Swimming With a Ghost

I could feel the ghost of him next to me. He was swimming and yelling and laughing and splashing the rushing salt water up into my face. When I closed my eyes, avoiding the droplets of the salty sea, it was easy to feel his warm presence contrasting the chilling water. 

Though he wasn’t swimming with me. He wasn’t yelling and laughing by my side, despite how I ached for him to be. Knowing that his ghost was here, in the spot where we met, was not enough to lighten the heaviness of the urn under my left arm. It was not enough to prevent the tears falling from my eyes from hitting the water, making miniscule ripples against crashing waves. 

Almost five years ago we met in this spot, under the same night sky and above the same sandy grains. 

He had approached me first, just after midnight. “Isn’t the water cold this late at night?” 

A chill ran down my spine as I swivelled around, locking eyes with the man standing where the waves met the shore. He was wearing a t-shirt and swim shorts, though it was hard to make out much more of him under the light of the dim silver moon. 

“Only a bit,” I replied, backing away from him as he took a step forward. 

It was a fantasy, how we stayed up that entire night, swimming in the sea and laying in the sand. We talked and laughed in the privacy of the deserted beach, and by the time the sun was rising over the noisy ocean, we were laying in each other’s arms, positive of our undeniable chemistry and the possibility of our blossoming future. 

That night he told me how this was his favorite spot, since he was a little boy visiting with his grandmother. I told him that this was my first time here, but I had a feeling I would be back soon. His grandmother was buried close by, he told me, and he wanted to be close to her. 

The urn under my arm was screaming at me, becoming heavier and more evident with every step deeper into the dark blue abyss. 

Days with him passed quickly and seamlessly. We moved in together after two years of our relationship, and we were engaged after four. Though every day, every hour, every minute felt like a snapshot taken from the first blissful night when he had approached me on the dimly illuminated beach. 

When he died, even the smallest tasks became chores. The memory of us laying in the sand, discussing anything and everything after only five hours of knowing each other, felt like it had happened both the day before and over a lifetime ago. He was everything I did and do and lived for, and in only a second he was gone, vanished from even his favorite place. He was everything I missed and loved, and the sensation of the cold sea hitting my tanned thighs under the navy sky he had absolutely adored reminded me of the first sentence he ever spoke to me. 

Vividly, I could still hear his voice asking:

“Isn’t the water cold this late at night?” 

Closing my eyes, I gently lift the lid from the urn and release him into the moving waves, under the navy sky and silver moon, and whisper my response: 

“Only a bit.” 

My tears slow as I look up to the sky and the stars. 

Though I know it must be simply my imagination playing tricks on me and my mourning and my grief, I am positive that I hear his voice. He tells me that he loves me and that I will be okay; I can hear his groggy voice as he tells me good morning. I can feel him. I know his hand is in mine and I feel his arms around me, pulling me into the familiar tight embrace. I can smell more than just the salt water surrounding me. It smells just like him; his familiar cologne and shampoo - it smells like fresh cedar. I can taste his lips against mine, and I yearn for him just once more. 

Though as quickly as all this came back, with one final whisper that he loves me, he is gone again. I can no longer feel his ghost beside me, as I could when I first entered the water or when all of these sensations surrounded me, a baby trapped in a swaddle and crib. 

He is just a memory now, a memory of the four years I wish could have lasted a lifetime, the four years that should have been a lifetime. 

While walking out of the water, emerging from where I had fallen in love and given it up, I forced myself to turn my back to his favorite place, what had become my favorite place, only to lay down on the sandy shore. 

I can feel the sand sticking to my legs and my back, still drenched with the salty sea water and dripping with reflecting droplets. However, I paid no mind to this and I turned my attention upwards, admiring the full moon above me, and all of the stars that illuminated such a beautiful place. The sky looked strikingly similar to when we had laid here almost five years ago - it had never looked this clear or bright after our meeting, not in any of the six visits we had made since. 

Tonight, the stars mimicked the night that I met him, the night that I found my favorite place and favorite person. And, with the dampened sand pushing against my bare skin, and the emptied urn sitting just next to me, I could feel his presence once more. Not as a ghost, but as a memory, a memory of everything good. 

The stars were bright and the moon was full, and I could feel his memory bursting through them. They were shining for him, clearer than ever, allowing for my person to tell me that he loves me one final time. 

Admiring the sky, I am able to whisper a meek, “I love you, too.” 

And, while I can’t be sure, it appeared as if they became just a bit brighter.