Everyday Ghosts

“My father will always be a touchstone ghost. He comes around often, especially late at night when I’m singing…” – Raymond King Shurtz

A touchstone ghost?
My father?
A thick shame falls over the morning…
Mother is dead now too, and her death, still fresh and ungrieved
also hovers

What am I to make of the absence?
parents who consumed so much of my energy –
emotional energy, for sure –

Suddenly, they are gone
and the silence echoes
bouncing off the chamber
where my guilt lies

Was I ever enough?
I thought about walking away
So many times…

But how could I?
One dependent
one abusive
both declaring love

I am not infantile
not rendered immobile
but my heart does falter

If either ghost is a touchstone
it is a measure of progress
a beacon of survival

I wish them both well
and infinite peace
and well, I also wish them gone

It is the relief that comes with their passing
that gives me pause….
am I really that cold-hearted?

No, not cold-hearted
just worn out
and longing to breathe

But ghosts linger
spirit infiltrating
generational layers

and I hear my father’s voice
in my grown son’s compassion –
a side he seldom could convey

and I see my mother’s resiliency
in a granddaughter’s determination

and I know now what the grief is…
the failure to recognize the gifts
amid the constant suffering

Even in war their are blessings
and I’ve forgotten to stop fighting
still hold my breath, waiting
for the fallout

Maybe the ghosts remain
as a reminder

that I survived.

(Written for Holly Troy’s writing prompt: Everyday Ghosts, which invites us to breathe in a prompt (the quotation) and write without pause for 5, 10, 15 minutes.)

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VJ

Permission to write, paint, and imagine are the gifts I gave myself when chronic illness hit - a fair exchange: being for doing. Relevance is an attitude. Humour essential.

63 thoughts on “Everyday Ghosts”

  6. Golly, VJ. how spectacular is this! I listened to you read it: an added layer of beautiful as the pauses fell right where they resonate. I love your voice. Thanks for sharing this lovely piece. May those ghosts depart and when you see phantoms of those ghosts within your family, know that’s just the way it is: they inter-are! I bless you.

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  10. VJ, I love this poem, so moving and honest in its emotions. All of our parents have passed, and while they were wonderful, they weren’t flawless. But their flaws weren’t horrible or abusive, so we remember the good moments. It’s very surreal losing all parents, and then us becoming the foundation. And no, you’re not cold-hearted. ❤️

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    1. Thank you, Lauren. Unfortunately, my father was abusive, but at my age I realize that he was acting out of his own pain – a fact my inner child has yet to grasp. 🤗

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  11. VJ – this is an exceptional piece, your profound words speak to our core; the kite string that tethers a child to a parent
    am

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  15. Wow, VJ, this is so heart felt. Your words, “I know now what the grief is… / the failure to recognize the gifts amid the constant suffering” I have felt these emotions but never put them in words. Not felt for my parents but for my first husband, my sister’s husband. I think coming to grips with the complexity of those who hurt us, not just their hurtful side, is very healing for the one left behind. Sounds like you are doing the healing journey as well. I wish you peace.

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    1. Thanks so much, LuAnne. complexity is a good word. If I’m honest, my own pain has hurt others. I feel as if it is a cycle unless we consciously do the work to break the cycle.

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  18. Oh, my. Normally, I choose to read poems to myself even when they are accompanied by an audio file. Today, I clicked the audio link and read along. Such power in the spoken word here. Is this you, VJ, reading your poem? It is both powerful and lovely. My father died in 2007 and Mom, now 88, is contending with a number of health concerns. More than once, I’ve contemplated what her passing will be like. Certainly, it’s not anything to be avoided. Your poem, strangely enough, comforts me. Thank you for sharing it with us. BIG HUG for you from me!

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    1. It is my voice (old and faltering, lol.). Like you, my dad died a while back. Last couple of years have been waiting and wondering for mom. She chose assisted dying in May. It puts us in such an odd spot, being orphaned as an adult, realizing we are now the elders.

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  25. It’s never easy, to, find the resolves with those who were, supposed to love us, but instead had, injured us severely, and, forgiveness, doesn’t, won’t, and, should, never come easily, and, a lot of times, even after those who hurt us had been gone for a long, long time, we still, can find that, forgiveness, but,

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    1. we keep on, trying to, fond ways, and, we never stop looking, until we finally, forgive ourselves for, being, tii, vulnerable, too, naive and, trusting toward, our own, next of, kin. Betrayalsvare, especially hard to deal with, when it’s the one we trusted completely and wholeheartedly who, damaged us.

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  27. Hi VJ, a moving poem. Interestingly, I asked my husband today if he missed his father who died when Michael was 3 weeks old (nearly 18 years ago). He said no, that life moves on. Even more interesting is the fact that I sometimes think of his father. Maybe it’s different people.

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    1. I think you are right about that. My husband was just talking about his father, yesterday, who died when Ric was 23 (50 years ago). We all deal with loss differently, I guess.

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