Posthumous
When I was a kid growing up, I'd thought that ghosts were the souls of those who had died unhappily. It sucks to be right about the wrong things. I've learned a lot about death the twenty years since my own.
I'd like to regale people with a heart-rending tale of one who died young , bravely facing their cruel fate. but as this is the first thing I've written since my death, I think I ought to lay the facts out straight. I lived until the age of twenty, then I committed suicide. People said, "Oh how tragic, so young, so much potential. What a waste of a life," but they didn't know. It wasn't their life.
I'm sure readers are wondering at this point how a ghost is writing a story. In a word: science. Science and technology have come a long way since my lifetime. When I was born, there was no such thing as a CD player, and personal computers were just a twinkle in their inventor's eye. Two young scientists, college kids actually, invented a machine that could communicate with the dead. This machine is a lot like a computer, but it picks up thought without requiring the use of a key board; a good thing for me since I no longer possess the ability to type. As luck would have it my old home was on the site of their dorm, and I was the first spirit they happened across. At first they thought that the machine was picking up one of their thoughts, but I soon convinced them that I was real, not a prank one was playing on the other. They agreed to let me be their first subject, allowing me a way to tell my story, if I let them publish the results "for posterity". I was game, it's not like I have a lot to do anyway.
These scientists asked me to document two things, what my life was like, and what it's like being a ghost. Who ever thought my life would be of interest to anyone but me? I can just picture my story being made into a TV movie.
I was born in nineteen seventy seven. Disco was popular, the Vietnam conflict had just ended, and people wore ugly clothing. I was the youngest of four children. Another girl, not entirely welcomed. My parents were poor, and we lived in a housing project in southern Massachusetts. The first thing that I can remember is being four years old, sitting in my little wading pool splashing the water and listening to my mother yell at my oldest brother for selling drugs. My brother was thirteen at the time, that just shows what type of family I had.
When I started school my teachers thought I was "bright". They told my mother this, and I spent my childhood paying for it. My mother became fixated on the idea that one of her children was going to make it in life, and she would do anything to make that happen. Anything turned out to be locking me in my room so I would study, and beating me for anything less than A's. I remember getting a beating and being grounded for a month because I got a B+ in art during the fourth grade. My dad didn't rag on me about my grades, I must give him credit where it's due, but that was because he was too busy drinking to forget his problems. Dad had a few problems that were worth forgetting, I'll admit.
I was so jealous of my sister as we grew up, she got decent grades, but my mother left her alone because she wasn't as smart as I supposedly was. Sometimes I wished I was like her, just a normal kid who faded into the woodwork. But I'd feel guilty thinking things like that, my mother drilled it into me that I ought to be proud of my "gift". As if being thought of as a rarity and not fitting in was a gift.
I'd like to think that my mother had my best interests at heart. She genuinely seemed to want me to do well with my life. But I can't help but think that my success was more about her than it was about me. My mother wasn't very well educated, and didn't finish high school before marrying my father. She was one of those people who seemed to live through others. She bragged about her children, as if to say to the world "I might not be much, but look at these children". I remember when my brother Scott made the winning basket in his high school's championship game. My mother brought him out in front of all her friends and started bragging about what a good basketball player he was. He fled the room, red faced, as soon as she looked away for a moment. My mother later yelled at him for being rude in front of her friends. I was always one to stand there and take it; I wanted to escape that kind of attention, but never had the nerve to rebel against it.
Maybe if I had been the rebel type my life might have been different. I didn't rebel because I couldn't bear the thought of my parents' disapproval. My parents were the only ones who loved me, but that was of course because I wasn't allowed to have friends. My mother thought that having friends would distract me from my studies, so she set about to convince me that friends were of no value. I almost believed her, believed that I need no one but my family and that friends were something others need to hang onto out of weakness. Butthat was before I actually had a friend.
His name was Mark, and we were in all the same classes together in high school. We became friends when we started to do our homework together during study hall. At first we only helped each other to understand our work, but eventually we started to understand each other too. The high school we went too allowed Juniors and Seniors with a 3.0 gpa or better to go home early instead of staying for the otherwise mandatory last period study hall. I forged my parents signatures on the permission slip, and never told them about the policy. I never worried about them finding out about that policy, it hadn't been around when my siblings were in high school. And my parents kept to themselves by the time I was in high school, so there was little chance of them finding out from a classmate's parents. I felt guilty anyway, but I convinced myself that what they didn't know wouldn't hurt me.
Mark and I started a ritual of going down by the river to talk during those stolen hours. The hours down by the river were fun. It was the only time I actually felt like a normal kid. I felt free from the restrictions my parents placed on me. Mark and I talked about normal kid things, music and movies and the future. Sitting on the bank of the river, a little mud on the cuffs of my jeans and skipping rocks, I felt that I looked like a normal kid, and less like Langston Hughes's "genius child" who was shunned by all.
As I peered into that cold clear water it reflected back to me what I must have appeared to look like to others; a thin girl with long jet black hair and big, haunted, blue eyes. I swore the river's surface was magical, that could not be my true self. My mother had stressed so often that brains were far more important than beauty, that I believed myself to be less than plain. I never thought to ask her why she wanted me to think that intelligence was my only gift, and I doubt she could have given me a good answer.
Eventually I fell for Mark. I suppose that was inevitable, he was the only one who seemed to look past my studious exterior and see a real person inside. Mark was my favorite person in the world. He was the only one who did not expect things from me. A whole trail of people followed me around expecting me to be brilliant at every second, but Mark was never one of them. He was the only person who ever said to me
" Michelle, you're too hard on yourself." Everyone else, my "fans", fed me honey covered words and stood ready to crush me under their pressure if I failed to live up to their expectations. Mark stood by me as I worried about my mother's goals for me, the ones I knew I hadn't a prayer of ever reaching. And it was his shoulder that I cried on the day I got a B on a history paper and was scared to tell my parents.
I think I also loved Mark for what he represented - a normal life. Some afternoons we ended up at his house instead of the river. His house was my idea of paradise. His parents both worked, so they never had to wonder where the money for the mortgage payment was going to come from. No one in his house drank, so he could count on his dad being sober all the time. And his mother never raised voice or hand to Mark or his brother. I didn't want a family like Brady Bunch, I just wanted one like Mark's. Whenever I was at his house I felt like a visitor from another country; I didn't understand what was going on around me but it seemed very pleasant. While life in Mark's home rushed on it's busy path, I'd sit enchanted with what most would consider a normal boring life. It was Mark's family that I would always hold up as the ideal I wanted to find in my own future.
No matter why I fell in love with him, Mark did not return my affections. He gave me that line that twists like a knife in the heart "I think of you as a friend or sister.", and invited someone else to the prom. Not that my parents would have let me go, they insisted that I study for the S.A.T's before I took it the last time instead. But it would have been nice to have him ask me… I was completely crushed, but valiantly decided to stay friends with him. I didn't want to lose him anymore than I already had. Even after I convinced myself that I'd gotten over his rejection, I still had daydreams of telling him about a new boyfriend and watching for signs of despair and jealousy.
I was accepted to every college I'd applied to. This didn't surprise me, but my mother would become all solemn and nervous each time a letter came from one of the colleges. I picked the one that had the best pre-med. program, because I wanted more than anything to be a doctor when I grew up. Mark went to a different college, but we were still friends even though we rarely saw each other after graduation. In a way I think that only taking on the phone and writing letters was what saved out friendship, we never had to mention what might have been.
I got through the first two years of college by the skin of my teeth. It wasn't that the course work was the problem, I found that easy. Money was the problem. I had loans, but they didn't come close to covering my tuition. My parents were in no position to help me, so I had to shoulder the cost alone. To make up the difference I worked more than I should have during the school year and everyday during the summer. I started to become so stressed about how I would afford college, and trying to balance schoolwork against a job that I stopped sleeping for the most part. Even when I had the time to sleep I'd just lay in bed wondering if I should pick up another shift at work, and if I did how would I get my papers and studying done, and if I didn't how would I afford the next semester.
Eventually the stress became so great I went to see a psychologist. I didn't tell parents this because they equated seeing one with being crazy. The doctor seemed not to truly care about what I felt, but he did prescribe me Valium. I was just glad that the cost of the pills and the visits were covered by the school heath insurance. By taking the Valium I was able to become less stressed, and felt better about myself besides being able to sleep.
Once I was less stressed, I didn't spend every weekend locked in my room working or worrying. I gained something that I had missed out on growing up- a social life. I quickly learned that, if I made myself accessible for friendships, people liked being around me. I was still a basic good girl, kept out of trouble, didn't let my grades slip, except in history which was the bane of my academic success my whole life, but I was having fun too. I went everywhere with my new friends, and formed some fairly close friendships in a short time. I developed a love for plays, poetry readings and sports. At times I found myself in awe that this person who was now laughing and joking with friends was me.
And to my even greater surprise, I found that guys liked it when I focused my serious eyes on them, rather than on my books. The pain of Mark's rejection drifted away under the surge of requests for dates I received. I was still fairly shy, and turned most of the dates down, but I did meet one guy who's persistence melted me. His name was Aaron, and within a couple of months of our meeting we were going out. I loved Aaron because he seemed to love me back. No one else ever showed me the type of affection that he did.
My favorite memory of time with Aaron was the trip we took to Boston. We'd taken his black lab puppy, Smoke, with us and the puppy would run to the end of his lead, yelping with excitement. It was raining and gray that day, but we kept dry under Aaron's big blue and white umbrella. Smoke seemed oblivious to the rain. The homeless we saw were not so lucky, but hid in doorways to keep a little drier. I tried to forget them and focused on Aaron instead. I kept my arm around his waist, enjoying his closeness. His eyes sparkled excitedly as he pointed out various buildings of importance around the city. Then he pointed to a high-rise apartment, and I couldn't figure out the significance of it. He said that that was where we were going to live when we were married. He leaned close to me, kissed me, and told me that he loved me.
By the end of my sophomore year I really felt alive. I kept my grades up, but now I had friends and a loving boyfriend. I'd finally achieve some sort of balance in my life, and dared to think positively about the future. I dreamed of the time when I might marry Aaron and become a doctor. The Valium lay forgotten in the top drawer of my dresser.
My bliss was short; things began to unravel at the beginning of my Junior year. Aaron and I broke up. I found out that he was seeing my friend Pam behind my back. So, when I broke up with him I lost a friendship and Aaron himself. The thought of being alone consumed me. I had trouble dealing with the idea of being alone, but I thought that if both Mark and Aaron had found someone else over me that it proved that there was something about me that was utterly unlovable. I turned down all dates out of fear; I was afraid that if I started to see someone new it would only be a matter of time before he gave up on me.
As much as losing Aaron hurt, it wasn't what sent me to the edge. I lost one of my loans. There was a mix-up in the finical aid office at the state level, and my loan agreement was never filed. By the time I discovered the problem the money had been given to someone else, and it was too late to request another loan from the government. I tried getting another type of loan, but I was a bad credit risk being so young, so no one would lend to me without a co-signer. My parent's credit was too poor to get a loan, they'd been turned down for one not long before this, so I didn't even bother to ask them. And to my horror my one poor mark in history kept me from being able to get a scholarship. I hadn't worried about the grade until that point, my other grades balanced it out, but every scholarship I found required a 3.2 in each subject. The girl in the financial aid office gave me a sympathic smile, but no encouragement. I knew that there was no way that I was going to be able to pay for school, so I was going to have to drop out.
When it became clear that there was no way I was going to be able to stay in school life ceased to have meaning for me. I refused to think rationally, like I could go back to school some other time. I had become convinced that losing the loan was a judgement on my soul; I was destined to be a failure. I decided that if I left school I would never be able to go back. They had accidentally accepted a loser once, but they'd never accept me now that there was proof of my worthlessness.
I was terrified of the thought of not being in school. That I would have to give up my dream of being a doctor made me doubt my ability of being a success at anything else. I was sure that I would never find a job. And also having failed my relationship with Aaron, I'd be alone as well as a failure. My lofty dreams of someday being a doctor and having a family disappeared. They were instead replaced with a stark picture of me working in some dead-end job and coming home to a tiny, empty apartment. I didn't even allow for the traditional cat in this vision. A cat was something that could be loved and something affection could be derived from and I was sure that I didn't deserve even that.
As I drowned in a wave of dark depression, no one noticed or threw a life rope. I'd become too good at hiding my feelings. No one ever suspected that there was something wrong and I never let on. I didn't go back to the psychologist, because I didn't think that he would care enough to help. I longed to see Mark, he at least I was sure would understand, but the distance was too great and I couldn't bring myself to call him.
I never told my parents about losing the loan. I just couldn't bear the thought of my mother's disappointment. I could hear he accusing voice in my mind each time I rehearsed how I would tell her. Not telling her seemed so much easier.
I believed it was my only choice. I truly thought that living a life without my dreams was worse than not living at all. So, the day before I was to be kicked out of school for non-payment, I went home to see my parents. Much as I hated the pressure my mother put on me, I didn't want to put her in a position where she'd wonder what happened to me with false hope. They never suspected that there was anything wrong. I assuaged their curiosity about me being home by saying there were no classes the next day. I kissed them goodnight after dinner. Then I went up and took the entire bottle of Valium I once thought I no longer needed. I never woke up after that.
Or rather, I never woke up alive that is. I lost a couple of days, because the next thing I was aware of was seeing my mother crying at my graveside. I'm not sure what surprised me more, me seeing her cry over my grave, or her crying at all.
To be at one's own funeral is an odd thing. I tried to tell people that there was a mistake, that I was right in front of them, but no one paid any attention to me. I wondered briefly if it was just some sort of elaborate joke they were playing on me, a fake funeral and ignoring me to scare me into wanting to live. But if it was a joke, their acting was superb. There was even a grave stone, the epithet read:
" Michelle E. Lourin
b. 1/7/77 d.10/29/97
'Taken too soon, you shall be missed' "
They left me there at my grave, and I waited all night for someone to come back and tell me that they were kidding. No one ever came, and by morning I accepted the fact that I was really dead.
At first being a ghost was a shock. I had died believing that heaven or hell followed death. And since I'd thought that suicide was a mortal sin, I was expecting hell if anything. I was torn between being over-joyed that I wasn't in hell and saddened that I wasn't in heaven even though I scarcely thought I deserved it. I now know that both are only ideas people use to comfort or scare themselves, but at the time I was still too new at being dead to understand.
Being a ghost is nothing like I would have imagined it to be. When I wad alive I'd picture ghostly existence to be like that of the character Dana in Octavia Butler's Kindred; one would be a helpful being that could help and advise the living. Or failing that one could haunt houses. Neither comes close to reality.
I can't influence the living at all. Not that I didn't try showing up somewhere and giving good advice, it just didn't work. I stood in my sister's room one night trying to make as much noise as I could, and waved my hands in her face. All I got for my effort was a feeling that I had made an ass of myself. In fact, most people can't see or hear me at all. There are a few people who can tell when they are around a spirit and even fewer who do not dismiss it as their imagination.
I'm not all that much to see actually, though I didn't realize this at first. I can see me, but I think this is just a way to comfort myself, much in the way that I go through the motions of walking when I really don't have to. When I look at myself, I seem almost unchanged from what I was like when I was living. I cast no refection, though. The first time I realized it all I could think was it was vampires that should cast no reflections not ghosts. I guess even the dead are allowed a sense of humor. This did clarify why no one could see me at the funeral.
I'm not stuck haunting a house, I think that ghosts who do haunt a certain place do it out of familiarity. I'm free to roam about as I choose, and I never have to make hotel arrangements. That I was visiting my old house when the scientists showed up was simple luck, I had merely been looking to see if my father was there.
I can't impact inanimate objects either. If I could, I wouldn't have had to wait twenty years to write about my death. Anything I try to touch goes right through me. Some people think that malevolent spirits, poltergeists, can pick up objects and throw them around. This isn't true. What really happens is that someone unaware that they have telekenis, the ability to move objects with the mind, moves the things around.
I scrupulously avoid walking through people. I accidentally let someone walk through me once, and it's not an experience I ever want to have again. It was horrible; I had full access to his mind. They call it a stream of consciousness, but it felt more like a tidal wave. My essence was blocked out as all his fears and thoughts engulfed me. I almost felt sick afterwards, or at least the memory of being ill came to mind; it's pretty much the same thing, all I am is memory now anyway.
I've been half waiting the past twenty years for some grand resolution to occur that that will free me from my ghostly existence. Everyone knows that ghosts are people who died with unfinished business, right? I spent the first four years actively trying to figure out what it was that I had to finish. Now, however, I'm fairly resigned to the fact that people have no idea what they are talking about. I'm always going to be a ghost, and nothing that I do is going to turn me into an angel.
For the lack of anything better to do, I've spent the last twenty years as a spy. Not as one of national intrigue, of course, but as a domestic one. In other words I've been watching the people I know live. I guess I'm a little jealous, but who do I have to blame for that but myself?
The people I watch most closely are family members. They might not have been perfect, but even in death I find myself tied to them. My brothers and sister turned out better than I would have expected. My sister is married and has a loving husband and three beautiful children. My oldest brother stopped selling drugs and settled down to a fairly respectable career as an insurance salesman. My brother Scott did the best for himself. Like our sister he married, and he's the head basketball coach at a college near we grew up.
My parents haven't fared as well as my siblings. My dad died about five years after I did. His liver finally gave out on him after being pickled in strong drink for so many years. His doctors warned him to cut back on drinking when I was in grade school, it's a wonder he lasted that long. I guess he was lucky, he didn't become a ghost. I guess he's just gone all together now, and I wonder if he's achieved something of the peace he had always longed for. And my mom…my mom's the one I feel guilty about. She never really was able to pick up the pieces after I died. My mother, who once took control of everyone and everything, often cannot accept the fact I'm dead. Every so often she'll call Scott up and ask him if he's heard from me. She occasionally tells people that I'm away at school, too. Her doctors say that this reaction stems from guilt. She blames herself for my death, and when the guilt builds up too much, she blocks it out. I'm torn between feeling bad for her, and feeling that she's gotten her just desserts.
I look in on Mark, too. I was really surprised by his reaction to my death. I did expect him to be sad, he was my best friend after all, but…Mark writes poetry about me. Poems about realizing that he's missed the perfect person for him, and he only knew how much he loved her after she died. He's even published a few of them; people seem to buy into that kind of sad melodrama. I only wished he'd of realized I was "the one" twenty-five years ago, when it might have done us some good. Mark teaches science in our old high school. He's head of the science department, so I guess he hasn't done too badly for himself. Mark has never been married.
Aaron never married either. He and my friend Pam broke up right after the funeral. He's never much dated after that, preferring to live single with his ever-present black labs. I was around one day when a friend of his asked him why he was still single.
He said he "didn't want to take the chance of ruining another girl's life." If there was ever a moment that I wished I could talk to the living, that was it. I longed to brush away the wayward tear that was running down his cheek and tell him not to blame himself. But instead I can only watch as he goes back to that apartment in Boston, curls up in his chair, stares into the fire and thinks about me.
I often wonder what I would do if I were given the chance to live my life again. Maybe I would have accepted the cards that fate dealt me and made the best of the situation. Maybe I would have gotten a job and gone back to school after losing a year or two. maybe I would have found a wonderful man and had a few kids. But what ifs make poor twenty years' company.
I hope my scientists are pleased with my account. Though even if they are not there is nothing that they can do to me. I know I said that I believe in neither heaven nor hell, but some small part of me cannot but hope that this account completes my unfinished business, and if it doesn't I've got the time to see what does.
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