Notes on my husband’s afterlife

My husband

This is an accurate account of what happened to my husband after he died, as told by a friend who is a psychic medium.

My partner died watching the glow in the dark stars glued on childhood bedroom walls.

Witnesses said he would turn the lights on every time their glow dimmed.

On, off, on, off.

I’m not sure if the stars still glow, no one sleeps on that room anymore.

Death came quietly, like lights being turned off one by one in house preparing to go to sleep.

Then suddenly he was himself again, or rather an idea of himself.

Blurrier around the edges but no longer concerned with things such as cancerous lesions or washing the dishes.

It took him a while to find us. Ghosts cannot follow highways or maps. He latched himself onto the visiting officer and travelled from the hospice to my front door.

“Did you notice anything? Any change?” The psychic asked me.

“No.. Not at first, not until the thermostat kept turning to 72 degrees by itself! That was his ideal temperature” I admitted. I was of course dubious about the whole thing.

Two days after he died, in the middle of the night a large hand print appeared inside my window. Of course, I was terrified! Who wouldn’t be? But there was no one inside.

Just myself and my two small children who were fast asleep.

“He wants to check the note app on your phone, his trying to talk to you but it’s like being drunk,” my friend the psychic said when I called her again as the sun rose.

Someone had created an additional note at four twenty-six am.

Trunk, German Dress, find, save.

The only trunk I could think of was one stored on the back shed, a dirty black Foot Locker that had always been part of our lives.

Later in the cloying summer heat his sister and I opened the chest, sure enough a silk dirndl my husband gave me years ago was inside dusty and almost ruined.

“What does he see? What does he experience?” I asked the psychic as I carefully ironed the dirndl.

While we slept to the sound of crickets and thunderstorms my husband's ghost would wander the streets of Oklahoma.

The first night after the storm passed he saw an old woman, small and frail, resting alone in the car park next to the church.

Her dress was long and gray, with a fine hat upon her frizzled curls.

“You’re new aren’t you?” She smiled kindly.

“Yes” my husband replied sitting next to her, and she bent towards a stone cross marker oddly planted between two car spaces.

“I always try to say hello to the new ones, their drawn to the church you know.. And then they see me,” she said nodding to the tombstone.

“Is that you?” He asked, and she nodded

“Buried in 1916! My Sally paid for the headstone, such a good girl,” the lady murmured.

Everything was quiet and still.

“Any advice?” He asked, and she glanced at him with hollow black eyes.

“Don’t stay around watching for the ones you love, you’ll end up stuck” she sighed and there was a sudden blast of light from behind a clump of trees.

“There, that one had the right idea.. Move and move fast, the ones you love will catch up eventually sighed the old lady”.

There was another ghost waiting for him at the funeral parlor.

Drab and quiet, a fellow in a suit.

“You have a decent turn out I must say, what with all the restrictions and all “ the man said as my husband's boss spoke.

“There’s only fifteen people here” my husband pointed out and his companion glanced about.

“Fifteen you can see, but there are hundreds ,

watching.. You can feel them in the air.. They’re looking through that” he replied nodding to the phone my friend the psychic held up.

Carefully selected images danced across the screen to a song that had played many times during his early twenties.

After the guests left my daughter, aged four walked to the podium and stared right at my husband.

“My dad was the best.. He always wanted me to be kind and respectful,” she began.

“Your husband's watching, with another ghost.. I think his ready to move on” the psychic whisperer to mr as my daughter babbled about how her daddy wanted her to pick up the trash.

“But I’m not ready” I whispered back, my hands clutching the dress I’d found for the funeral.

It was covered in silver stars.

“It isn’t about you” my friend smiled, shaking her head.

When we got home, the house felt empty and still.

Some people pass on, we’re not supposed to know where they go.