I died at the age of sixteen.
To this day, I can still faintly feel the memory of my untimely death reverberate through the invisibfle substance of my spirit.
I can’t remember what I’d been doing, or where I’d been going. I can’t remember who I’d been talking to on the phone, or what joke it was that had me clutching my sides, gasping for breath in the middle of the dark, desolate road.
All I remember is stepping my foot onto black asphalt as deafening claps of thunder roared above me, the soft padding of the rain as it pittered and pattered against the surface of my umbrella, the streaks of lightning as they illuminated the black skies overhead.
The rumble of the ground beneath my feet.
The screeching of tires.
Look around. Stop.
Freak accidents happen all the time, but only ever to other people— people on the news, people in countries thousands of miles away from my own, people whose lives were estranged and distant.
Look!
I thought I would be okay.
Frantic headlights fell upon me like a spotlight, forming a halo around my winter-coated frame; the next few seconds were not seen through my own eyes, but from elsewhere, as if my spirit left my body before the truck ever had a chance to make contact.
I saw myself standing there, a girl frozen in time, my brain not yet aware of the events that were to come— and then seconds later, pain.
Indescribable, unbearable pain.
I was swept off my feet as the umbrella flew from my grasp, and I fell, down, down, down, until a loud CRACK resonated through my skull and a paralyzing numbness engulfed me. My breaths left my punctured lungs like helium from a tightly sealed balloon; blood streamed from my broken skull in rivers, swirling into the waters that fell steadily from the skies.
The truck kept moving. Kept going. The tires scrunched over my bones, treaded over my flesh, before coming to a slow, hesitant stop.
Pain.
It is the only thing I remember. It is the only thing that reminds me of what it was to be human. Moments before it faded, a familiar face appeared before me, sad eyes crinkling over a sad smile as it leaned down to place a wispy kiss on my cheek. Then even the pain was gone.
I feel nothing now.
I am so terribly…
Irrevocably…
Permanently…
Dead.
I wish I could feel something, anything at all. Anger. Joy. I’d even settle for melancholy.
If I could, maybe I would’ve felt sadness for my mother, who cried all throughout my funeral. Maybe I would’ve felt amused at my two little cousins, who tried to take selfies with the casket that held the remains of my mangled form. I might’ve even felt some sympathy for my brother, my horribly aggravating brother, who snapped at their inappropriate behavior.
I would give anything for him to aggravate me one last time.
I couldn’t tell how long the funeral lasted. The turnout was larger than I would have expected— classmates and teachers I’d never even spoken to, people I’d never even met in my life who were grieving for me, sharing their condolences with my family members.
My best friend, Jaki, was stony-faced throughout the funeral; she hardly spoke or shed a tear. I wondered if she cried before coming, or if she would afterwards, or both, or none. I wanted to comfort her, but how could I do so when I was the cause of her pain?
When the funeral ended, I waited as the last few members of my family piled into the car, watching as they faded from view. I have not seen any of them since.
When I think about that moment, all I feel is a distant pang of longing, and beyond that, emptiness. I cling to that longing, that promise of life I could have had and the relationships I could have made and the people I could have treated better. I don’t know what I am now, but these are the things that remind me of what I used to be.
I notice other spirits, sometimes when I am mindlessly moving along, wisps of clear human silhouettes, but they fade as quickly as they appear. On several occasions I’ve attempted to approach them, but they are gone before I’ve even made it halfway there.
If I thought I was invisible when I was alive, this is so much worse.
I try to find ways to get by. I like to spend my time watching people, listening to their conversations. Their human problems all sound so trivial now, but I’ve always been a sucker for gossip. Teenage girls and nursing home grandmothers are my favorite.
Sometimes, I stand in front of attractive boys as if they are about to confess their love for me. I never had an actual lover. But they usually walk right through me before I can even pretend they’re looking into my eyes.
They probably have girlfriends anyway. They have lives.
I miss food. I think that’s what I miss the most. If I had a second chance at life, I would never complain about my weight again. I miss friends, too. It all gets very boring, whatever this is. It gets very lonely.
I don’t know how many days, or months, or years have passed when I first feel it— a sense of purpose. I am listening in on a conversation between two high schoolers, maybe the same age I had been, who are talking about how Lucas got suspended for smoking in the bathroom when a jolt goes through me.
An actual feeling.
It is the first time in my death I have felt anything so powerful. It tells me I have to leave. I have somewhere to be. This sensation is so strong, after such a long time of feeling nothing at all, that I don’t even wait long enough to figure out what happened to Lucas.
I let this sense guide me, floating along endlessly through cities and barren roads; the sun sets once, rises, sets again, rises, and this continues several more times before I reach my final destination: a red-bricked two-story house with large windows and a gray roof.
Color.
I almost forgot such a thing exists. I stare at the vibrant green of the grass, the blinding light glinting off the windows, the pale blue of the sky; it all seems like an unreal reality after what has felt like an eternity of gray. When I look around, I find that color has blossomed all around me. How could I have forgotten about the existence something so beautiful?
Inside, I see three women and a man. It takes me a moment to realize that one face is familiar. Older, but so much the same.
Jaki.
She has the beginning of crow’s feet around her eyes and laugh lines around her mouth, her hair has darkened to a deep brunette, and the shape of her body has changed, but she is as beautiful as I remember. For a single moment, I am lost in a flood of memories. Days out in the sun, licking melted popsicles off sticky fingers; giggling in hallways between classes; spending hours dressing up for school dances. They are the most vivid memories I have had in ages. I remember them in color.
“That’s my best friend,” I say, as if somebody is there to hear me. I am shocked that I can speak.
The shock is quickly replaced by confusion when I notice that Jaki’s face is contorted in pain. She is lying down with her legs spread out, and the man is kneeling beside her, holding her hand; she squeezes his fingers with such a force that his expression is almost as pained as hers.
There are other women around her, and one of them is urging her to “Push. Push!”
I watch with rapt attention as, after who knows how long, a screaming red sack of flesh eases out from between her legs. The woman who delivers it holds it up proudly, smiling widely. Perspiration is dripping from Jaki’s temple, but she mirrors the smile and holds out her arms expectantly. Another woman cuts the umbilical cord, and they clean the fetus so it looks more like a baby and less like a large, bloody tumor.
This is the first live birth I’ve witnessed, and something about watching a new life form right before my eyes feels significant. I can’t look away from the baby. A ball of light glows inside her chest, as big as her tiny torso, and I feel a magnetic pull towards it.
As I watch, a thin sliver of gold stretches out from the ball of light and reaches me. When it makes contact with my form, still adorned in what is just a pale echo of the outfit I wore under my coat the day I died, I feel something I’d forgotten the sensation of: warmth.
The color around me becomes more vivid, saturated, and I feel a sudden burst of joy. All these senses are so overwhelming that I am frozen, unable to speak or move, until Jaki finally has her baby in her arms, the tiny head against her chest, and a wave of calm washes over me.
The baby opens her eyes and our eyes lock. I have a feeling she is not just merely looking over in my direction, but seeing me for what I am.
They name her Grace. I follow her wherever she goes, and every day I am awash with a new emotion I thought I had forgotten. Right now, it is fulfillment.
The days don’t feel as unbearably long now that I have a friend. To my pleasure, I have learned that not only can she see me, she actively enjoys my company.
She likes to play with me. I like to make funny faces that makes her laugh that bubbly baby giggle that lightens every mood. I keep a close eye on Grace when Jaki and her husband, Tom, are busy. When she begins to throw tantrums and they aren’t immediately around, I give her a soft kiss on her cheek, and the warmth between us grows just enough to settle her down. It calms the both of us, as if our feelings are in sync.
Jaki and I used to talk about how when we got older, our children would be best friends. I suppose this is the next best thing. Jaki and her husband seem happy. She had recently broken up with her old boyfriend when I was still alive— I am glad she found love.
There is so much I want to ask her. When did you get married? How is my family doing? Do you keep in touch with them? Do you ever think about me?
Then there are the other usual questions I divert into the night sky. Why am I here? What am I?
But there is no time to dwell on the thoughts for very long. Babies do not let you have much time to yourself. Grace is starting to fuss, so I blow up my cheeks and widen my eyes into a fish face, and she reaches out to me, her hands going right through my body, giggling.
The older she grows, the less often she is able to see me. I notice it for the first time when she is two and I make the face that always makes her laugh, but her expression does not change. She does not smile, does not even reach out for me. For a split second, I am afraid we have lost our connection, but when I look down, I see that the gold string is still hanging between us.
She is just growing up.
It is somewhere between her third and fourth birthday that she loses the ability to see me completely. I have lost my only friend.
What is the point of this all? I wonder. To keep Grace company? Is this just a sick joke from the universe, keeping my consciousness alive but withholding any external contact? When I try to get Grace’s attention but she still does not notice me, I feel such a strong surge of anger that Grace gasps, and out of nowhere, begins to cry.
“Gracie, what’s wrong?” Jaki says, rushing away from the kitchen to the living room where Grace is sitting, punching plump fingers into the keys of her toy piano.
“I’m mad!” She says, rubbing her eyes with her fist. Her voice has risen several octaves.
“Why? What’s wrong?”
But she is spluttering too much to answer, so Jaki picks her up and holds her close as she cries into her mother’s shoulder. She falls asleep a few minutes later, and Jaki lays her down on her bed, brows furrowed in confusion. When she leaves, I lie down beside Grace and kiss her temple.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I forget she is as sensitive to my strong emotions as I am to hers. “I’ll control myself.”
It is a few months later that I begin to understand why I am really here.
They have recently built a pool in their backyard, and Jaki has run in the house to grab her sunglasses. Grace is standing at the edge of the pool, near the deep end, looking into her distorted reflection, when she sees something shining at the bottom.
She looks around, and I am confused for a moment as to why until I remember her parents have strictly forbidden her into getting into the pool by herself. She stares longingly at the object— nothing more than a reflection of the sun on the water, I suspect.
“Hey,” I say warningly, getting close. “No.”
She doesn’t hear me. She crouches down and puts her hand in the water, testing the temperature. Then she sits at the edge and sticks her feet in.
“Grace. Do not go into the water.”
I can tell she is about to push herself in. A wave of panic rises in me, and before I can help it I yell, “Don’t jump in!”
She jolts, as if she has just been electrocuted, and to my amazement she pulls her feet out, looking around guiltily. “Mama?”
Just then, Jaki comes out with her glasses, and Grace scrambles away from the pool, probably expecting to be in trouble. Jaki gestures her forward for sunscreen and she listens obediently, walking quickly towards her mother, who has no idea of what almost occurred.
I watch them in awe, the shamefaced child and oblivious mother, and finally, finally I understand why I am here.
She grows beautifully. Her hair, which used to be the color of gold, has darkened to a deep caramel, similar to her father’s. She’s got her mother’s blue eyes. She is oddly mature compared to her counterparts— soft-spoken, intelligent, and I only have to keep her from dying a few times a year.
At thirteen, she is gangly, and her arms look too long for her body. She is obsessed with one of the basketball players in her school, a tall boy named Taylor, who makes her redden and stutter every time he walks by. She is ashamed of her braces and body and acne, which has started to pop up her face.
I want to tell her she’s beautiful, regardless. Somewhere inside me, I miss being that young, when my only worries consisted of hiding my blemishes and trying to get my crush to notice me. For her, it is her entire world. I hope she savors these days. I hope she savors every single day of her life. It’s impossible to know when it may be cut short.
By fifteen, her limbs have finally grown proportionate to her body and her braces come off. It is on the day of her last orthodontist appointment that I first hear my name spoken aloud in years, and it is jarring.
It happens when she comes across an old set of photos in the attic while searching for empty cardboard boxes for a school project, and temporarily abandons her search to browse through each picture. When she gets to the photo of two girls grinning, arms slung around each other’s shoulders, she turns to the back, where two names and a date is written in red ink.
I don’t realize I am one of the girls in the photo until she reads my name aloud. I don’t know how long it has been since I’ve heard my name or seen my own face, but it looks unfamiliar— I cannot imagine ever having been that person in the photo; a person with a heart beating in her ribcage, with breath in her lungs, with veins pumping blood, with a whole world of possibilities ahead of her.
She stares at the photo of me, frowning; she can’t seem to decide if she has seen the face before or not. I wonder if she remembers me from when she was younger. I must be stored in her memory somewhere.
“Mom, who’s this?” She asks, heading into the living room where Jaki is sitting on the recliner, reading a book.
An expression I can’t quite comprehend falls across her face when she sees the picture— a strange mixture of sadness and fondness. It takes her a moment to answer. “She’s my— she was my best friend when I was younger.”
“Where’s she now? I feel like I’ve seen her before.”
I smile. She remembers.
“Really?” Jaki stares at the photo for a minute longer, tilting her head. “Maybe in an old photo. She passed away before you were born.”
“Oh.” Grace’s eyebrows twitch in confusion. “How?”
“She was hit by a truck during a storm.” Her voice is distant, as if she has detached herself from the situation. “I was on the phone with her when it happened.”
The mere mention of that day makes the memory slam into my mind with a force that shakes me— I had been on my way home from an after school theater program that had run thirty minutes later than scheduled, and she had called to tell me about something funny that had happened at work. I wonder how many years of therapy it took to get over that.
Grace gazes at the photo sympathetically. “That’s awful,” she murmurs.
“Her death was the worst heartbreak I ever experienced,” Jaki says. “Sometimes I pray she’s watching over us.” She shakes her head. “It’s silly, I know.” I watch my friend’s face carefully. I had never known her to be the religious type. Neither of us had been.
Grace doesn’t seem to think it’s so silly. “You never know,” she said with a shrug. “Maybe she is.”
“I am. I’m here.” My words go unnoticed.
I want to scream loud enough to make my presence known, but I know neither of them will hear. I feel so hopelessly frustrated.
“Maybe,” Jaki says, unconvinced.
When Grace walks to her room, I notice her prop up the photo against her lamp. She looks at it so long I feel as if she is looking straight at me; like somehow, she knows I am in the room with her.
Something stirs within me, a sad and nostalgic type of joy. I move closer to her until the warmth from her ball of light feels like a friendly embrace; for a split second, I feel so human I forget I am dead.
Her light grows dimmer as she grows old. I don’t notice until she is considerably older, and I wonder how I didn’t realize it sooner. It is not just a ball of warmth, it’s an hourglass. I wonder what will happen to me when the light is gone. Will I go back to my dull existence, wandering the earth aimlessly? Unable to see in color, unable to feel?
I never had the chance to be afraid of death, but as Grace nears the end of her life, the fear grips me. What next? Where will I go?
I don’t want to leave her. I don’t want her to leave me.
By the time Jaki dies of old age, her husband has already passed, and Grace’s ball is the size of a marble. I feel a little bit emptier once Jaki is gone. This must’ve been how she felt when I died, knowing she would never see me again, but I was not prepared for the grief— the weight of the grief Grace and I shared between the two of us, one of us missing a best friend and one of us missing a mother.
The smaller Grace’s ball becomes, the more afraid I feel. I don’t want to return to the lost nothingness I was before. I’m terrified of losing my purpose.
Hardly a decade after her mother’s death, Grace’s heart problems have reduced her ball into the size of a needle-tip. No matter how close I get, I cannot feel any warmth. I watch her from a distance as her children visit her bedside, where she’s barely risen from for a week, and after the last one leaves she looks right up at me.
I think nothing of it initially, until she says, “You’re not my child.”
I look around, but it is only us.
“Are you… talking to me?” I ask. It feels like an eternity since I have been spoken to, and now I don’t know how to take it. It is so sudden, so unexpected.
“Who else?”
“Um…”
“I didn’t notice you come in,” she says. She is under a pile of blankets, but she tries to sit up regardless. “You look familiar.”
I approach her bed and she reaches out, maybe to take my hand, but she comes up with empty air. Her eyebrows furrow. “I recognize you.”
“You do?”
Her light is flickering now. It is so faint I almost don’t notice it.
She blinks a few times. “Am I going crazy?”
“No,” I say. “You’re dying.” I suppose I expect it to make her feel better, but she only grows more concerned.
She grips her blankets. I can feel her fear, but seconds later, it is replaced by a feeling of acceptance. Her expression softens. “How much time do I have?”
I glance at the flickering light in her chest. “Not much.”
“Are my parents with you?” She asks. “My friends? Can I talk to them too?”
“It’s just me.”
“Why?”
I want to explain everything, but I can sense that we do not have much time. “I’ve been watching over you since you were born.”
She blinks, then recognition dawns in her eyes. I look into them and am instantly taken back to a time when her hair still had color, when her skin hadn’t yet wrinkled; her eyes have not changed at all. “I lost your photo a few years back,” she says.
“You recognize me? You know my name?”
She nods. “Are you my guardian angel?”
I pause to think about it. She had grown up with religion, influenced by her father. “Yes, I suppose in a way.”
“You died young.”
“I wasn’t fortunate enough to grow old.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
Her light goes off for so long I am certain she’s already gone, but suddenly it returns. “Thank you for everything,” I say quickly. I have so much more that I want to say, but no time to say it— a lifetime’s worth of conversation I must pack into a mere few seconds.
“I felt your presence,” she says softly. “I think I always did, somehow.”
It looks as if she’s going to say more, but she just keeps staring. Her light is gone; I wait for it to return but it doesn’t this time. Instead, a blue light begins to grow in its place; it grows into a pale copy of the Grace that lay on the bed. When she is fully formed, a strange, calm sensation flows through me. I am tired. For the first time, I feel the weight of almost a century of sleepless existence. I want to lie down.
She sits up and looks down at her human body, then looks at me.
“Thank you,” she says, standing. She seems younger now, but I can’t tell by how much. She holds out her arms, and I step into her hug. The physical sensation makes up for all the contact I’ve been missing for years, and I hold onto her tightly. The warmth has returned— a tranquil feeling from deep within me that tells me everything is as it should be. I am falling asleep, but this time I’m not scared.
I am safe.
I am happy.
I am finally at peace.
