I didn’t believe in ghosts. Despite the wondrous literary usefulness of spectres and shades, as they were called in Victorian literature, they aren’t a very appetizing reality. Great for motivating Hamlet when his father’s ghost appears, and motivating when Jacob Marley returns for Scrooge's “reclamation”. In all other ways, the idea of the recently deceased still wandering around is too distasteful to be taken or considered literally. And yet, there are examples of ghosts in the real world that feel too real. People who have lost loved ones claim they sometimes hear them speaking. I had a friend who lost a dog and he kept hearing phantom barks in his backyard at night. I would chalk these and other examples up to the horrid damage that loss does to the human mind, but they are no less real to those who experience them. For all that I may doubt the experiences of others, I have a kind of ghost following me, even as I write this.
My friend Wade died in December. It was a terrible shock and those of us who knew and loved him reeled with the suddenness of it. Wade had become a dear friend that I got used to texting, calling, speaking with and sharing memes with in the short time we knew one another. He would send things to me, I to him, we often hung out or went to dinner after our meetings. I got used to him being around. I took his presence, and his friendship for granted, as we all do with the people we care about. His words of wisdom, his refusal to judge, his intensely authentic personality made him that rarest of things: a dear friend.
Friendship has never come easy to me. I'm fine making acquaintances, and I can talk to just about anyone in a social setting. Getting to a point of closeness is difficult for me because I’m a very private person. Also, I don't have the bandwidth for it. I give a lot of myself to my family. The relationships I have with Micki, the boys, their significant partners, our grandkids, our nieces and their families, Pop Bare and my brother's family take precedence over all other people. Ask my coworkers, they will tell you that although I hold most of them in high esteem and respect, there are only a few I consider true friends. I keep to myself a lot and it takes me a long time to open up to new people. This is a normal tendency among Scandinavian and other Northern European people, and I take it as evidence that my ancestry lies in those places. I just don’t open up to people easily.
It was like this with Wade. I liked him at first and we gradually got to know each other, but I kept him at more than arm's length for a long time. It wasn't anything about him really. Yes, there were aspects of Wade—his humor, his lifestyle, some of his opinions—that were offputting, even offensive sometimes. He had an irritating habit of telling me what kind of person he was, or funny things he said to other people. I later gleaned that this tendency was born from his belief that he did not have his father's approval, and desperately wanted to be seen as a person of worth. I brought my own foibles and weirdness to our still-growing friendship too. However, within a few years, Wade proved himself to be not only a good person to talk about our mutual fondness for reading or Batman comics, movies and music, he also proved himself to be dependable when I needed him. I tried to be the same for him and that’s when the friendship cemented.
The realm of friendship between males is an odd place. Guys are much more likely to be straightforward with one another and eschew drama. Sometimes, too, we’re better at accepting people for who they are and not worrying about the other things. I have one hard and fast rule about being friends with someone: once you’ve gained my hardwon trust, you have it until you don’t. I’m not sure if this is how it is for everyone, but trust is not easily gained from me but once you have it, you’re in for as long as you keep it. I accepted him, as he accepted me and because I valued his friendship, I honored him as often as I could, reminding him of how grateful I was that we became friends. When he would occasionally call me, I always tried to empathize and encourage him. His was not always the best home life and he needed a lot of reminding that he was a good person. When I would call him, struggling or frustrated, usually about work, he would say, “I’m sorry, buddy. That sucks. You’re a good man and a good friend. It will be okay.”
It was in the interim, when things were fine, or status quo, that I most depended on him, though. We kept up an ongoing, meandering conversation, seamlessly picking it up, no matter how long we’d not been in contact. It was this that provided the most comfort for me. Though I never shared much about the family or personal issues with him (it’s not my style), it was through our texting and phone calls that he demonstrated our friendship to me most. It turned out to be the place where I felt his absence most keenly too.
Wade passed in December, but it was a while before it became real to me. He constantly rose to my mind, especially when things were quiet. Questions about how he died, or concerns and doubts about whether I could have done anything to prevent it flooded my mind. Discussions that we had right before we lost him eased some of the pain, because I had been able to say how much he meant to me, but it was a long time—months, really—before his absence began to take hold as an immovable fact.
Then, sometime in May, as I was lazily scrolling through a newsfeed, I saw an article about the coming sequel of the Batman movie we had gone to see together and both liked. Back then we’d chatted about who we thought the sequel’s rogue would be, but Wade departed before that information ever came to light. So it was that I queued up a text to him with a shared link to tell him that his guess had been, in part, correct. As my thumb hovered over the send button, reality struck me like the afternoon train, a few inches above the belt buckle: no one was at the other end of that text. The months of grieving, healing, trying to get used to him being gone all came back like an avalanche. As unbidden tears streamed from my eyes, I told Micki what had happened. It was the emotional equivalent of restubbing a recently stubbed toe that was just starting to feel better. Then it happened again. A little while later, while enjoying some solitude on a Monday morning, I saw an ad for a coming show and started to text Wade. Again, I came up short, stung and stunned.
I might, under other circumstances, actually go through with sending the text. His phone, his email, his personal belongings were managed, no doubt, by his family. But I had a sick feeling of one of them turning on his phone, only to see recent texts from me. It would give them an unnecessary and thoughtless pang, too. I thought better of it. So I did something slightly strange, but that has really helped. I created a ghost file. When I think of something I want to say, or a joke to share or just to drop a line in a knee-jerk, habitual way, I open this file and write what I was going to say there. Sometimes I share a link, other times, I just say what I’m feeling and thinking, much as our correspondence was before. Mostly, it is to tap clear, concise words to him about how much we all miss him and how stupid and arbitrary his death was. At first, I felt odd, slightly morbid. I love gallows humor and appreciate—as did Wade—a good joke about death, but then a surprising thing happened.
Rather than running up against the cupboard corner with an already sore toe (emotionally speaking) the file has allowed the feelings to process through the words that I wouldn’t be able to share in the former ways. I can shoot him a short text, as I would have done, and it eases the pain of the sudden remembering. The one obvious thing is that he never responds, but then, it would be truly weird if he did. In fact, it would be more than unsettling.
There have been a few times over the last month or so when I’ve begun to feel that I’m moving past the worst of the grief. I’m pretty good at grieving, having had to learn how to do it the hard way. This is an odd statement, because, who is actually good at grieving? What I mean to say is that I try to pay attention to how I’m feeling and accept the wolf when it shows up and sit with it until it goes. Those visits have become less frequent and I’m happy to say that they are no longer as painful. Where once there was hurt, there is now gratitude and joy at the memories. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll write to my friend’s ghost. It is a solution only for now. I don’t want to let the act become a final thread that I cannot let go of and let him have peace.
All-in-all, we were only friends for about eight years. I met him in the spring of 2018 when he came back to our meetings. We didn’t start getting close for another few years, but by the time we lost him, just before Christmas, Wade was one of the most valued people in my life, outside the family and very old friends. I let him in and I’m grateful I got to know him. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be good at making friends, or if I’ll ever have a friend like Wade again. What I am sure of is that I’m deeply grateful for the chance to have been called his friend.
Though I miss him and feel his absence keenly, sometimes, I will carry the memory of him close. Now and then, when I think of something I want to share with him, I’ll shoot his ghost a little note. If death isn’t the end (I respectfully think that it is) I hope he knows I’m thinking of him fondly, remembering who he was and doing my part—for now—to keep up my end of our ongoing conversation. He’s not a ghost in the traditional, literary sense, but it does mean he’s still around, at least in thought.
