“You shouldn’t be here,” I said.
“Where else am I going to be?”
The voice. Instantly so familiar. A voice I never expected to hear again as long as I lived. I should have been asking how. I should have been in awe, but I wasn’t. In the moment, hearing her speak, just felt right.
She was right behind me. I could sense her, feel her there. I was standing by her grave, on the grass, looking at the headstone, the sun shining in the bright blue sky. A gentle breeze caressed me. I didn’t know if she was there, physically.
“Don’t turn around,” she said.
“But I want to see you.”
“You can’t. That’s not how it works. But I’m here. You get to talk to me.”
“How long for?” I asked.
“For as long as you need me.”
These words hit me like a fist. I realised I was here because I needed her. This wasn’t just a random visit, though of course I’d stood here many times before. Just lately, I’ve been feeling things I can’t put into words. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, but I’ve been getting the sense of doors closing all around me, chances to do something, anything, good with my life slipping away.
And more, I’ve been feeling lonely. All around me, people are settling down together, and I’m still looking for a connection I can’t seem to find. And lately, I thought maybe I had found something, but it’s all become too complicated, and now I’m not so sure, and I’m still alone. And afraid I’ll be that way forever.
I just needed to speak to my old friend. And I don’t know how it happened, but here she was, right behind me, right when I needed her the most.
“I never came to see you,” I said, “and I still don’t know if I should regret that.”
“What do you mean, you never came to see me?”
“The body. When you died. Everyone else came to see you, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.”
I was shaking at this point. Grief I thought I’d kept a lid on, all those years ago, was coming back and overwhelming me.
“How do you remember me?” she asked.
A tough question. She always knew how to ask the tough questions.
There was a picture of her on the gravestone – a beautiful picture that captured so much of her essence. Taken at a moment when she had been so proud. It was iconic Ann. But that wasn’t how I remembered her.
“I remember you smiling,” I said, “always smiling. But more than that. I remember you as kind and wise. As the one woman who always knew what to say, what to do.”
“I’m glad,” she said, “I’m glad that’s how you remember me. You don’t want to remember a cold body. I’d already gone by then. You didn’t need to say goodbye to my body when my soul wasn’t there anymore.”
“I cried for you,” I said.
“I know,” she said, “I was there. I cried too. I cried because I couldn’t hold you and make you better, and let you know that where I am is so beautiful.”
The day she died, I remember coming back home and just knowing, from the way my mum was standing, that something was wrong. She told me in the living room, but I must have moved fairly quickly into the kitchen, because I remember looking at the cracked tile on the floor and wondering why I wasn’t crying. Time was cracked like the tile. I cried on my own in my room, looking at the balloons she’d given me just a week before for my birthday. The bag of Doritos, uneaten on my dressing table, where they remain to this day.
At her funeral, I was determined not to cry. Not in public, not with people watching. But the thought of never seeing her again eventually broke my resolve, and I broke down on my father’s shoulder. Overcome with grief, and out of control. And at that moment, so very, very alive.
“So how can you be here?” I asked.
“I can be anywhere,” she said, “but it’s much more difficult for me to talk. You’re a lucky boy.”
“Oh,” I said, “oh, I am.”
“So,” she said, “now I’m here, you might as well tell me what’s wrong.”
“I don’t even know where to start. Everything just feels wrong. It’s like I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing any more.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I just want to write. That’s all I want. I’ve never wanted to do anything else.”
I’m not a writer, really. Not a proper one. Oh, I can string sentences together, I can tell stories and make words rhyme, but I don’t earn anything from it. I’m unpublished. I lack the patience and self control to write anything long or lasting. I make my money selling electricals in a place I’ve worked in since I was seventeen, with the exception of a year I spent abroad. And every day I go to work and I just feel so unfulfilled.
“So what’s stopping you?” she asked.
“Me,” I said, and suddenly it was very clear. “I mean, what if I write stuff, and nobody reads it?”
“That’s not what you should be writing for,” she said, “write for you, write to make yourself happy, just do what you want to do. You’ve got a lot of life left to live.”
“And what about work?” I asked. “Why do I stay there?”
“Only you can answer that,” she said. “I’m not telling you to give it up, because you need the money. But you work a thirty nine hour week. That leaves plenty of time to do the things you want to do. And maybe if you do, your dreams will come true.”
“It’s not just that, though,” I said. “Sometimes I just feel so alone. I’ve given up looking for somebody to share my life with, because I just don’t believe he’s out there.”
“I’m not going to patronise you and say there’s someone for everyone. Some people go through life and never find anyone. But all you can do is just live your life with an open mind and an open heart. Don’t give up on being happy, even if feeling sad seems easier.”
And she was gone.
I suppose she’d told me the things I wanted to hear. Or the things I needed to hear.
I picked up a couple of stones from the ground and placed them on top of the headstone. It’s an old Jewish custom, I believe, but I like it. It feels more lasting than flowers.
I walked away, into the sunlight.
