Albrecht Dürer: Descent of the Holy Ghost (c. 1510)

“I must be the ghost of my Christmases past …”

The Muse, my son Wilder, and I reverently stood in shock over my daughter's gravestone. The conflict inherent in seeing evidence of a member of the next generation gone took my breath. Whatever story I might have conjured to explain her absence these last two years and ten months resolved itself in granite, for there it was, the name my first wife Betsy and I had given our darling baby daughter, etched in stone, the stone of her maternal great grandmother with whom she shared the name Astrid and now her grave. I've always loved that name, and it so well complemented her first name, Heidi. Heidi Astrid, 1982 - 2021: was her presence already receding, or was ours just proceeding onward?

There are many reasons we pray that our children will outlive us here. We hope to avoid the grief none of us were equipped to adequately deal with. We want to preserve the order we imagine regulates this world. We want someone left to care for us as we once cared for our parents. At first, after Heidi went, she seemed everywhere. Not a minute, not a thought existed independent of her presence. Later, that presence became more intermittent as her story settled. She was writing no new chapters while I was continuously producing. I might reasonably wonder who became the ghost when Heidi left us, for her story settled while mine continued roiling. I stumble upon a fresh chapter every morning, just as she once did. Now, she inhabits a settled story, one with all its elements figured, all its angles measured.

I stood in the rain wondering who was a ghost and who wasn't. I concluded that if either of us were a ghost, it would have had to have been me, for I was the sole indistinct entity present. I was the one still capable of haunting. I was the one unsettled. I was still searching for answers without always believing I might find them. I was the one still wandering this world. Heidi, wherever she is now, whether her spirit rests in that forest stream where we spread most of her ashes or beneath her great-grandmother's gravestone where her mother has left a few, her spirit certainly seems at rest. Mine's the one that's still restless, like her brother's and The Muse's. While standing there in that drizzle, I realized that if anyone there was a ghost, then I certainly was and, more certainly, still am.

While preparing for Thanksgiving Dinner, The Muse felt something crawling up her back. Investigating, she found a ladybug on her blouse. I'd always held the ladybug to represent my darling daughter, though she insisted she'd rather be considered a butterfly. My notion held more than her wishes, so ladybugs now carry a special significance for me and The Muse. They will always, for us, be representatives of Heidi on this earth, clear and present evidence that she once existed and that her presence made a real difference. These stories The Muse and I project every time we see one of these insects amount to a haunting as if we were the ghosts walking and Heidi, at most, the object of our roaming.

I feel certain that I'd always gotten this concept precisely backward. I was the ghost, not my darling daughter, and never a single one of the dearly departed. They've completed their haunting. It's us who continue rattling chains and unsettling ourselves. It's us who cannot quite decide whether we're wave or particle. The departed resolved every damned dichotomy in the instant they departed. It's us, the living, who still hold the mystery alive. We still question and project meaning. We will one day go to rest and cease our aimless haunting, leaving the job to others still standing to carry on. I must be the ghost of my Christmases past, for yesterday I heard a song I remembered hearing when Heidi was tiny, and we were driving to Medford for Christmas.

"Who's got a beard that's long and white?
Santa's got a beard that's long and white.
Who comes around on a special night?
Santa comes around on a special night.

Special night – beard that's white.

Must be Santa, must be Santa
Must be Santa, Santa Claus."

-Hal Moore and Bill Frederick

And to all, a good night.

©2023 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #GoodNuff, #PureSchmaltz