My entry to this year's ghost story contest

Hi folks! I didn't win, but hey, 300 people entered! I was glad to at least have someone read it. Here it is:

A Modern Woman

I’ve never believed in ghosts. I always thought that they were dreamt up by people with too much time on their hands coupled with an overactive imagination. Ghost encounter shows on TV were to me, a form of comedy. I’d never given ghosts much thought. Thought as in, what they look like, if they can talk to you, what they wear, stuff like that. Nope, most days I just never thought of ghosts.

I went about my life, happy as most people are I suppose. I work as a print manager at an advertising agency. I am a post-modern woman, stretched too thin, doing it all and exhausted. I have a career, three great kids, and never a moment to myself. And I had a really great partner. You’re thinking because I say “partner” that it must be a woman, but no, he’s a man. I mean he was a man. He was a really great man, and we just never had time to get married. We had time to build a house, time to have kids, but marriage wasn’t important. I used to call him my boyfriend but that just seemed so middle-school. My kids have appropriately hyphenated last names, mine first, then his.

All that used to matter to me, but it came screeching to a halt when I woke up one morning and he did not. It was surreal. I reminded him about the alarm two times, three times. Then I noticed. The paramedics came, then the coroner. The neighbor came over and took the kids, I learned later. I just assumed they were safe; I was in complete shock. The police officer asked me some questions and my sister came over.

An aneurysm. What the hell. He was healthy, or so we thought. The autopsy revealed a malignant brain tumor, which would explain the headaches he occasionally had, that we assumed to be migraines.

People told me that he was lucky to go so fast, that he did not suffer through treatments and losing his hair, and the endless brain surgeries. I wanted those people to wake up one day and have their partner simply not be there. Then they could say that to me. They were not allowed to say that until the love of their life suddenly vanished and left everything behind and left 3 children to grieve their father’s death. Maybe he was lucky, but we did not feel that way.

A few months after his death, I was just so tired. I sat at the kitchen table with chamomile tea, which tastes horrid, but it’s supposed to help you relax. (It didn’t). It was 3 in the morning, and I couldn’t sleep again. Things weren’t back to “normal” whatever that meant. The kids were still angry, sad and confused all at once. I was too, but didn’t allow myself to act that way. I had to be the adult. My company had been very understanding in letting me take time as I need it, so I wasn’t worried about work or anything like that. I was just so tired, and just wanting someone to take the pain away from me and keep it for awhile. And there he was.

I simply looked up into the darkened living room, and he walked into the light of the kitchen. He wasn’t a mist or a shadow, or even remotely scary to me. It was simply him. He seemed just like he would have at any time in his life. Like it was the most normal thing for him to walk into the room, and so my brain went there immediately. Yes, this is normal. Can’t he sleep? It didn’t occur to me that he was wearing a suit and tie. He walked over to the fridge as my brain began to realize what was happening. And then it occurred to me that he wasn’t supposed to be there. He stopped in front of the fridge and stared at it.

“I can’t open it. Why can’t I open the fridge?” He started to look confused, though he had not actually tried to open the fridge. He seemed to just know that he shouldn’t try.

I sat for awhile, and I’m not sure how much time passed before I said, “Sweetie, you’re dead.” Saying that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I didn’t want to scream or anything, I was just so weirded out, as they say. “Aren’t you?” I finally asked.

“Oh. Yes, that’s right. I am.” He said after a moment. Then he looked at his hands. “So…why am I here then? At home?” he added. I shook my head. Then his mind seemed to clear, and he acted as if he knew exactly what to do. So he smiled at me, and walked back into the living room. I looked in after him, but he was gone. I stayed awake for the rest of the night, waiting for him to come back. He didn’t. When the kids woke up, we got ready for school, and I took them. The kids had long since stopped asking me if I was going to work or not, meaning was I having a good day or a bad day. I think they had decided that so long as I took care of them, everything was ok. And they would work with that.

A few months later, I was getting ready for bed, brushing my teeth. When I walked back into my bedroom, he was standing in a corner, looking around. Again, I wasn’t surprised. Maybe I expected him to come back. I’ve discovered that when your brain becomes accustomed to a person or thing, it isn’t shocked when that person suddenly appears again after having been gone for a period of time. Even though that person is gone because they’re dead. Which is weird.

“We should make a plan for next week,” he said simply. I didn’t know what to say. Life had been difficult since his death for sure. The busy-ness of things had not stopped, only briefly for the funeral and appropriate grief period. Whatever that is. Our lives were running at full steam again, only this time, minus one parent. So of course my brain thought “Yes, where’s my calendar?” Until I caught myself.

He was wearing a tee shirt and boxers, what he usually wore to bed. I reminded him (and myself) that he was dead, didn’t he remember?

“Oh. Yes, I am, you’re right. But don’t you need me anymore?” he finally said, after some thought.

“Well, of course I never wanted you to go, and I still need you. But there’s not much you can help me with. Being dead and all, I mean.”

“Oh, right.” He seemed to remember. It must be so weird being dead. He walked into the darkened hallway, no goodbye, just deep in thought. Again, he vanished. I felt so sad that he was gone because damn it, I really did miss him so very much, and I really could have used his help with running the kids around the following week. And the week after that. I cried harder than I had since his death.

A few days later I had a dream, I guess. At first I was floating above my body, near the ceiling, although the ceiling wasn’t there, it was sort of a mist. Then I turned around and I was standing at a threshold, which lead into a beautiful forest. The sun streamed through the trees, and I could smell the cedar, the damp pine needles. Through the sunbeam, I could see the mist in the air. The birds were singing, and there was a woodpecker knocking away somewhere. The colors were so vivid and inviting.

He was in the forest about 20 feet away from me, and he looked concerned. “Don’t follow me!” he said, urgently.

“What?” I was still adjusting to the surroundings.

“You stay there, you don’t need to come now” he added. “Turn around and go back!”

“But it’s so hard.” I started crying, suddenly getting my bearings. “I want it to be easy. It’s easy where you are. I need you and you left me. Why did you leave so soon?”

“You have a family and friends. You have MY family and friends. They can help you make it easy” he explained gently.

“No, they can’t. I can’t do this! Why did you have to leave?” I sobbed.  And I woke up, or gained consciousness, anyway.

A year later, I was adjusting to life without him. Not to say that I was over my grief by any means; I’m not sure that ever fades. I really missed just talking to him, and that feeling I always got when he met me somewhere, and appeared out of the crowd. It was a feeling of familiarity, the feeling of looking forward to spending time with a good friend, and the little rush because he always looked so handsome.

He was right. I had indeed swallowed my pride and asked his relatives (and mine) for help. Actually, I didn’t need to ask. Our mothers were always checking in with me, and our siblings all pitched in and helped when needed. I needed help less these days, too. I was learning to live without him, and now I only missed him, not him and his assistance.

When he appeared again, I hardly recognized him and it terrified me. I slapped my hands over my mouth so that I wouldn’t scream.

I had been sleeping, when the lamp by my bed suddenly switched on. My blurry eyes became more panicky and wide as I scanned the room. He was in the corner again, frail and gaunt. I didn’t recognize him at first. His cheeks were hollow and grey, as were his eye sockets. He held himself up against the wall.

He was clearly in pain. “I need to show you why I left so early”, he gasped. “This was what was in store for me. I was given a choice. I chose to go. I hope you will forgive me.”

I was only able to make questioning stutters; I was so stunned, when I finally realized it was him. “A choice? You got a choice? That’s how it works?”

“Yes, well no. I don’t know. I don’t understand. But I’m supposed to show you what would be my fate. That’s all I know...this is terrible. I need to go now.”

“But wait! This was what was going to happen to you? I don’t understand, why did you get a choice?”

He didn’t answer me, but merely staggered to the hallway, and was gone.

I don’t know why he died so suddenly when others suffer for years with cancer. I don’t know why he came back to explain this to me, like something out of a Dickens story. I certainly don’t check around with other people at my support group to see if they’ve been haunted by their spouses. I told a group of people that I know, one evening when we were crafting gingerbread houses for Christmas, of all things. During our “crafty professional ladies” nights at my friend Julie’s house.

I explained what had happened, and the unusual visits I’d had since my partner’s death. They were rapt. People shared their supernatural experiences or lack thereof. I have no idea why I shared this information with these women. We were professional acquaintances, vendors and clients, certainly not close friends or a support group of any kind.

One woman, a TV producer, interviewed me for a story on one of those “unexplained happenings” sorts of shows, which made me feel like a fruitcake. I’m not sure why I did the TV show, or why I shared my story with those women. Maybe I wanted everyone to feel hopeful about life, or that there is something after we die; maybe I just wanted to validate my experience. I’ll never know. But I do feel more hopeful at this point in my life. Now, I am feeling thankful that my partner died suddenly, like he did.