. On a sudden impulse,  I turned in, and drove slowly up to the entrance, around the back, and looked up at the balcony of his old apartment. Someone had planted the windowboxes with dark purpley-red petunias, which were thriving under their vigorous care; there were no pots and clutter, no chairs set out in the afternoon sun, just the flowers, and my quick tears, unable to water anything but my cheeks.

At the yarn shop at the bottom of the hill, women like me parking their cars, shooting me a quick glance, a knowing smile: you knit too. Yes, but I'm leaving, don't you see? I may never come here again, and then the shop-owner's blind golden retriever is pressing against my leg like the ghost of my old dog, from the first years here, before I'd even met J.

Back at home, I park the car, go inside, and sit down on the sofa-bed, the only piece of furniture remaining in the living room. "It will be all right, honey," my mother says, and I close my eyes and sink back into the blue velveteen cushions, wondering if I'm just exhausted or if these people are really coming by to say their farewells to the house and tell me it's OK. After a bit I get up, look out the window, and see a woman from the neighborhood stop at our free pile. She's young herself, with a little girl running beside the carriage that holds twin boys, and there's another in her belly. They're all blonde, these four, and they walk by every day, with their shy smiles and slow manner; this is her life, tending these children that keep coming amid a poverty she tries to hide.  There's nothing out there for kids today, I realize, and so I go off into the garage and quickly skim through the boxes of books for a few children's titles: the worn Mother Goose my mother read to me when I was the age of that little girl; a large-print version of Pinnochio. They've left our yard, but it's easy to catch up to them, and I call out "hello" so as not to startle this mother who seems to walk so meditatively, or perhaps it's just a kind of stupor, I can't tell. She turns around and says hello, and I tell her I'm the one who's moving, would she like a few children's books? And she says sure with a shy laugh, thank you very much, we've been taking your stuff,  and stows the books in the stroller along with a whole pile of others - she's been at the village library. "Enjoy them, they were mine when I was her age," I say, and turn around and head back to the safety of my own lawn, my own porch, for a few more days.

Comments

[Marja-Leena]

This is so poignant that it's almost making me teary-eyed and sending me back to similar times when I've had to say a last goodbye to different homes. A few more days... hope the ghosts stay friendly.

[Natalie]

What Marja-Leena said. So beautifully described, the sadness of leaving and the return of loved ones. I think that places definitely do hold ghosts, whether real or some other beyond-reality.

I didn't realise that your father-in-law's apartment was near your house - somehow I imagined you had to travel a long distance to see him.

[Kaycie]

You're so adept at sharing the bittersweet moments of life. This is lovely.

[Teresa]

Oh gosh! Now I am vividly in the last half hour of being in my mother's house just before we turned the keys over to the realtor. I walked through the rooms breathing in the smell of nearly 50 years of living there. I whispered goodbye to each room, and then upstairs in a secret hiding place over the door to the linen cupboard, where I used to keep things I didn't want my sisters to find, I placed a note. The note was written to my parents (father long dead, mother only recently dead) telling them how much I missed them and how good it had been to live here.

I hope that note is still there.

T.

[Vivian]

Speechless again and a tear is dripping off my chin. A lot of people change location but you're really Moving, this is rare and your sharing continues to be a rare gift

[Martine]

Beautiful and powerful post, Beth. It brings back personal memories while at the same time making us feel like we're really THERE with you.

[Mouse]

You know, something of you will remain after you have gone
A spark of energy, a small presence, a tiny little fragment of you
Perhaps invisible but there, all the same
And the ghosts, the people you have loved and lost, they will remain with you wherever you are
That's love, it's always with us, it never dies...
and it's so very comforting, n'est-ce pas?

[elizabeth]

Lovely, sad post, Beth--I'm glad you're gathering them up and saying good-bye to them too.

[lisa]

I feel that ache there with you. Hope the future begins unlocking its sweet secrets to you, too.

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