Ghost In This House

“I don’t mind if it rains
I don’t care if it ‘s clear
I don’t mind staying in
There’s another ghost here
He sits down in your chair
And he shines with your light
And he lays down his head
On your pillow at night
I’m just a ghost in this house
I’m just a shadow upon these walls
I’m living proof of the damage heartbreak does….”

–Ghost In This House, written by Hugh Prestwood, as sung by Alison Krause

It’s fall excursion season again, and we’ve had our first trail ride and diner breakfast in Wisconsin, followed by a chilly, rainy visit to an Illinois farm market on the way home, to pick up decorative gourds and corn.

We heard the Journey songs on the radio, as usual, but most of the drive, and the trail ride, we spent in companionable silence, much like the kind Mike and used to share, each reading our own books, in our own chairs, in what is now the combination library/dining room.

That’s the room Mike collapsed in, and then refused to go to the hospital to be checked out.

That’s the room where he was standing, in the corner by the bay window, when he told me the doctor said it was cancer. Stage four. And I said I was scared and hugged him, and he said that was not at all the reaction he was expecting. And I asked him what he expected and he said he didn’t know, but not that.

I was afraid of not being able to entertain Angelic Daughter as well as he did. I knew I wasn’t anywhere near as much fun as he was. I knew I couldn’t cook the way he did, and I felt guilty that I didn’t want to cook what he did.

Mike was a master of high-carb comfort food: spaghetti, lasagna, and something he called “gushli mush,” which was elbow macaroni with browned ground beef and onions.

It’s been a little over seven years since Mike died, and Angelic Daughter and I have settled in to a “just the two of us” routine. We both miss Mike and feel his absence every day. She puts up with the “healthy food” I make her (and she says, “oooOOh, healthy food!” in a tone of rising anxiety, as if it is the last thing she would ever want, but she’ll eat it, for me).

And we’re still here, within the same four walls we occupied when Mike was here, too, although the place would be unrecognizable to Mike now. In the year after he died, I repainted every room in the house that the Bulgarian hadn’t already painted. The first room we repainted was Mike’s little man cave, where he had a twin bed and a tiny desk for playing and studying chess.

But no amount of paint or new furniture lightens the weight of Mike’s absence.

At random moments of the day, in the middle of work, when I glance at the photo I keep of him in the hutch on my desk, I get a pang of longing, for the life we could have had together.

I completely redid the “library” room, turning it into a true dining room, but keeping the “library” part. There’s a dining table and chairs, but there are also the two fake leather club chairs, the comfy chair my Dad would sink into with his Scotch, after a long, soul-sucking day lawyering, and even more bookcases than were there before.

But I still see Mike there, in that corner where the glider chair used to be, now occupied by one of those club chairs, standing there telling me he had cancer.

It’s the season of ghosts and shadows. I’ve come to accept that Mike’s shadow will turn up at random times, in rooms that no longer look like they did when he was here. I tell Angelic Daughter that his spirit and his love are with us, that he wants her to be happy, and that it’s OK to be happy.

But on our first fall excursion drive of the season, she turned the radio off. I know we both saw the shadows. No matter how different the experience (we rode at a stable Mike never saw, and ate at a diner he never visited) or how much the furniture has changed, we both still see the ghost in the corner.

I make her Mike’s pepper spaghetti once a month, and his shrimp spaghetti with broccoli every now and then. I think I’ve learned to approximate the taste pretty well.

But she can taste what’s missing, and it isn’t the salt.

Mike’s image hasn’t faded. When I see him in those corners, I see him plain as day in my memory. I see every nuance of his expression, I hear the tone of his voice, and I remember what he was wearing. When I feel him with us, I’m overcome with his presence, his way of making Angelic Daughter laugh, his goofy, awkward dance moves, even his all-too-frequent bursts of rage. None of it has faded. I don’t think it ever will.

Which isn’t to say I haven’t moved on. I’m just moving on while carrying these memories, and the grief, inside me. It’s part of the package from now on. You can’t paint over the shadows, and you can’t evict the ghost in the corner. You just learn to live with them.

Winding down after an afternoon of transplanting trees and shrubbery, and hearing Mike’s voice objecting but then accepting that yeah, it does actually look better, I remain,

your trying-to-move-ahead-accepting-that-I’m-forever-changed,

Ridiculouswoman