I believe in ghosts. I didn’t used to, but the last stretch of years has taught me that ghosts are real. And, they really scare me.
On the one hand, they’re not physically dangerous. They don’t have a physical presence or mode of interaction that can cause me physical insult or injury. On the other hand, simply by their absence, they do great harm. They disequilibrate. They distract. They confuse. They sadden. They cause worry, and worse.
In the last couple of years, I’ve been haunted by a string of ghosts, characters in my life who vanish with little or no warning. Characters whose vanishing felt completely inconsistent with the presence that had preceded it. They disappeared without saying goodbye or thank you. In some instances, they did so in ways that left me affirmatively scared for their well-being. I’m thinking in particular of Milica.
I don’t like having discovered the reality of ghosts. Their existence calls into question many of my previous assumptions about my relationships, about the people with whom I’ve had relationships, about my ability to gauge character. I hate learning about someone that they are comfortable disappearing from a relationship with me without saying as much as goodbye. I hate learning that about them. I hate learning that about my judge of character.
I don’t think I’ve ever really ghosted on anyone. Occasionally, I’ve allowed a relationship to peter out without an explicit goodbye. But in all of those instances, it’s felt quite neutral. And had the person on the other end of the relationship said so much as, “Hey, are we saying goodbye?” or something, I would certainly have responded. It’s not that there was ever a question mark at the end of a message to which I did not respond. Rather, I just let the rhythm of the communication die. That’s not ghosting, in my mind. That’s gracefully allowing two people to avoid an uncomfortable farewell.
Maybe that’s what my ghosts think they’ve done. Graciously, gracefully allowed two people to avoid an uncomfortable farewell. Unfortunately for them, I haven’t at least permitted the gracious, graceful element of it. I tend to reach out repeatedly. To say to Milica, more than once, “I worry about you. Are you okay?” To say to Maxie, “Hey, what’s going on? Where did you go? Why’d you stop talking?” Or, really, “Aren’t you forgetting the promisese you made to me?”
Even though I know ghosts are real, even though I’ve seen them – and been hurt by them – the fact of their existence calls into question my understanding of the workings of the universe, my theological worldview. And, like any devout believer, evidence that contradicts my beliefs has a way of somehow not making a dent in them.