A Question of Angels and Ghosts
Will my ghosts make them feel welcome? Will they perform their tricks? Will they fleet across peripherals and shrug the curtains in playful taunt just as they've done for me? Will they creak against hallway floors or tickle against a nape at the kitchen sink? Do ghosts belong to a house or to the people they haunt? I suppose I'll know soon enough.
I may set a jar on the south sill on the chance that I might catch them and take them with me because there is a sweetness about them - a sense of not alone when loneliness is sometimes my truest reality.
Or perhaps they are not ghosts at all but angels set upon the protection of myself and mine, in which case I have no doubt that they'll curl up inside the Mason and tuck themselves neatly into the folds of our new home.
I wonder about the people that will step on these floors and bleach my fingerprints from the counter tops and hang their family portrait where I hung my angel... "Where will we put the angel when we move?" I ask while at the dinner table.
"I don't know," Zander replies, "but we have to put him somewhere. That angel means home. Without it, it's just a house."
Maybe they will seal themselves into the acrylic and come with us that way, forever praying their blessing over us from whatever wall they grace. Will they make friends with the giggling shadows who run up and down the stairs at the place we soon will call our own?
I suppose I'll know soon enough.
Do you see me? When was the last time you did? I mean, really see me? Each piece that bridges the gap between the last. Each piece that builds upon the other beyond what you've labelled me for. I suppose it's good to be broken sometimes. I suppose those breaks breed strength when they're mended. Breaks that leave me breathless and screaming for just one moment of grace so that when grace comes (because it must) I will be overwhelmed with gratitude and tears will feel like rain instead of fire.
