31 - Even Ghosts can Help you Heal.

      Tons of sizzling molten guilt of what-ifs and should-haves resurfaced for the billionth time as I walked down the hallway in the Foreign Language Department building at Canoga Park High School.  Then boing, all of a sudden, Kyle, our dead son, appeared floating in midair, stretched out sideways about five inches over three students’ heads. Cupped in his right palm, his chin rested, and his ankles were crossed. A smirk shone on his young face as he stared down at me.  His jeans and blue T-shirt, as well as his entire body, were semi-transparent. Even with all the students in the hallway passing to their next class, I could still see through him the top of the lockers and the open double doors at the end of the hallway. Seeing my son should have made me laugh, but instead, tears rolled down my face. Quickly, I wiped them off, not wanting the students to see them.

    Kyle pleaded, “Mom, please stop crying. I’m all right. I’m right here.” 

    “I know you are, but you have to give me some time to heal; it’s only been six months since you passed away.” I felt a soft peck on my head and knew I had just been kissed by my son. I sniffled the sadness away, wondering how many students noticed my tears.  Even though Kyle was physically gone from this earth plane, he spiritually was still with me.  “Ha!  You’re now stuck with me every day of your life,” I teased. 

     He cried out, “Noooo… you  gotta give me time to see the girls.”  We both laughed.  That remark was typical of Kyle. 

     I responded, “Yea, that’s all you can do now; just look.” 

     There was a speck of silence. “That’s okay with me. I’m so happy now.”  

     I knew, too, he was finally content.  He always struggled to be what he thought his dad and society expected him to be.  Blurry shadows of students passed me in the hall. Some said, “Hi!” I mumbled something back, still in a trance.  Then I felt this empty feeling.  Kyle wasn’t around anymore. I sighed, still struggling, questioning, is this me missing my son so much that again I was hallucinating that I saw him or thought he was talking to me? Or was this real?  I rarely told Alan about these conversations or visions anymore; sure, he thought it was a part of my grieving, therefore, making it all up.

Kyle would do almost anything just to make his friends laugh.

 And his sense of humor didn't change even after he passed.

     Kyle popped in a lot the first two years after he passed away, and then as I became emotionally stronger, he visited less.  I learned a few techniques that taught me how to cut my ties with him to be where he needed to be. I did not want to be the one who kept him on this earth plane, which wasn't healthy for either of us. Yes, of course, we still talk, but not as much, and I don’t see his physical form anymore because we have our own lives.