The Ghosts of Our Grief

“God be with you Patrick, may she rest in peace.”

“She was a beautiful lady Paddy, and you're a good, good man, you can get through this.”

“Bless you Pat, if you need anything, anything at all, please let us know.”

Words chimed in my ears like the church bells tolling in the cathedral steeple above. My grip had become numb after the first few greetings. Hand after hand I shook, sentence after sentence of condolences they spoke, but my mind wandered, lost without the one guiding hand that mattered to me, the one voice that connected me to this world. I couldn’t find them, I’d never find them again. 

The turnout was great, despite the village having very few occupants. It seemed that many people loved Shelley, some travelling from afar, but I mean of course they did, how could they not? She brought light to the world, she was the sun in the sky, the reason for the smile on the faces of those around her. No one was smiling today however, there was no sun to heat our hearts even on this supposed summer afternoon because she was gone. 

The day was cold and the rain created a gentle fog in the air. Speckles of the mist landed and sat faintly on my black trench coat, the droplets so fine that the tears that fell from attendees eyes left larger stains on their dresses and shirts. 

One final hand gripped onto mine, “Are you ready to begin Patrick?,” the priest nodded to me. 

“Yes Father,” and with that, mass had started. 

The coffin was closed now, flowers of all colours placed on top. A wreath of pink roses spiralled around the front of the casket, white lilies decorated the edges and just in the centre, right above where she was lying, sat the arrangement of blue and purple hydrangea I had placed. Blue had always been her favourite. 

Carefully placed onto the casket was a photo. I remember the day it was taken. We had headed down the country to visit cousins she had not seen for many, many years. I’d never seen her so excited, the car journey was filled with tales of mischief and fun from the good old times, unknowing at the time that the weekend itself would end up being full of new moments of ridiculous antics to one day look back on. The photo was snapped just before we departed, one final group picture to mark the moment. Never did I think we’d be looking back at it in this way. But she was beautiful in it, her smile radiating pure joy, her face flushed a gentle rosy pink. 

I saw her yesterday. 

I saw her one last time before they sealed her off forever. 

She was different but she was still beautiful. Black hair framed her now porcelain face. The coroner had done a good job to make her appear as she had in life but there were small details that I knew she wouldn’t have been happy about. Her lashes were coated too thickly in black makeup, she hated how that felt, and her lips were painted too light, she always preferred to wear darker shades of red, garnet or crimson, rather than natural pink shades. I used to question why she would take so long to choose a colour before we would head out, but now I understood and now I would do anything to listen to her mumble about matching colours just one last time. The hour passed and the service ended. 

“It was a beautiful service Patrick, yer a great fella, she’ll be with us forever.”

“The prayers were lovely Pat, she’d have been happy, I know she is now too.”

One final hand reached for mine, “God be with you Patrick,” the priest nodded and concluded the ceremony. 

The months passed unremarkably, most days consisting of working the bog, cutting and stacking peat until the evening sun began to shine its golden glow. It got cold on the marsh quickly and at this time of the year it got dark much earlier too. 

“Come on Paddy, how ‘bout we wrap this up eh?”, Hanley, my old friend, yelled from the far end of the bog. 

We stumbled from the land as the sun became a narrow strip on the horizon, cutting it too close really. You never want to be wandering the marshlands with no light. It's a dangerous place in the dark for many reasons. Some are silly superstitions of ghosts but others much more reasonable, such as twisting an ankle or finding yourself in a soft spot of soil and ending up getting sucked into the earth. 

My hands stung from picking at the tough dirt for hours and my back and knees ached from the hunched over movements. The day had been fresh, the air relatively warm and so plenty of peat was cut, ‘a good day's work’ as one would say. There was no better way to end it than to ease those aches and pains with a couple of drinks. 

“Good evenin’ Mary.”

“Hello boys, is it yer usual yer havin’?”. 

“Yeah it will be, first rounds on me Paddy.” 

Hanley handed his cash to Mary while the Guinness sat and we made ourselves comfortable at the bar counter. 

Friendly words flew across the bar between myself, Hanley and Mary until she handed over our Guinness with their perfectly poured heads. 

“Can I ask ye something Pat?”, Hanley spluttered as he slurped into the cream of that black nectar, “Tell me if I’m being too insensitive of course but I’ve really been wonderin’ and I know ye don’t like to talk about it but”, Hanley paused but proceeded tentatively, “how did our dear Shelley pass?.”

The question crept instantly into unhealed wounds, and I could feel the lump already building in my throat. 

Coughing before I spoke, “Well she choked Hanley and I couldn’t save her.”

 His face softened, but a sense of shock rippled throughout each one of Hanley’s features, “How do you mean Pat?.” 

I took a breath, “Well, we were having dinner, the plain ol’ usual, chicken and mash. God almighty, I miss her dinners, they were somethin’ else,” a moment passed as I briefly reminisced, “We were chatting about our day in between mouthfuls as we normally do, would. Anyway, I don’t know what happened, she must’ve taken her breath wrong but suddenly she was awfully quiet. Lookin’ at her she’d gone a bit red, so I gestured to her glass thinkin’ she’d just need a bit o’ water,” I swallowed hard, pushing down the ever growing lump, “but all she could do was wave for me. She couldn’t even cough Hanley, she went so red, so so red. I sprinted to her, hitting her back but nothin’. Then I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed and jumped. I tried so hard Hanley, I couldn’t do it, nothin’ moved. I did it for so long, so, so long, even after she went limp in my arms,” I couldn’t stop them now, my tears fell atop the bar, joining the expanding puddles of spills from my drink as my body and hand uncontrollably shook. 

“Ah Paddy, forgive me, I know it’s all still fresh but I hope yer managin’. Yer a good man, be easy on yerself’,” he spoke softly, sorrow in his voice. Mary at some point had found her way back to our end of the bar. She planted a gentle touch on my shoulder and laid another Guinness in front, “this one’s on me boys.”

We sat in silence then, thoughts and grief occupying all the spaces in my mind as I drank. 

“I think I’m gonna call it a night Hanley,” I said after finishing my pint. 

“Will you be alright by yerself now?.” 

“Ah I’ll be alright, I’ve had to get used to this whole walkin’ home by myself thing.”

“Alright Pat, if you need me I’ll be here for a couple more, you can always pop back in.”

“Will do, friend, thank you.”

We shook hands, I waved Mary goodnight and headed out into the bitter air, the chill refreshing my lungs and throat. 

The walk home was a peaceful one. The bogland meant there wasn’t much noise coming from the surrounding landscape. Not many animals lived out here where it was so barren, so it was just me and the crickets for company. The moon was high and a gentle glow revealed the path home. Stars speckled the sky and I examined each one as I went, even the ones all the way down along the horizon where they came to an end at the point the land met the sky. Well that’s how it should be anyway, but ever so faintly, within the marsh, a small blue light sat low on the ground. It was as if a star itself had fallen and landed in the boggy abyss. Squinting into the dark, I gave my eyes a moment to adapt to the view, attempting to make out exactly what the light could be. 

“Perhaps the moonlight is just catchin’ on somethin’ Pat,” I breathed into the cold night. The moon could easily be reflecting off a small pool of water but the hue of the blue light was convincing enough to me to go and have a closer look. 

“Need to be careful out here Pat, take it slow”. 

I watched every step as I went, cautiously tapping my foot onto the soil with gentle pressure before I completely set it down. I didn’t want to fall, or sink. 

Closer and closer I crept and as I did, the blue light grew larger, its shape beginning to change. What started off as a small orb, almost like a simple floating flame, was growing and morphing into something much larger. 

“You must be dreaming Pat, those drinks must’ve been too much for you tonight,” I laughed at what I was seeing and rubbed my eyes and patted my cheeks to wake myself up and snap myself back into the real world, but when I opened my eyes, I was instead met with something even

better than a dream. I was met with an angel, a fallen star from the heavens sent from God himself. 

“Shelley!?” 

Her silhouette, shining within the cobalt light, illuminated the swamp around her. She was beautiful, her face held a warm expression, her lips bright and she was flowing. Her hair moving, wisping delicately up to the sky like the ends of flame. In fact, all the edges of her body seemed to rise into tiny flames and sparks, she was made entirely of whatever this blue fire was. 

A gentle whisper echoed through the night, “Patrick.”

“Oh Shelley, my love, how am I seeing you? I miss you so much.”

Within a second the smoke vanished and I was left alone in the night once again. 

“Shelley, no, please come back!.”

As if answering my call another small blue sphere appeared in the distance. Seconds passed and it once again began to shift, contorting into the figure of a woman. I could see her arms, waving at me to come to her, pulling me further into the bog, I needed to see her. “Patrick,” she echoed from a distance. 

“I’m coming Shelley.”

I stepped eagerly towards her, my pace quickening as I trudged through the swamp. My foot sank briefly into a loose area of soil and with some effort I pried it free, my shoe almost pulling off on release, “Be careful Pat, don’t forget yer on the bog now.”

Shelley waited for me, wisping gracefully where she stood, but this time something was amiss. Her warm expression had extinguished and instead her face was gaunt, her lips were paler but her eyes were a darker blue, almost black, and she wore anger, no, sadness on her face. 

“Shelley, what’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?.” 

I reached out into the fire, hoping she would reach back to me but instead, as my hand touched her, she vanished. 

She was cold, there was no heat to these flames and looking at my fingers, they did no damage either. I scanned the everglade for any obscure light and surely enough, just ahead, another blue speck bounced along the clay. 

I hurried to her but as I neared, the orb pulled further away. I was chasing a light I could not reach, “Will ye stop moving, just wait for me Shelley, just wait, would ye hold on!,” my voice was harsh, annoyed at the way she was forcing me to run to her, but it seemed that it worked, the bulb now sat still, waiting for me once again. 

I found myself panting, the extra weight from the thick mud building on my shoes adding more effort to my steps. But once my breath returned and my vision cleared, I studied the fluorescence adjacent to me. Instead of Shelley, I was now staring into our little kitchen. Shelley sat in her usual seat at the end of the table and across from her was a man, me. It was dinner, bowls and plates of chicken and mash sat across the wooden table. 

“No,” my sigh was barely audible as I realised I was watching an echo of the night I lost her. We were both eating, nothing unusual, I could see our mouths moving as we chatted about our day. A second passed, one moment I sat eating, the next, I was standing, finger pointed like a dagger to my wife. There was no sound, no voices, but with the movements I made and the anger

behind them, I was glad I couldn’t hear my awful words. I stayed like that for quite a while, yelling uncontrollably in her direction. Meanwhile Shelley sat, still as a mouse, afraid to move. One small motion and suddenly all the food I had been dining on was swiped onto the floor by my own hand, and the man marched over to his wife, hands clasping around her throat. I could not watch, I did not know this man, this wasn’t me. 

“Why are you showing me this?.” 

The scene faded, the light dead and gone. I followed on towards the next orb, it played the same scene, the same scenario of the man killing his wife, choking her until she went limp in his arms. The next light showed the same, and the next and the next. 

“What is happenin’!?.”

I threw my hands into the smoke of the next orb, my movement pushing the air around, but with some haunting magic, the blue mist returned back to exactly how it was before, playing the same scene over and over again. 

“I didn’t do it, I didn’t do’ anythin’,” I screamed into the night, chasing after the next faint blue light, “She choked, do you hear me, she choked on her food, I couldn’t save her,” I launched my body through the next flame, “I would never hurt her, I loved her!.” 

Another light, another jog, another punch of my fist through its centre, shaking my arms pathetically to disperse the mist. Multiple orbs appeared around me, all changing, all animating that exact moment, playing it over and over again. 

“Please stop, I didn’t mean it. I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t know what I was doing!.”

The orbs continued to perform their show, and slowly began to edge their way closer to me.

I stared at my hands, how could they have done this? How could I have done this to my love? How had I convinced myself I had not? The guilt was a black pit in my stomach, I felt it scrapping the edges of my mind. Black webs appeared in my vision, I was being drowned within my own consciousness. I went to move, but my feet would not budge. Throughout all this madness, I forgot where I was, no longer watching my pacing and where I stepped. I slammed my eyes shut, I couldn’t take this. 

“Open your eyes, open your eyes, look what you done, look what you done”, the whispers filled my mind, filled the darkness within my head, they clawed at every small crack, “You did this, you did this, open your eyes.” 

I opened my eyes. I was surrounded entirely by the blue light, consumed completely within. My feet were deep in the soil, the weight of my body pushing me further down, the cobalt hands of my fate pulling me down from below. Tears fell in the swirling mist encircling my legs, disappearing within that airy lagoon. 

“Oh Shelley, my sweet sweet Shelley, I'm sorry.”

Mud squelched as I sank, lower and lower I went, water making its way through my clothes wherever it could, I couldn’t fight it, I shouldn’t fight it, I had murdered her. The blue fog grew higher and took a new shape, Shelley’s silhouette appearing once again. A sad, cadaverous face stared at me and unlike before, this time she did reach out to me, hands resting on my shoulders. Somehow I could feel weight to her arms, an extra fragment of pressure pushing down on my body. 

She was not here to help me. 

“My dear,” I stared into her eyes, my head creeping dangerously close to the earth, “I’m sorry.”

I took my last breath and watched as a tear slipped from the eye of my love.