TEN

May and Katie came out of May’s room so I tried to quickly traverse the span between the living world and my world. “Whoa what was that?” said Katie as she opened May’s door. Katie had seen the tail end of me as I turned into a grey streak and passed before her eyes.

“No I’m serious! What was that thing?”

“Katie, you didn’t see anything you’re just thinking of scary things so you are going to be prone to seeing things now,” said Katie mimicking her father’s words from when she herself would become frightened.

“Whatever! I saw something!” insisted Katie as she headed down the stairs to the front door.

~

It aggravated me that Clara was so frightened of me. She perceived me as evil so she probably thought she was banishing an evil spirit when she was using her salt and herbs. But my guess was that those spiritual remedies work on all ghosts not just evil ones; it was Clara’s perception of me that made her think she was ridding the house of malevolence. She was simply afraid of ghosts and any ghost she encountered she probably assumed to be a negative entity. I wondered if her own family members who had passed on had tried to contact her and if they received the same treatment. She sure was prepared and she was experienced.

Watching from a distance I saw Clara go into her room, I of course, could still not enter, but I did hover out side her door. She was talking to herself.

“Why do I have to put up with this everyday?” She asked herself.

Everyday? I thought. I hadn’t been trying to make contact everyday.

“My whole life I’ve been putting up with these menaces, but now its more frequent!” I heard as she was pounding something that sounded like a pillow and straightening what sounded like a duvet cover.

She sensed me outside of her door. I heard a match light, she opened the door and blew sage at me again. The Sage smoke was as discomforting an experience as the first Sage cloud I had to abide. I backed far enough away so I wouldn’t have to endure her attack any longer.

If Clara could sense, see and feel me then there had to be other people like her. I needed to find such a person. Not only did I have to get a message to my family I wanted to know what or who was visiting Clara.

Clearly, if ghosts could exist and I was proof of the fact, then there had to be others like me. But it troubled me that I could not sense them nor see them. Could they see me or sense me? Or were we all bumbling through our own worlds trying to understand the terrain and the reasons why we did not pass on to a Heaven or an Oblivion?

Clara was sadly being bothered by spirits from somewhere and I was pretty sure I had opened up a doorway from my world into hers. This was the only explanation I could come up with. By constantly visiting my family maybe others willingly or unwillingly followed me.

~

It was important for me to stay out of my family’s world until I had some answers. I had enjoyed watching May sleep and checking in on David and his new partner, Meagan. I could still watch them from afar so I didn’t feel completely alone but I couldn’t feel their feelings unless I was in their world. I learned how to think of May, David and Nana without instantly ending up by their sides. It was hard work. My whole being wanted to be with my daughter and my husband. But I just couldn’t risk bringing anything else into their world. I didn’t know what I was dealing with. When I tried to explore the darkness I would hear noises that frightened me. Simple noises like breathing or the sound of coughing; earthly noises like the sound of breaking glass or footsteps on wet pavement. In the dark these simple sounds took on sinister tones. I was on guard most of the time.

My goal of finding someone like Clara started with the only other person I knew of who caught a glimpse of me: Katie. Although, I didn’t want to risk exposing her to some secondary entity like I had done to Clara, I thought perhaps only one visit wouldn’t hurt. Katie seemed intrigued when she saw me streak across her vision.

I thought of her and found myself hovering over Katie’s house. When I entered it was a mess. Dishes were in the sink, papers were all over the floor and tables and her mother was asleep on the sofa. The smell of cigarette smoke permeated the air and there was a dog that was lapping up his nights dinner.

I zipped through the house trying to find Katie’s room and when I found it I was surprised. Her room was neat and tidy, everything organized and the smell of rosewater filled the air. Katie was writing in her journal with her hair tied back and freshly washed pajamas on. She seemed like a sweet girl. I decided to try and catch her attention.

“Katie?” I said suspended behind her. She didn’t look up from her journal so I moved in front of her and hovered beside her pencil. “Katie!” I yelled. Still no reaction. I went to her bookshelf to see if there were any titles that might help me to get a message to her. There was one, a vintage pulp fiction book titled: “Impossible Yet it Happened” a book about psychic phenomena. I went to the book and forced all of my energy onto it. It finally fell off the shelf. Katie jumped, but she didn’t seem to let it stop her journaling. She just looked behind her, picked the book off the floor and put the book on her desk – never reading the title and never hearing or seeing me. She was not my new Clara.

As I left her room I looked back and saw that something had tugged at Katie’s hair. She whipped her head around, stood up and looked around the room waiting for another form of contact, but nothing happened. I tried to see what it was but it was invisible to me. My theory was correct. When I entered the world other ghosts could follow (if they were ghosts). I had to be very careful from now on. As I watched Katie from afar she eventually sat down again and went back to her writing. Whatever it was seemed to be gone and she was going to ignore the experience or right it off as just a weird sensation.

NINE

The investigators told David that there weren’t any leads in my mother’s death. The conclusion was that my mother must have come upon the intruder and been startled to death. There were no marks on her body from a struggle and it appeared her heart had failed.

My death and her grandmother’s death seemed to merge and become connected in May’s mind and she began to feel there was a madman out to hurt her family. She couldn’t make sense of things and started to regress. She was sucking her thumb again and she needed to sleep with a nightlight on. Nana Nettle was not going to stand for it. She found the best counselor for May and, at least, the thumb sucking stopped after several weeks. But two affects remained: May’s need for a nightlight and her sense of vulnerability in the world.

David’s work was suffering and if it wasn’t for his new partner, his clinic might have suffered as well. David told me he had found a new partner but he never told me that this partner was a “she” with long brown hair, legs up to her chin and a face of a super model. She was a dermatologist, after all, so her skin was beautiful and she was very well groomed. Something in me said that such a petty thing, such as physical beauty, should not matter to me on this side. But it did and I felt a slight betrayal that David didn’t explicitly explain to me he was partnering with the goddess of dermatology. Can a ghost be jealous? My answer is yes.

~

Nana Nettle and Tom Dunkirk decided to put off their wedding for a few months. There would have to be changes to the living arrangement after the wedding. Tom did not want to move into the Tudor with the family, so Nana was going to move out with him and live in the next town after deeding the house to David. At least that was the plan before both of the tragedies. Now she couldn’t leave May and David at this time, she knew Clara remaining would be a help, but May and David both needed her.

Tom was a little put off by the change of plans, but he showed a deep understanding toward the circumstances. His solution was to buy a little house in the neighborhood so he and Nana could at least begin a life together separate from the family dynamic.

With more contact in closer quarters, Nana noted that Tom was a bit exacting and controlling. Nana had already been through a decades long relationship with her first husband, a professor of English at the local university, David’s father who had passed away five years ago. He was exacting and controlling too. She was starting to see red flags with Tom but didn’t know if it was because she was sensitive from the recent life’s events or if she should altogether reconsider marrying him. In her wisdom, she decided take a wait-and-see attitude toward Tom.

He could feel her distance as she still spent most of her time with David and May so Tom began to get cold feet. Tom just never wanted to integrate into Nana’s family. He wanted her all to himself. There was also the fact that he felt like an intruder during such a tragic time for the family, he wondered how he was expected to integrate. He hadn’t known me or my mother and couldn’t mourn for us in the same way the family was mourning. Nana and Tom had been dating for a year and a half but it was mostly a long distance relationship. After a few weeks Tom decided to move back to his own home and put the little house up for rent that he bought for himself and Nana. They had both decided to put off the wedding until things “calmed down” in Nana’s world. Tom still held out hope. But Nana had made up her mind, there would be no wedding.

~

Clara was secretly happy when she heard the news. She had been with Nana Nettle for more than twenty years as housekeeper and cook. She loved David and May but her work couldn’t satisfy her if she wasn’t doing it for Nana. There was a sense of pride she found in ensuring everything was to Nana’s standards and she enjoyed taking the extra steps to make things special. Nana always noticed, no matter how small an effort. Plus, Clara was able to have her own living quarters included with her wages. Clara wasn’t happy unless she was making other people happy so she very much enjoyed her work with the Nettle family. They treated her like family and she was able to come and go as she pleased.

There wasn’t anyone special in Clara’s life so it made it easy for her to be satisfied with the shopping, cleaning and cooking that she did everyday, except on her days off which were Sunday’s and Monday’s. On these days the family was either served a lovely and healthy dinner by Nana or they ate frozen pizza. Either way, they always dined together. This gave David, Nana and May the best opportunities to catch-up with each other as David was back to work and May would be starting school again in the Fall.

May hadn’t kept in contact with many of her friends during the Summer months but for one friend, Katie Reed, who David and Nana were not overly happy with. She was an older girl of fourteen who was a little too sophisticated for May. She wore make-up and had a boyfriend but she lived in the neighborhood and was very kind to May during the first weeks of my death. She would stop by occasionally to check in on May and bring little bouquets of flowers or vintage Red Rose tea figurines.

Overall, she wasn’t a bad child, she just seemed too mature to be hanging out with a nine year old. David and Nana would invite her for dinner sometimes just to keep a pulse on the friendship. So far, the only really bad thing she did with May was to teach her poker. But they were using the ceramic animals as currency so David didn’t mind so much, considering Katie had purchased most of them for May at the local thrift shop. Nana, however, found the poker to be unacceptable and not age appropriate for May and taught them how to play Scrabble instead. Even though they enjoyed Scrabble, they secretly still played poker up in May’s room.

“Would you like to try a cigarette,” offered Katie as they sat with visors on throwing rabbits and owls into the kitty.

“You don’t have to smoke it you can just let it hang out of your mouth unlit,” Katie demonstrated.

May took a cigarette and put it to her lips. The tobacco smell was deep and sweet and the cotton filter soaked up her saliva. She felt like a real poker player.

“Katie? Do you ever think about death,” asked May.

“Yes, all the time. I always wonder about death and where people and pets go when they die. When our dog died, for weeks we could still here the jingle of her color in the rooms around the house and sometimes we could here the sounds of slurping water. A couple of times it felt like Ginger rubbed up against my leg. It was really creepy, but comforting at the same time. It was like she still wanted to be with us even though we had to put her down. Do you ever feel that you mother or grandmother are still around?”

“Yes.” said May, as she fidgeted and looked to the floor. It was too confusing for her to put into words and she didn’t want Katie to think she was crazy.

“Have you seen their ghosts?” Asked Katie excitedly as an unlit cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth.

“No I just feel things sometimes, like I am being watched more than anything.”

“Who is it do you think? Who is watching you?” Katie shifted forward on her chair.

“My mother, I think, but there are other things too.”

“What other things and what about your Grandmother?”

“I don’t know about my Grandmother. Sometimes I dream she is talking to me and telling me everything is going to be alright, but I don’t feel her when I am awake.”

“May’s house is haunted!” declared Katie in a very insensitive manner.

May tried to laugh with her. I was happy to know she could still sense me, but I was concerned about the “other things too,” she made reference to.

~

Clara was lightly dusting the hall table outside of May’s room and overheard the conversation. She was not there by accident. Having had some time to observe her (from afar) I noticed that Clara paid close attention to May and was quite protective of her. Clara would always find housework to do upstairs when Katie was in May’s room. She listened to their conversations because she didn’t have a good feeling about Katie, more so than David and Nana, Clara thought Katie was a bad influence.

She had proof of it too. She had heard the discussion about the cigarettes and knew they were playing poker against Nana Nettles wishes, but Clara wasn’t interested in putting May in any hot water with Nana. She was mostly interested in what May had to say about her own feelings.

Clara had the amulet around her neck which she had be wearing for a few weeks. I had decided to let her think that it had a vanquishing power over me. I did this by not contacting her and by staying out of her sight. My reasoning was that if she relied on the ineffective charm she might stop using the effective concoctions long enough for me to surprise her.

There was a mirror above the table she had been dusting so I hovered behind her. When she looked up and saw my reflection, she dropped her feather duster, grabbed her amulet, turned around and held it up to me. She was shaking. How was I going to communicate with her if this was going to be her reaction. There was no intention on my part to frighten her, but she was bone chilled. I tried to speak, “Clara…”, she turned to run – still holding the amulet up to me as if it were a cross and I was a vampire.

I couldn’t think of any other way to break through so I said the simplest thing: “I am not hear to harm you, it’s me Emily.” I felt stupid saying it that way but it caught her attention. She stopped for a moment, reached into her pocket and held out a black Obsidian stone in the palm of her hand. I started to become weaker but she was not going to overcome me with the stone. Then she reached into her other pocket and grabbed a small atomizer, it was filled with salt water and when she spritzed me I vanished from her sight. Another of my attempts at contact foiled. I didn’t know why she was so prepared or so frightened.

As I watched Clara go downstairs she kept looking back at the place I had appeared. I now knew without a doubt she could see me, but she thought I was something evil, a menacing specter. I was no such a thing. I was was just a spirit trapped in a dark world. The only thing I could figure was that maybe other entities were coming through with me. Maybe by my entering her world I was acting as some sort of gateway that allowed a flow of energy from my world into hers. And if this was so, was this energy harmful to my family?

EIGHT

Nana Nettle finally called Mr. Dunkirk, her fiancé, to tell him about the tragedies in the family. He was overwhelmed to hear such sad news. And to know Nana was struggling through such pain brought him into town to see her.

They were meant to be planning their wedding, but instead they found themselves planning two funerals. Tom and Nana took the reigns and ensured that both services were beautiful. Nana new some of my mother’s friends so it was easy to inform everyone of her passing. Mom and I both had always planned, when the time came, to be cremated and to be placed into the family’s burial plot so we would be together, at least in our urns.

When the funerals were over it was time to begin the healing process for David, May, Nana and Tom. May had not been told of her grandmother’s passing as Nana felt two funerals would too much for her to bear at her age. But David decided to tell her against his mother’s wishes.

He asked May to come into his den and sit down. May did as she was told but was afraid she had done something worthy of a scolding. David began by telling her he had some more bad news for her and she needed to be strong “just like when mommy passed away.” May started to cry immediately because she thought her father was going to leave her. She ran over to him and begged him not to leave. David was not expecting this response but he was happy to have her close so he could console her.

“Remember how you wanted to wear mommy’s necklace because she was gone, May?”

May pulled at the chain still around her neck.

“Well, this is Grandma Wilson’s necklace.” It was a gold locket with my mother’s and my picture inside.

David showed May the necklace but she still appeared confused.

“Would you like to wear this necklace too, May?” the idea seemed like a good one when he tried to come up with an gentle way to explain to May that her grandmother was dead. David thought May wasn’t getting what he was saying because she was refusing the necklace. But, May knew exactly what he meant and was refusing the necklace only because her little heart did not want it to be so. She did not want to know her Grandma Wilson was gone too.

May took the necklace and threw it on the ground and was very angry with David for such a simpleton attempt at informing her of her Grandmother’s death.

Nana caught May on her way upstairs and asked her what was wrong.

“Go ask my father,” she said as she continued up the stairs to her room.

Nana went into the den and saw the necklace on the floor, put two and two together and scolded David for his attempt.

“There is a reason we keep information from children David, but if you are going to tell them you have to be plain. What were you thinking?”

David ignored his mother and went up to May’s room. She was a smart girl and she was quite let down by her father’s awkwardness.

“I am sorry, honey, I just didn’t know how to tell you.”

“You should have just told me. I’m not a baby.”

David agreed and held out the necklace to May again. She took it from his hand and looked at the pictures inside.

“How did she die, daddy? Why did she die so close to mommy?”

David told her there were certain things he couldn’t explain but Grandma Wilson was in a better place.

May demanded more information so David explained, “She died of a heart attack, May.” May curled up on her bed holding the locket and David sat with her as she cried.

~

Death seems tailor made. I don’t know if we make it for ourselves or if some higher power individualizes the experience. My mother’s passing was beautiful. It had the white light, the guide and the helping hands. I started to wonder if this place I was in was the death I had tailored to myself. Since I wanted oblivion perhaps I was as close to oblivion as a soul could get. There is a clear separation between my present world and the living. When it is dark in their world it becomes even darker in mine. I was always afraid of the dark and the darkness here is palpable, it can be felt. The darkness, itself is like its own scary creature that I am forced to contend with. As I move through it it’s like a billion little fingers brush up against me as if I am caught in giant sea anemone . It is a constant reminder that I am dead, the darkness.

We are not finished when we die there are still things to learn. At least this is what my experience, so far, is teaching me. Time shifts strangely here. Sometimes it fast- forwards and I miss days or weeks other times it feels like one day lasts a month. The beings here are frightening, but I have not been hurt by any of them – they don’t seem to want to drag me into any pit or massive inferno. The sorrow-suckers are around every time there is a tragedy and there is sadness, but they don’t do anything but live off misery. There was the electrical static being who replayed all of my careless words to me. The hunched back beings with clawed-hands that were approaching my mother’s body who seemed malevolent but they didn’t harm me in anyway, they seemed to want to get close to her body, but I do not know why. And the grotesques were the protectors.

There is balance of good and evil here, It seems. Perhaps a struggle that I have only seen a fraction of. And then there is the Angel. He has come to me at two distinct times: once when I died; once when mother died. There is something I feel I have to understand while I am here. I was told if I tread lightly my time will come. What is my time and how can treading lightly do any good? It seems I should be working hard to understand this place not, treading lightly. But the one thing I will comfortably say is a truth, if an Angel tells you something you better listen. So I will tread lightly, I will be the observer and I will try to learn.

Just as I was trying to piece together my experiences I heard a voice calling my name. I followed it through the darkness into the blackness, deeper than I had gone before. Usually, I stay on the perimeter of life and death so I can be with my family. The darkness seems eternal when I turn away from the living to look at it. It is vast and throbbing with possibilities that frighten me. But I moved on deeper, slowly creeping away from the line of the living into the pulsating shadows of the darkness.

It was so wonderful to hear my name being called I ignored how thick the blackness was becoming. Then I stopped, I saw a light up ahead and wanted to rush to the voice which was coming through a little speck of illumination in the vastness. It was my mother calling. As if I were a fat body stuck in a little hole I could not move toward the light, I could only listen as my mother’s sweet voice called to me from a pin-sized beam of light, “Emily” and then it vanished. I could only extract myself if I moved backward away from the confining blackness. I made my way back to the perimeter of the living. My mother was safe and she knew I was here.

SEVEN

David was the love of my life and as my mother said “One moment of true love can get you through a lifetime of loneliness.” It is true I am lonely here and I know now that the love David and I shared was very rare. There was a constant tenderness between us and he was always so patient with me. He looked past all of my flaws and seemed to see the real me – the person I could have been if I wasn’t afflicted with such a severe depression. Even on days in which I could barely get out of bed, if I accomplished just one thing in the day he would praise me for it. I think it is because he really saw how hard it was for me to function.

When May came along I somehow gained the strength to take care of her in every way she needed. I had the opposite of post-partum depression; I had post-partum elation. I was capable of anything. My spirits were high and I was like a super-mom. We thought the spell was broken and that the pregnancy somehow cleansed the darkness from me. But when May was about four years old it came back and Nana Nettle had to really step in. She only partially resented my absence, it seemed, because she loved having May all to herself. May was a darling baby. Always dressed in the finest clothes and saying the most precocious things, Nana Nettle was so proud of her and took her out regularly to show her off.

They had a special relationship, one I must admit I became jealous of. I could not be there for May like Nana could. Something in me was broken and it took me years to admit it was due to a medical illness but the sense I was flawed never left me.

I did go on many different combinations of medications and had constant therapy, I tried everything to try and get the poison out of my system. With each new doctor David and I had hope. Until we started seeing relapses after each successive treatment we tried. I tried so hard to be normal, to behave like I was expected to and to be social. I held a job at a coffee shop because that’s all I could manage even though I had a level of intelligence which should have put me into a profession of my choosing – I simply didn’t have the mental or emotional stamina to pursue any lofty profession. David understood this too.

He didn’t mind that when I was serving lattes he was finding carcinomas on patients and successfully treating complexions that were so bad they made people shut-ins. He was just happy I was out in the world and trying in some capacity. Even when I lost my jobs he would be supportive and help me get back out into the world; or, he would let me recuperate until I was ready to try again.

I knew there was no way I could have supported myself. It would have been impossible, and this was the dark thought which haunted me most of my life. I could not cope on my own. I needed people more than they knew.

When I was very young I dreamt of being and independent woman with a high power job, who wore high heals with my hair in a tidy bob. A woman who commanded the room and one who knew just the right thing to say to get things done. Those fantasies persisted during my adult depression, I wondered why I wasn’t the woman I had planned to become.

But we got by. I wish I could have sustained my life. My family was good to me. I knew it too, but something in my mind wanted to self-destruct and my body wanted to cease to exist.

SIX

Mother had chest pain and had just taken a glycerine pill when I arrived. Cheryl was still with her and encouraged her to call her doctor. But my mother was stubborn and she chose to deal with the matter in the morning. I could tell by the state of the house Cheryl had been busy all day straightening and tidying.

“Maureen do you need anything before I head out?” asked Cheryl as my mother sat up in her bed holding yet another cup of hot tea.

“No thank you dear, you go home now and sleep well. Thank you for all of your help today you’ve been so wonderful.”

“Now, Maureen you would do the same for me. Call me if you need anything and I’ll be right over.”

“Thanks dear.”

Cheryl went down the front stairs and locked the front door behind her.

Mom was all alone again. Her house dark all but for her bedroom light. She fell asleep sitting up.

It seems when tragedy strikes a family they have to keep one eye over their shoulder for more tragedy. It comes in clusters and seems to unload where an opening has already been made. When the intruder broke through my mother’s side door the Angel materialized and blocked me from investigating. He held me his glow as if he were made of sticky honey of which I could not escape. I heard my mother scream but I was not allowed to see what was happening to her, nor was I allowed to intervene. It was quick, and then the living room fell silent. She had edged out of bed when she heard the noises downstairs thinking it was Cheryl, but she met up with the intruder instead. One sight of him and my mother’s heart failed. I fought against the Angel but with each attempt he became stickier making it so I was immobilized. Helpless.

I didn’t know what I thought I could do. But I wanted to try and help or at least see who had done this to her. I heard the voice of the Angel, “You shall stay!” It was booming and yet when it held me in its grasp I felt comforted even with the tragedy happening outside of its glow.

When my mother passed away, her soul came up the stairs to the bedroom. I could see through a halo of light that she was bright, beautiful, healthy looking and happy. She was following my father to a passage which had opened in the ceiling – light streamed through and many helping hands reached through to greet my mother. She went gently and without fear and then she was gone.

The Angel told me she would not remain in my world and then he slowly moved away from me vanishing, abandoning me. I shot up to the place in the ceiling where my mother had gone and tried to follow her, but I just ended up in the attic with all of our old memories and castaway objects.

~

The dead grieve. I was in shock over what had happened to my mother. In an instant her life was taken away and then she passed on to another world so easily. As if it were her time. The Angel had left me with a phrase before he abandoned me: “Tread lightly and your time will come.” Tread lightly, I thought, all I wanted to do was to tear up the house out of desperation and the primal need for my mother. How could it have happened so fast? Why wasn’t I allowed to help her? Why couldn’t I at least say goodbye? The Angel had held me so tightly in its glow that I couldn’t even be heard when I screamed, “Mother, Mother, don’t you see me?” I was angry at the Angel.

I was so angry I flew down to the living room to look for my mother’s body. If I couldn’t say goodbye to her soul I could at least pay my last respects to her body. But it was as if their were a veil over her when I found her. I could see her form, but was unable to see her features. I had the urge to cry but this was another bodily function I had deprived myself of. When I looked around the room there were two beings standing guard. They looked like grotesques with happy faces. They rushed towards me and pushed me away from my mother. I noticed other creatures coming through the walls, dark hunched backed spirits with claws for hands tried to get close to her body and the sorrow suckers were circling me. The grotesques pushed against us all and held every being at bay with their eerie strength until my mother’s body was found by Cheryl in the morning.

Cheryl had to hold back her tears when she was talking to the investigators. “Maureen Wilson was one of the nicest ladies you could ever hope to meet.”

“I saw her last at about 11:30 last night after I locked up”

“No, she didn’t have any unsavory associations”

“No, she didn’t have a drug problem”

“No, she wasn’t known to keep large amounts of money in the house”

“Yes, I was with my husband all night.”

The family had to be contacted but the only family left was David and May. My father had passed away when I was a child and my mother and I had been on our own until I married into David’s family.

Cheryl gave the police David’s address and mentioned he had just lost his wife in a drowning accident.

“You mean the mother and daughter are both dead within a day apart?” asked one investigator.

Cheryl began to weep and discuss how hard it would be on May losing her grandmother so soon after her mother’s death.

The investigators politely listened and then went on their way. I went straight to David.

~

Clara heard the doorbell ring at 8:30 in the morning. She brushed the front of her apron, fixed her hair with one pat and then opened the door (today she was wearing an amulet which, oddly, had no power over me). The investigators stood shoulder to shoulder asking to speak to Mr. Nettle. Clara invited them in and had them wait in the living room as she went to wake up David. May was already up and lurked from the kitchen to the living room to see who was here for her father. When she saw how official the two men looked she went back to her breakfast – thinking they were business men visiting her father.

She did not hear the conversation when David came into the room to meet the investigators. Nana Nettle came into the room to hear the news and steadied David as he sat down on the sofa. He pulled at his hair and was so visibly shaken the investigators chose to cut their visit short. It was evident to them the weight of the news was too much for David and even Nana Nettle.

~

My mother and I were very close. To lose her caused me more pain than can be expressed. For years all we had was each other. An only child, she lost her parents early in life. My mother was a fighter though, and after fighting her way through orphanages and foster homes she made it to the real world and held down several jobs to support herself. When she was 28 she met her true love, Jake Wilson, my father.

Jake was in the import-export business and was making a very good living. They had a lovely life together until he passed away when I was two years old from early heart disease. My mother was a widow at 32. She was able to get by on what my father left her and only had to work part-time as she raised me on her own. “One moment of true love can get you through a lifetime of loneliness,” she would say to me when I asked if she would ever remarry.

Her nature was so pleasant and it seemed very little could stand in her way. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the same nature and my mood swings and depression always vexed her. She didn’t understand that I could not just “get on with it.” When a depression set in I could not work, I was in bed for most of the time and my thoughts were dark and brooding. She supported me through all of these episodes but in the early years I could tell she was disappointed with me. She thought if I tried harder I could overcome. Just like she had. But I was different and it took her many years to understand the fact.

Nevertheless, we were close, like sisters sometimes, but she always remained my mentor, my mother figure and I loved her with all of my heart.

Now she was gone, I felt my main compass point was missing. I didn’t know how to cope without her. When I think of it, she must of felt very much the same way when she lost me.

Our family dynamic was a wonderful one when I got married. She and David loved each other immediately and were very warm to each other. Nana Nettle always kept an emotional distance but, I could tell she was very fond of my mother in spite of herself.

When David and I were married he was starting his dermatological practice and we were very short on cash so we agreed to move in with Nana Nettle. She had a Tudor mansion with all of the trimmings. There was enough space for us to live our married life quite separate from his mother, but David someday wanted to get a place of our own. It just turned out that over the years the living arrangement became comfortable enough not to change.

May had a live-in grandmother and Nana Nettle had her family close by which made her very happy. Even if she found a need to interfere at times; things were comfortable and remained in balance.

~

Since my death, I was relieved David and May were with Nana. She was a very strong woman who would help support them through this tragic time.

I play in my head scenarios in which I did not drown myself and wonder if my actions lead directly to my mother’s death. I wonder if I had still been alive would she have been out that evening to the opera and not come into contact with the intruder. Maybe she would have run out for a carton of milk or had friends over late for a card game. But because I died she was alone in bed mourning my loss. Maybe if Cheryl hadn’t been in the house all day my mother wouldn’t have thought it was her downstairs coming back for something forgotten. Maybe she would have called the police right away instead of going downstairs.

All these possibilities whirled through my mind. Was it my fault my mother was dead? Did my action lead to her demise and if so, what other chain of events were my actions going to set off?

I had already seen a decline in David’s health and May was clearly angry, Nana Nettle attempts to be strong but she denies her own feelings in order to keep the family together. If I could take back my actions I would. But to think about it too much causes me to shrink down in size. It is clear regret does not serve my purposes on this side. I must be strong, stronger than I could be in life. I must find out why I am stuck in this land of creatures and Angels which I do not yet, or might never, understand.

FIVE

The pathologist ruled my death as a “death by misadventure”. Meaning, death by accident. I thought the corner’s term fitting. If I looked at the events my drowning, I would consider them a misadventure. My mind was overwhelmed with thoughts of death as a freedom from life. I was not in my right mind. My Husband and my child needed me but I could not see this fact on that day. Nor, on many other days leading up to my suicide. There is a relief in knowing my family will always believe it was an accident, but it is not the truth. My family and friends will forever forget the pain I was in. They will just lay my body to rest and speak of ‘the accident’ when they remember me. I have set so many lives on the course of believing in a lie.

To have your mind deceive you into thinking death is the only way out is a sickness. Usually, an organism wants to thrive. Killing oneself is opposite of thriving; It was a conscious decision, but the decision was made by a mind and body which could no longer tolerate its very own existence. I don’t know if it’s possible to forgive myself completely, but I am working on understanding and finding some compassion for the woman I had been. There are not many choices on this side.

~

When David woke up from his nap he called May to his bedside. She slowly walked over to my ‘time out chair’ and took the necklace. She wanted David to put it on her.

She walked into his room and took her father’s extended hand.

“Will you put mommy’s necklace on me?” asked May as she turned around and lifted her hair up.

“Sure honey, then tomorrow we will take it off.”

May’s little voice went soft as she told David she wasn’t going to take it off unless mommy took it off for her.

“Sweet girl, you know where mommy is…” he sat up and looked into May’s teary eyes. They both held each other until May decided to make a declaration: “I am not taking it off, daddy!” Pulling the necklace up, she showed him the three concentric circles which were attached to the chain. Each circle was to represent our family’s eternal bond. David had given it to me for my 40th birthday when May was just a baby.

“May you don’t have to take it off, but you can’t pretend she is going to come for it. You are old enough to understand that mommy is in Heaven and…” David started to tear up “… and you have to be strong. We both have to be.”

May sat on the side of the bed with David. As they held hands they leaned on each other and watched the sun set through the bedroom window. They had made it through the first full day without me.

~

The nights are the hardest to endure. I feel most vulnerable when my loved ones are asleep. Things move and creek in the night and they are just as frightening when you are dead. One doesn’t know if there is an encounter with a new being around the corner or if the shifting energies are innocuous. When everyone’s asleep anything seems possible.

Clara stayed up late though, and even if I couldn’t cross the salt boundary she laid down, I found I could hover outside her window to see what she was doing. Inside her room she had draped her mirror with a dark cloth and she had incense burning. She moved around her room slowly looking for something, her hands fidgeting, and when she found it I was curious about the wrapped mass. It was a wrapping of dried sage which she lit and then opened her window to blow the smoke from the burning sage right at me. This had to be more than a coincidence. She could see me! I was certain. I wondered if she could hear me too.

“Clara!” I yelled as she directed the sage smoke my way.

This only encouraged her to wave harder and blow more furiously.

When repelled, I flew erratically towards the trees far away from Clara and her superstitions. After finding comfort in the Poplar leaves, I decided to spend the night at my mother’s house again.

FOUR

To those who say “You can sleep when you’re dead,” it’s not true. Being dead is exhausting. A spirit has no faculties for sleep. The best I could do to rest was to watch my mother sleep. I was so comforted to be near her just as I was in life. She calmed me. I hovered around her room but noticed, when I did, her sleep would be disturbed. So I chose to go into her wardrobe and wait there until morning. But things happen in the night. Just as every child suspects. From under my mother’s bed I heard a crackling sound like lightning just before a strike. The sound moved low across the floor and then a shape emerged in front of the wardrobe. Moving and enlarging like a giant storm front, with sparks of electric arcs within the massive form. Instead of a billowy shape in was jagged with dark static throughout. My instinct was to hide at the lowest and furthest end of the wardrobe. But the electrical form entered in through the small crack in the door adjusting its size as it trickled in to find me. When it made contact with me I heard countless human voices saying things in anger, threatening each other, hurtful words, insults, all from disembodied sources. Then my own voice emerged from the masses. I was screaming at my husband to “get the hell away from me.” Things I said in anger or careless arrogance were played back to me. The insulting, mean and unsympathetic words I had spoken were all contained within this being. I was forced to listen to every cruel thing I had ever said. I tried to escape but this being kept pace with me and would not give me reprieve until I had heard every last word. In the morning, it expanded to the size of the room, blocking out all light and the last thing it made me listen to before it went away was, “I will be better off dead.” Those were the words I used in the morning before we went to the beach. I had said them under my breath in the privacy of our laundry room as I folded the beach towels. But Clara, our housekeeper, walked in and heard those words. She just crossed herself and briskly walked away from me.

~

When my mother awoke she grabbed the tissue box as her tears welled. I could tell she could hardly bare the grief she was feeling. Being almost 78, she had her health issues and she certainly could have done without the stress of losing her only child. She couldn’t make the phone calls as she had planned. She called her best friend, Cheryl, instead. Cheryl and her grieved all day with Cheryl running tea up to my mother on the hour and contacting everyone on my mother’s phone list. It was just too much for Mom. She needed help getting through and Cheryl was her rock. It was time to go back to David and May especially after my night with the dark static being. How could I make up for things now. The burden of death was becoming harder to bare than the burden of life. I felt so heavily afflicted by my own words; words which seemed to be recorded for all time. Words I could not take back, nor could I apologize for. David was in bed with May beside him. They were both pretending to still be asleep because they couldn’t face the reality of their new lives. May had her teddy bear from when she was a baby with her. David must have gotten it out of her baby-box to comfort her during the night. Nana Nettle was up and had decided to start the phone calls which needed to be made and Clara was making breakfast. Clara wore a sprig of rosemary on her lapel, it was so understated no one would notice. But I noticed because it had the power to keep me out of the kitchen. As Clara cooked, I spied on her from the dining room. The sprig emanated a warm glow of pulsating light and it filled the kitchen. It was a hazy-light which contained an odor I found, in my present state, to be repellent. Like the salt, Clara had found another way to keep me out of her vicinity. I had never noticed these behaviors before. I maybe wouldn’t have noticed the salt ritual because I never entered her room, but I would have noticed the rosemary sprig if she had worn it before my death. I loved rosemary and I would have commented on how fragrant it was. I could only conclude two things from her behavior. Either she was a very superstitious woman who was just taking precautions because there had been a death in the family or she knew I was here. I decided I would attempt to communicate with Clara but I didn’t know how. I knew when I was at my mother’s house I had knocked over a lamp, but my energy was too low now from the nights events. I was feeling very weak. Maybe the rosemary was having more of an affect on me than I realized. As I contemplated ways to try and reach out to Clara and how to get past her herbal force field our cat Misty walked into the dinning room. She jumped up on the table, sat on her back legs and lifted her front paws up as if she was trying to catch a butterfly. But there were no butterflies in the room there was only me. Misty could see me. Her claws were retracted and just the soft puffs of her paws reached into the air trying to catch me. I shot away from her. Was she going to try to lick me or eat me, I wondered. Misty followed me around the room, her tail low and slowly moving from side to side as she tracked my movements. When I would come low she would stretch a paw up and when I would zip away she would hunch down, only moving her eyes as she stalked me. I began to feel weak again and a waft of rosemary sickened me as Clara’s wet wash rag flicked Misty in the behind. She flew out of the dining room hissing and ran through her cat door. I could barely move as Clara seemingly peered into the very air as if looking for something out of place then she went back into the kitchen. May, David and Nana sat at the kitchen table in silence as Clara moved around them skillfully sliding eggs onto their plates. From the dining room I could see there was toast with marmalade and jam, orange juice, apple juice and a selection of baked goods from the French bakery down the street. Clara had made a special trip early in the morning to get the pastries for my family. She was not a very intrusive woman nor did she speak much, but she always new just how to add the right touch to a meal or to the house in order to bring a little bit of cheer. From a flower arrangement to having the sheets scented with lavender she always made our home feel special. Now, I was starting to understand her more. She was much more complicated than I had given her credit for. David sat drinking his coffee and letting the eggs and toast chill on his plate. He hadn’t showered and he was still in his pajamas. May looked a little neater as she was one to use a bath to soothe her and Nana Nettle looked beautiful. She had her hair done up in a bun with its silver streaks acting as highlights against the jet black backdrop of her hair. She wore a turquoise silk blouse with the color up, a pearl necklace with a matching set of earrings. She was elegant even in the worst of circumstances. I could overhear their conversation in the kitchen. May wanted to speak about me as if I were still alive. “When mom comes back will we be able to go to the beach again?” She asked. David and Nana were taken aback by the question. “May, dear,” Nana said gently, “Your mother is…” David cut her off. “May, mommy’s not coming home.” David let the words trail into the air as if he knew what should be said but didn’t believe it himself. He took a sip of coffee and as he put the cup down his hand was shaking. “Mommy is coming home!” May declared and then left the table to go to her room. “You better get on top of that, David,” Nana directed when May was out of earshot. “She’s got to come to terms with this as soon as possible.” “Give her time mom, give her time.” “David a tragedy like this can scar a child…” Nana adjusted her pearls and lay her hand on top of David’s jittery hand. “I know mother, but just for today let her think what she has to to get through. I promise you, we will deal with it if it persists.” Nana picked at the croissant on her plate and contemplated the compassion David was extending to his daughter. “Just for today.” she said as she placed a dollop of marmalade on her plate. Then the table fell silent with their own private thoughts. Clara cleared the table and left them with the morning newspaper. “An obituary has to be written David and we have to start the funeral arrangements.” Nana stated. David rose from the table, dropped the paper on his placemat, looked lovingly at his mother and excused himself. He was not ready to deal with such realities. The inconveniences associated with death. Grieving for him was hard enough. He walked away from the table leaving Nana Nettle alone with Clara and retreated to his bed. He didn’t even check on May on the way. David couldn’t function and to see an unusually optimistic man be brought to this state was excruciatingly painful to me. I watched him as he curled up into a ball and put a pillow over his head. He called out my name several times and then fell asleep. I went into May’s room. She had set up a tea table with a bear and a doll with an empty seat for me. Hanging from my chair was the necklace I had left for her on the beach. She hadn’t played tea in years and the conversation she was holding with her guests was uplifting and pleasant until she turned to my chair. She told my chair I was not allowed to have any more tea and the rest of the cookies were for the other guests. She sternly removed the tea cup from my setting and told my chair until I learned how to behave, I would have to watch and learn etiquette from teddy bear and doll. I didn’t know how my child was going to learn how to survive my absence, but I knew her pretending I was coming back and tea parties were just the beginning of her individual coping. She played tea for an hour or so, scolding my chair and then returning to pleasant conversation with her other guests. When she was finishing up she allowed my chair one more sip of tea and then packed up. The bear and the doll were put back on the window seat and the tea set and chairs pushed to the corner of the room. She placed my chair facing the wall, the gold necklace swaying, and demanded I stay there until she said so. I was in some sort of time out. She was very angry with me. A mother can find multiple ways to respond to situations with with their child. My guilt was intensifying, yet I was somehow proud of May. Even though she didn’t know why or how I left, she had the right to be angry. No matter what Nana Nettle had to say about it, I thought May was being very brave.

~

THREE

David pulled into the driveway of our Tudor-style home. The house was dark, all but for one room. It was the room where Clara, our housekeeper, lived. She would have to be the first person they told. She didn’t look shocked and said only, “May God bless you all.” When she retreated back to her room, I followed her and noticed she took up her knitting as if nothing had happened. Suddenly, she stood up and rushed to the kitchen. She grabbed the large salt shaker from the cupboard and scurried back to her room with it. She poured a line of salt around the perimeter of her room and as she did this, I found I could no longer remain there to observe her. The salt had cast some repellent power over me.

I found David, Nana and May in the living room. They were seated together, arms wrapped around each other discussing, through their tears, who they should call and then the phone rang. David slowly reached across the side table and picked up the receiver. It was my mother. “David I am so happy I caught you, is Emily there I have to tell her who I ran into today.” David muffled the receiver and he began to sob. “David? David! What’s happened?” My mother demanded with apprehension. Nana Nettle took the phone from David’s hands as he curled into May. “Maureen,” Nana’s voice trembled, “there’s been a terrible accident ,dear, and I need you to sit down.” “No!” My mother stated “No, don’t you dare tell me anything has happened to my daughter, don’t you dare!” “Maureen…” Nana paused for a very long time as my mother started to cry. “What has happened?” my mother shrieked. “She went for a swim,” Nana said softly, “She went for a swim and…” “Where is my daughter?” demanded my mother. “I can’t say the words, Maureen.” Nana admitted. “Are you telling me she is gone? That she… that she… is…” My mother couldn’t finish her sentence. “Yes,” said Nana “I am so sorry.”

~

Just as I was thinking of the pain my mother must be feeling I found myself in her kitchen, facing the horror on her face. I didn’t call my mother before I went to the beach. I thought she might say ‘just the right thing’ to me, as she always had, which would have made me delay my plan. I had not left a note because I wanted it to look like an accident. But now, I wished I had communicated something to let them all know how much I loved them; I felt powerless to let them know now. As I watched my mother discuss where my body was located and how she would inform my friends and her side of the family the dark beings drew in from the corners of the room encircling her as she hung up the phone.

The Yawning and twisted faces were horrible and their bodies distorted, just as before.They fed off all of my mother’s anguish and then they encircled me again to absorb my pain and sadness. They were like parasites surviving on the suffering of others. I called them sorrow suckers. My mother reached up to her book selection in the kitchen and pulled down her favorite books of poems. As soon as she did this the parasites hastened away. Mother fingered the pages looking for the right poem to help ease her pain. I watched her close the book of poems and lay her hand on top of the volume as her other hand cupped her head. She was alone and she wept for hours. I tried to get close enough to comfort her but a force held me away at an arms length. It was as if I were not allowed to comfort her, nor was I allowed to get close enough to her bosom to find respite from my own circumstances. I stayed with my mother for the night.

The thought of watching David and Nana tuck May in on this first night without her mother was something I hadn’t the strength to endure. Mother sat down in her den with her address book and started making a list of who to call in the morning. My aunts and uncles, cousins, friends from high school, my best friend and her family, the girls from our crafting circle, all of them had to be contacted. I was starting to grasp the impact my life had on others.

Even if in different ways, each one of these people would be affected by my death. The calls David would have to make would be a longer list of work colleagues, our shared friends, his aunts and uncles, his cousins, our social clubs, people associated with our charity work. Yet more people my life had touched in even the smallest of ways. It was horrible to think of all the calls which needed to be made and how many times my loved ones would have to say, “I am sorry to tell you she has passed away.” What kind of person was I to do this to them? How could I have done this? What the hell was I thinking? I wanted to go back! I became very distressed and started drifting about my mothers den.

I began to shoot back and forth like a ricochet bullet. I began moving faster and more uncontrollably as my distress increased with each thought of wanting to go back to my life. I moved so forcefully I knocked over my mothers lamp and frightened her half to death. The lamp broke into pieces and her den went dark. As she stood up to turn on the main light she said, “Emily? Is that you?” after which she scolded herself for being silly. She left the lamp in shambles and went upstairs to bed with a box of Kleenex and her book of poetry…

TWO

Dying is not the end. I was expecting to be sucked into oblivion a place where I would no longer exist. I was hoping my very being would be eradicated from the earth and a nothingness would wash over me. I was expecting a void to devour my conscious self so I would, simply, no longer be. It is not what happened. I watched my body drift away – my arms floating up like seaweed in the current. I was still me, but without the body. All my feelings of sadness and my love for my family were still as strong as ever. And the darkness still persisted in me.

I was terrified, but I no longer had a physical body to help me scream or call for help. Death was not what I expected it to be. It felt like I was the size of a pea but all of my consciousness was contained within. I didn’t need oxygen to remain underwater and I could still think as distinctly as I did when I was alive. My first thoughts were of regret for killing myself and my whole pea-sized being shuddered with sorrow and shame. I was still depressed, I was still confused and, strangely enough, I still wanted to kill myself. Because I was not dead. The only changed circumstance through my action was I threw my body away. The vehicle which had allowed me to hug my child and to kiss my husband. The vehicle which could have helped me to try a little harder to get help and to keep on trying until something had worked.

I closed the door on my life, but I did not exit my existence. As I remained in the water I heard a helicopter overhead. I wondered if it was Search-and-Rescue. My family would have realized I was gone by now. They would be looking to the ocean for answers, for some sign of me, not wanting to admit to themselves I had drowned. They would be holding on to the hope I was simply adrift and they would find me alive. Remorse burned through me. It finally occurred to me they would have to deal with my remains. I was disoriented and started to wonder if I was in Hell. I could see the sun above the surface of the water and then another light seemingly came toward me. It was brighter than the sun and I wanted to back away from it. There was a sentient power which I could feel within the light, an awareness of me. Terror rose within me as it came closer, closer yet, and then it enveloped me. I could hear a voice, but I did not understand the words because they were so loud and they reverberated throughout my soul. The light moved away and I was in the the shadow of what I could only describe as an Angel. It changed from a ray to a tall beam of light with more light jutting out the sides like wings. I couldn’t see a face, but I felt awash in a mercy I had never known. Then it disappeared.

I didn’t know what to call where I was. It didn’t make sense to me an Angel would visit me in Hell; nor, did it make sense Hell was the ocean. But after the visit I did realize I could move freely based on my thoughts and intentions. I ached to see my husband and daughter so I thought intently about them. I then traveled to David and May like a particle of light shooting through space and time and found myself hovering by their sides. David and May were crumpled on the beach beside my soggy body. There was a blanket covering me from head to toe. Nana Nettle was ringing a handkerchief in her hands. I floated around to see different perspectives of the scene. My daughter was weeping and my husband was trying to remain strong for her. I did this to them. I didn’t think it through. I didn’t expect things to turn out this way. All I wanted to do was vanish. I didn’t want to cause such suffering, such anguish and pain.

I couldn’t contain my own grief from what I had done and I shifted to try and escape. I could not watch my family suffer. But when I tried to leave I realized there were dark beings surrounding my family and me. Like an ancient stone circle we were contained within their ranks. They were morphing and absorbing all of the suffering and the pain. They wouldn’t let me pass to escape. I was forced to absorb the suffering as well. It was so powerful I didn’t think I could contain it all. I felt like I would burst. My soul stung and felt like it was twisting into a knot I would never be able to undo. I wondered if the Angel would come back to protect me from these beings as they came closer to me. They isolated me from my family and closed in encircling only me and then drew out the pain I had just absorbed. Then I glimpsed their gruesome faces. Their mouths gaped and shut and their expressions morphed then scrunched up as they drew the miserable energy from me.

When the crying stopped, the dark beings separated and drew themselves away into the thin air. David, May and Nana Nettle held each other as they carried my body away. There was a moment of calm as they watched in disbelief as my body was wheeled into the coroner’s van. The picnic basket and the buckets and the striped towels were gathered slowly, then my family was forced to walk through a crowd of eager onlookers who wanted to ask questions about what had happened. Luckily, only silence followed us all back to the car. A large part of me didn’t have the courage to face what it would be like for them to arrange the funeral and to carry on without me.

I was ashamed and stunned at my action. But I had chosen to leave them when I committed suicide. I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact I could still see, hear and experience everything and I was trying to understand why I was not cast into the void of nothingness I had imagined. I felt betrayed, I felt angry, but most of all I felt an agony so deep, I could not compare it to anything I had ever known. Silence filled the car as we travelled home. David was driving, and Nana Nettle cradled May’s weary head. David looked into the review mirror at the place I was sitting hours before. He was trying to imagine me there. He was trying to pretend things were normal, but his vacant eyes showed me things would never be the same for him ever again…

ONE

The thought of just saying good-bye and leaving behind all of my agony seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I exercised a romantic vision of death, not because I took my life for granted, but because something in my head told me I was not deserving of my life. It had me believing death would hold a freedom from the devastating pain I felt on a daily basis. I remember feeling so completely lost and broken and then I remember this darkness visiting itself upon me. I must word it this way to be accurate: visiting itself upon me. Because it was a darkness which existed solely with the intention of calling me to it with a song only my weakest self could be seduced into hearing.

Trying to convince people I was happy depleted me. At least in the darkness I no longer had to try and convince myself things were going to improve. My hope was extinguished. I was exhausted and welcomed not having to try any longer. I willingly became host to everything eating me up inside. The darkness was comforting and sadly made every negative thought I was having seem rational. It made every intention of death seem like an extension of love towards my family. I needed a doctor, but I found the darkness more affordable.

When David would come home from work and find me under the covers, I remember him being afraid to pull the blankets off of me. It did not help his mood, after a long day’s work, to find his 8 year old daughter sitting in front of the television eating Cheerios when she should have been in bed. Most husbands would have yelled, pulled the covers off and thrown me into a cold shower. They would have had enough. Years of mental detachment and steady emotional decline did not faze David. He was there for me in every possible way. He would have done anything for me and he loved me without bounds. This is what broke my heart: I believed I didn’t deserve him. He loved me completely. His love was so kind and perfect and pure; it was the kind of love all human hope is based upon. I never thought I would find such a love in my life.

The darkness supported the idea I was not good enough for him and made me feel both he and our daughter, May, would be better off without me. The idea stuck. Even during the years of psychiatrists, brain scans and trial medications the darkness remained.

I was compliant with all requests and seemed to be much improved on the day I finally decided how to die. Everyone thought they were seeing a form of recovery. But what they were seeing was the relief of a woman who had finally made up her mind. I had chosen the idea of oblivion over all things important to me because the pain of my depression was too great to cope with any longer.

On the day I decided to take my life it was sunny and warm. I felt a sense of elation which was noticeable to my family. David and May both commented on how happy I seemed. To the outside world, I appeared to be well and balanced.

David’s mother, Nana Nettle, had decided that we should all have a picnic at the beach. Everyone was light hearted and ready to connect with all of life’s possibilities.

One of May’s poems had been published in her school’s newspaper. David had just found the perfect business partner, another dermatologist with a holistic leaning who didn’t believe in promoting plastic surgery. And Nana Nettle had just received a marriage proposal from Tom Dunkirk, a man from a neighboring town she had been dating for the past year and a half. David’s father, Papa Nettle, had died five years earlier and David was thrilled to watch his mother discover love again.

Our picnic basket packed and ready, we climbed into the car. I sat in the back with May and listened to my family, letting their hopes and dreams wash over me. As I listened, I caught the eye of my husband in the rearview mirror and smiled.

When we arrived at the beach everyone jumped out of the car, but I remained for a moment to take one of the deepest breaths I had ever taken. It was time to face the ocean.

I walked slowly to my family as they laid out the striped towels and scattered the orange and blue buckets alongside the picnic basket. We had our lunch then made sand castles and after the mightiest part of the sun passed over us, everyone, except me, took a nap. The sounds of a family resting in the sun are the sweetest and most intimate. I smiled at my mother-in-law, kissed my husband then removed my gold chain from around my neck. I let it pour into May’s belly button as she slept. I didn’t want to hurt my family; I believed they would be better off without me. The darkness in my mind confirmed this belief.

As I walked to the water, my thoughts tumbled in my head and my body went stiff as I forced myself toward the ocean’s edge. I didn’t look back at my family. I pressed my body against the waves as I walked deeper into the ocean. Its force almost trying to protect me from myself. Each wave became stronger than the last pushing against me until I rushed past the surf. It had to be deep enough to drown so it would look like an accident. I was not the strongest swimmer and there was a rip tide. An accident time can heal; but, a suicide suspends all anguish. As my family slept I was swept away choking and gasping until my lungs filled with water. The first gasp was more from the surprise of actually going through with it. The second gasp was in despair as my body sank and only the tip of my finger broke through the water’s tension. The following gulps and spasms were in regret as my fingertip was the last part of me to feel the warm sun. I flailed and twisted as my lungs stung and my brain erupted. My last thoughts were of David’s and May’s beating hearts. And then mine stopped…