Not All of My Ghosts Are Dead

My grandfather died a month and two days before my 16th birthday. The significance of my sweet sixteen is, in fact, not so significant. The thing that has always haunted me about his death is that I never got the chance to say goodbye.

My grandparents lived in Holland and we lived in Germany. So we visited back and forth a lot. My sister, mother and I would spend the largest part of the summer vacation in Holland and my grandfather would bring my grandmother to see us as often as possible.

He was still running a business of his own so he would drive her down to us, stay a couple of days and then go back to Holland. Then he would come to pick her up at the end of her stay. Because of this I spent more time with my grandmother than I did my grandfather.

That March in 1993 he had brought my grandmother and was heading back to Holland, as usual. He was leaving on a school day and it was hectic with two extra people in the apartment. I remember scrambling to get my things together and being annoyed with all the people in my way. Like any typical, surly teenager I was always very touchy about having my faults pointed out to me. Teenagers feel like circus freaks all on their own, add people publicly pointing out those faults and you can expect anything but a "Thank you".

So, when I was told to be more polite and say a proper goodbye to my grandfather the last thing I wanted to do was that. Mostly because I knew it was true and I should.

Instead I managed to grind out the shortest goodbye I could muster without actually disobeying and rushed out the door to the busstop, feeling like the whole world was unfair and why couldn't people just leave me alone?

I never saw my grandfather again. He made it back to Holland, safe and sound, and went grocery shopping a few days later As he was unloading the groceries he stopped to sit at the kitchen table, probably not feeling well, and his heart stopped. He must have gone very quickly. We found out when their neighbour, who found him after investigating why the car trunk was open for so long, called us.

I didn't see him at the funeral, either. I was a big blubbering mess but couldn't bring myself to view his body. I don't regret this so much because I don't believe he was there anymore, anyway.

Aside from moving into the house where he died and a few unexplained occurances there, I can't say that he literally haunted me. Even the odd occurances were comforting when you thought it might be him playing a practical joke.

What haunted me was the guilt of not letting him know, not taking the time or getting over myself for a second, to let him know that I loved him. So simple and yet, at that moment so impossible.

The thing that released me from the guilt was realizing that the whole experience was a wasted one if I didn't learn from it. So, what did I learn from it? It's obvious, right? Tell the people you love that you love them. Don't take people for granted (that one is hard sometimes, especially with the people you really care about) and don't take every criticism personally. More often than not, they are not meant to hurt you but to help you.

I think people get haunted so that they can learn things. Sometimes we learn from someone who died but we can also learn from people who haunt us while they are still alive. I was going to write about them this time but, while trying to put pen to paper it struck me that I can't get to them without talking about Opa first. I guess you could say he was my first ghost.

In my opinion, though, as long as I apply the lessons I learned from - and because of - him, he'll never really die. Ghosts don't have to.