Ghost

You may see me, but I am not here.

You may touch me, but I am not here.

You may hear me, but I am not here.

Yes: it is possible to go on living, to walk through the motions each day and not be here. I fade in and out of reality, lost in thoughts of Lizzy and death, only called back to “reality” by Cecilia. I do all of the things I need to do: I go to doctor and therapy appointments; I go to support groups; I go only daily walks and eat and sleep, but it is possible to do all of these things and still not be here.

I feel I am between worlds, as though I am not real and therefore nothing that I do is real. I do not feel that these things are real for myself anymore. But somehow, I am able to both acknowledge and feel that they are real for Cecilia, and that is enough motivation to do them.

A part of me wants to do all of the things that the world tells me I should be doing to “heal,” so that I can do them, and at the end of doing them, prove to the world exactly how much they failed to heal me.

And this is precisely what the world fails to realize about grief; you cannot heal a fatal wound.

Nor, once you have touched death, can you ever fully go back to the world of the living.

This is why I am a ghost.

They say that ghosts are trapped between worlds; that for some unknown reason, they have unfinished business or cannot let go of an action or behavior that they need to keep doing on earth until it is resolved. For myself, I cannot fathom what that action or behavior is, other than the seemingly impossible task of keeping your child alive. But I can tell you that I am trapped between worlds. I think you could argue my unfinished business is Cecilia. And maybe raising her to adulthood is the action I need to complete.

The problem is that I feel insubstantial, like I am still living out a dream, watching myself do things, rather than actually participating in doing them. I feel like I am living my life on repeat, as though I’ve been cursed. I spent the past two years of my life raising my first child, my only child, my baby girl from infancy to toddlerhood, loving her, developing a relationship with her. And I will spend the next two years raising my second child, my only living child, my baby girl from infancy to toddlerhood. It’s as though raising Lizzy was an elaborate video game that I lost, and the game over sent me back to the beginning to start from Level 1.

I was supposed to be raising my toddler with her infant baby sister, simultaneously. It was supposed to be my two girls, sisters and best friends. It was supposed to be the three of us: me and my girls, against the world. And together, we were going to be capable of anything–omnipotent because of our love for each other.

So dreamed the Caroline that died with Lizzy.

And this Caroline–this self that I do not recognize or know how to measure or comfort or define–this Caroline is a ghost. She survived Lizzy’s death, but survival is not living. And it is possible to go through the motions of life without feeling alive.

I do the things. I go to the places. I walk. I eat. I pray. But I am not here.

If you see me, know that it is a lie or a vision. If I phase in and out of your reality, it just means that I went to be with Lizzy. I am playing with her in the garden, or taking a walk with her, her tiny, perfect hand in mine. And if I come back, it is because Cecilia has called to me with her smiles and her coos that have the power to summon me–back to a home that now dwells in Cecilia, as it once did in Lizzy. And if I return again to Lizzy, it is to the home that she is building for me and Cecilia, the home that will once and for all house the three of us–no longer against the world, but simply out of it.