This morning I started reading Peter Straub's 1979 psycho-thriller "Ghost Story."
The movie, starring Fred Astaire, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Melvyn Douglas was to say the very least, frightening. It sort of put me in the mood of ghosts. No, I'm not looking for any. I have had enough of them to deal with in my own life, and because today is my birthday they come back in average numbers to remind me (as if I needed it) of stuff, things I don't really even like to think about.
My existence is a reminder that something went terribly wrong in my family. I am the product of something I don't understand, and certain members of my mother's family never seemed to want me around too much. Or was it I just thought that and conjured up every slight that came my way? I have been told that things would have been better had I not been born, a cousin once reminded me that I was trouble from the word go, and I can never remember getting a birthday card or Christmas present from my aunt who always seemed to be an old woman. Like the rest of the folks in my mother's family, they worked hard, lived through a Depression, a World War, and the 1950s. Perhaps a little respect is due here.
It's a funny feeling when you sense that you're not really wanted; on the top of family gatherings are the greetings of warmth and welcome, These many years later it felt like window dressing. Maybe I'm a really a ghost, another being from the past that sits in a chair, says nothing, but points accusing fingers at family members and screams, "I'm here to remind you of things that have happened. If it wasn't for me, maybe everyone would be a little happier, you could actually live in the I love Lucy world it's easy to retreat to when issues get a little hot on the table.
Perhaps I should not have been, but I am.
Life hasn't been bad - I have a wonderful wife, children I am proud of, interests, passions, and people. God says I'm OK the way I am but loves me too much to leave me that way, so He's working on me.
Me, a ghost?
Hardly.
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