Ghosts And Grief

I prefer not to believe in ghosts. I don’t want to know about them. I don’t want to hear about them. I don’t want to think about them. Despite my best efforts, I’ve heard too many anecdotes that disrupt my precise dos and don’ts notions about living on this planet.

The very idea of ghosts creeps me out. Parapsychology, supernatural, spiritual, and paranormal testimonies rattle me.

A friend related a childhood experience in which his five-year-old cousin seemed to be staring at the living room wall.

“What are you looking at?” the cousin was asked.

“The beautiful lady,” he replied.

The next day they learned his grandmother had passed during the night.

I once interviewed Dr. Karlis Osis. He ran the American Society For Psychical Research. The society headquarters was a nondescript brownstone on a Manhattan side street off Central Park West.  For one research project, Osis issued 50,000 questionnaires to medical personnel. He wanted to know if, on those occasions they were near a patient who was dying, they observed any unusual behavior — particularly anything that pointed to a “life after life” experience. Many reported some of the classic phenomena — the vision of a deceased loved one greeting the patient; a choir; and a tunneling white light.

In 2007, when my father was 96 years old, a life-threatening infection took him from the nursing home to the hospital. During this life or death battle, he had a dream. It involved a white light, a heavenly choir, and his mother. With no disrespect to my father, he had no knowledge of Karlis Osis, “life after life” experiments or the literature (popular or academic) or anything associated with that stuff.

How?  Why? What? I don’t know. For an answer, we might have to keep our eyes on the beautiful lady.

That was that

Many years ago, when she was a young woman, my wife asked her father what he thought happened after we died? Was there a place we would go? Did he think there was something more for us? Her dad was an economist and an engineer. He said, “Deb, energy neither can be created nor destroyed.” And that was that.

Debbi died about a year ago. In her will, she said, “Cheer up! For I love you all very much! I’ll be waiting for you all in the next world… But please don’t rush… It is a more imaginative galaxy here, but they don’t have nachos.”

As her illness progressed, I wanted more and more to believe in an afterlife — even if it meant consorting with ghosts. I wanted more and more to believe that such a precious consciousness could not really evaporate simply because the physical container stopped functioning. The sad truth is that what I wanted didn’t really matter. I was just one more person who lost someone dear. It happens to every single person on this planet. But each of us experiences it in an exquisitely personal way.

There is a community of the bereaved. We are not defined by the usual tribal paraphernalia — where we live, who we are, what we had for breakfast, our assets, our liabilities, our personalities, or anything as tangible as possessions or as ephemeral as ideas. Perhaps you can say we are united by a commonality of emotion and the shock that comes from a certain inability to pin it down and express it fully.

It is as if we were culled from humanity and each placed in a separate, empty, isolated room. It is as if we were plucked from our steady, familiar lives, pulled from the everyday routines and dropped into another country. It is as if we were dropped into another country where no one could speak our language, and no one could truly know what we wanted or needed.

We are in isolation. Is it self-imposed? Is it enforced by others who have some place to go, somewhere to be, something to do, someone to be with? I don’t know. I suspect it’s a team effort. The inescapable reality of this new, solitary me is that Debbi is gone. Therefore, part of me is gone. It is as if I were an intricate jigsaw puzzle (and who is to say I’m not?) suddenly disassembled, the pieces scattered on the carpet. Really, all I have to do is pull myself together.

Perverse rainbows made of dark matter

What does grief feel like?

From what I’ve seen, the emotions don’t seem to follow an orderly, consistent, predictable pattern. They are like perverse rainbows made of dark matter.

I think oddly, perhaps pathetically, of the movie “Ghost.” The hero, played by Patrick Swayze, is a deceased, but handsome, ghost who meets another ghost. The latter spirit (played by Vincent Schiavelli ) haunts the subway platform from which he was pushed to his death.

The subway ghost cries out in mingled anguish, lamentation, and bitterness, “it wasn’t my time. I wasn’t supposed to go. I’m not supposed to be here.” Finally, he shouts, “Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone.”

That’s part of how grief feels to me. No, it wasn’t her time; and it wasn’t my time either. The other components are the usual suspects – sorrow, anger, sadness, guilt, regret, confusion. They do not have the decency to show up one at a time. They snake around each other and form a loose bundle that keeps crashing into my mind. And then there are the memories. The fonder they are, the more bitter they feel. The more rueful they are, the more we need to hold onto them.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” people say.

It sounds a bit on the rote side; but I think it’s the truest, most accurate thing someone could say.

Loss!

I have sustained a loss.

Is it necessary to catalog the thousand natural shocks she cushioned, the million moments of delight we shared, the memories that I fear will fade, the memories I fear will never go away, all the doings and beings that we won’t have together?

People say, “if you want to talk, I’m here.”

I reply, “thank you; that’s good to know.”

But I think, “She’s gone. Really, what is there to say?”

Something else occurs to me just now, and I am ashamed that it took so long.

The people who wonder if I need someone to talk to, or if they can buy me some groceries, or if I need anything, anything, and even the more casually connected realize, on some level, her passing is a loss for them.

I was in the bagel shop recently, and the counterman asked, “How is your wife?”

I gave him the news. He nodded, sharing the sad moment with me; and, while putting a lid on my tofu scallion, said, “she was a nice lady.”

Something has been cut out of their lives — even if it were just a dependably friendly, neighborly  wave.

We need to get all the friendly waves we can get. We need to give all the friendly waves we can give.

Nevertheless, I usually don’t know what to say to them, and it doesn’t matter what they say to me. I’m grieving. For Pete’s sake, if I can’t be selfish when I’m in mourning, when else will I get the chance?

Unfortunately, there’s an answer to the question. The answer is “whenever I want” (else, what is human nature for?); or perhaps the answer is “never” (due to a more evolved spirit or a reflex to submit to the needs of others); or the answer is “sometimes” when I least or most expect it.” A word, a name, a movie moment can do it. A make-believe character is killed off and I break into nearly silent, spasmodic sobs that end quickly. This gives me the chance to question my own sincerity. That’ll do until a real hobby comes along.

Perhaps labeling a reflexive action as “selfish” is a bit of a vanity, and the games go on.

During her illness, people asked me how I was holding up, I’d reply, “it’s really not about me. It’s about her. She’s doing the heavy lifting.”

Now, when they ask, I reply, "I’m a bit numb; but I’m holding up.”

That’s code for, “it’s about me; but I can’t admit it.”

And that’s code for, “it wasn’t her time. She wasn’t supposed to go. I’m not supposed to be abandoned. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone.”

I suppose I could say, “The invisible membrane through which our beings nourished each other is hopelessly ripped.” Or I could say, “There’s a me standing before you who’s trying to figure out just how to be a me, all by himself.”

Community of the bereaved

Apparently, I haven’t cheered up; but there is a resource that’s helping.

The “community of the bereaved” is a fanciful notion but it actually exists. There are bereavement counselors and groups, circles, workshops, meetings, etc. across the country. I participate in one that meets regularly under the aegis of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. We talk gently, candidly. We talk about our lives. Details — the stories, the challenges, the fears, and assorted particulars — differ. An unmistakable atmosphere prevails. If nothing else, the oppressive isolation is diluted. In this room, we are safe. We are understood. We can state our feelings without having to explain or justify them to others or to ourselves. We can respect the contradictions imposed by fight or flight. We even can find a little bit of light. Maybe not a white light with all those other production values; but a light that allows us to see who we are and where we are and if we are.

The reassembling of my jigsaw puzzle is a work in progress. As it proceeds, some sections will be familiar and, no doubt, some will be missing. If my navel contemplation mode is switched on and working, I might be surprised to see what is gone and what remains. It will be a kind of rough healing, and I have absolutely no idea what its characteristics will be.

In the meantime, all I have to do to see a ghost is look in the mirror.