My Ghost - A complicated departure by Alison Hurst

It begins in the usual way, my eyes flicker, the light filters through into my cornea and register the shape of the bedside table and night lamp. Morning light crests the silver casing of my phone and your last words ring in my ears, “I am just going for a walk, be back soon…”. Does the ghost ever leave, is there a morning in which you will not greet me with your empty promises?

In our times together you held such reverting substance. I would be enthralled by the sweet lines of your ruby lips dancing up and down your cream cheeks. Now as I register another day without you all I can remember is your unmet return.  If I am not careful this waking hour ghost will haunt me as I make breakfast, grab the car keys, and select the radio station that will be my last ditch effort to drown out your unsolicitous melody of grief that your departure left me.

Are you going to be a perpetual ghost in my remaining years, or will one day I wake up in my safe warm bed to silence and will this be the freedom I want? The freedom from the days in which your shadowy smile looks across at me in the reflective glass as I pretend to read my book on the train? Would this be the freedom I want really- when all I want is you, is your ghost the you that I can now only possess?

In a way our morning ritual is much the same as the days when you were here. If I had not risen before you, your sweet smile and boundless energy would launch itself on to my bedcovers singing “Mummy! Mum! I want breakfast, brekki!!!” in a singsong rhythm reminiscent of our days sitting in a circle reciting nursery rhymes with your little friends. Now the bedcovers are not punched with excitable air and my bladder is not screaming for you to get off my lethargic body. Now it’s quiet each morning but for those last words, “I’ll be back soon” dripping down the walls of my waking, your empty promises strewed  next to my slippers.

I sometimes lay in my sanctuary hoping that sleep would linger so I can resist the emptiness the parades itself around my room, then I hear school children walking past our home, outside my bedroom window, and I would automatically remember your adolescent joyfulness that once was here. That is how I turned this loss into beauty, those children’s voices laughing as they pass reminding me of the times your promises were something to believe in. My keepsake memoir of your sparkling youthful face appearing at the side of my open bedroom door, a cheeky achievement glowing from ear to ear as you present your offering. It was Mother’s Day and as you had promised you would make breakfast, your strong character demanding me to stay where I was as you bring in your mushy eggs and lukewarm tea. Of course, a daisy from the garden to add your special flair placed on top of the toast. This is our loving way now the last empty promise and my desperation to remember happy years, these scenes are the morning bird-like song ringing in my ears. My chosen answer, “I will love you no matter what” attempts to protect me from the reality’s hard knock.

These are the days where your ghost’s usual trick has not destroyed my hope in our eternal bond, but that does not occur as much as I’d like. It is when your ghost plays cruelly towards me and wakes me before the children’s laughter arrive that is the most painful; the thick silence staring at me as a mocking audience to our now concluded detachment. My phone sits glaring at me awaiting my next move, challenging me to find another solution to stop this endless and repetitive sense of loss, do I try to find you once more? Call your old friends or worst the hospital again.

“I am just going for a walk” again streaks across my consciousness in this deathly quiet morning and sharpening knifes start to cut away my resolve of accepting wherever you are. This acceptance is a weak ruse so I can continue my life without you. Deeper to the pillow I squish my face, focusing on the cool fabric rather than this quicksand of guilt and petulant self-spite. These silent moments could be the maze that tempts madness into daylight. A fluttering above my bed-hair crown and I see your magic, or is it mine. For is this not the divined epoch in which we were destined to be apart and therefore your last words are the clue to answering this perpetual gloom that has haunted me since you disappeared. “I am just going for a walk”, “going for a walk”, ’a walk’. ‘Yes’, that’s it, leave this bed, leave my departed within the folds of nightly warmth, releasing my mind from coveting you as if you are still 3 years old and not 17.  

I grab my boots, my hat, open the door to the freshness of world. This world without you. A world where I live without your steps right behind me. You, in my mind, are still comforted in a safe warm home somewhere, while I break this haunting morning ritual to discover a world where I exist alone.