Mourning

Here I sit in a dark room of a hollow home thinking about the warm walls that once stood here that radiated with love and happiness. A sound comes from the other room. A ghost is moving around in the kitchen. She breathes she blinks and, amazingly, she speaks. No more than a few words of course for she is only a shadow; an empty shell that lingers here on earth and waits for her body to age. I get up quickly and walk towards the door. I cannot bare to stay around this shadow.
My car rumbles to life in the harsh winter air that burns my lungs with its frigid taste. I shiver and hope the heater kicks up soon. Without thinking I drive to the graveyard. It is not until I see the large metal archway that is the entrance to the graveyard that I realize where I am. Of course the gate is closed but the four foot gate is not enough to warn me away. I nimbly jump over the gate into the graveyard. Stone angels watch me as I walk to a grave. The grave of a person I loved and lost. THe grave of the ghost, my shadow. The name engraved on the stone read: TOM MILLER BELOVED HUSBAND. LOVED FATHER AND FRIEND. 1950-1999. Ironically this is not the name of my ghost, but rather cause of her death.
My father was never kind or caring. He was a greedy bastard with a mean streak that reared its ugly head every night he came home with whiskey on his breath. His giant fists would caress me everynight and left black bruises the next day.How my mother could ever love such a man was beyond me. She idolized him and refused to leave him despite all the trips to the hospital. Despite all the times my eyes looked a her helplessly. She was with him for 20 years.
When my father was gone everything was right. My mother would sing softly while she cooked us dinner. She would help me with my homework every night and shower me with affection. She crooned over my accomplishments. An A on my math test, a squiggly drawing that made her praise my artistic ability. This warm home during the day made up for the long cold horrifying nights.
Then that night occured. The night when my father never came home. My heart sung with joy for there would be no fists to pummel me but mother's tears caused my heart to break as well. Silently she sobbed in the room next to mine. I could her heaving breathes gasping for air until she became silent from exhaustion. They found him dead the next day out in the back of a bar. HE was not stabbed or shoot. He just fell asleep in the freezing tempetures. I was glad it was peaceful becuase it made it easier for my mother to bare his death, but I personally would wish for a violent death as retribution. We held a wake for our BELOVED father and LOVED FRIEND. People gathered from work and the neighborhood to help my mother out. At the funeral people spoke of a strong man who loved life and helped everyone he could. They spoke of a man who was kind and caring. A man who was brave and courageous. I wondered waht man they spok eof for surely it coul dno t be the man in the casket. The man I was supposed to call father.
It was around this time mother fled her body. People said it was only expected for her to act this way. She lost the man she loved overtime she would get better. People told me just to hang in there. It would blow over. But it never did. If anything it got worse. In the begining she would smil eat an old memory of dad. Some kind of funny memory that I would never be able to recall. But as times passed and these memories began to fade she became less animated. Now and then I would see a glint of the caring mother I once knew but just as it came it flashed away. SO now a ghost walks in the hollows halls of the cold house. Barely living. I am take care of her as one would take care of an infant. She forgets to eat. She can not do the simpliest task by herself. I believe without my help she woul dfade all together.
People believe losing people to death is worse than losing a best friends who still lives. And yet I say it is worse. For when their soul is gone but their body is here you are reminded everyday that person breathes of what they used to be. Of who they were. The memories of a dead person can be neatly tucked away after a few years. But when they are still alive, still living you can not do that.