Ghosts

Today, I was exiting a store and a man was walking in front of me and I thought "Steve!" Same walk, same style of dress, same shaved head, same hat...

Then I remembered...Steve isn't here any longer he left this earth a few years ago. My sunshine day was clouded by a sad memory of a friend who fell into a pit so deep he couldn't pull himself out of it. He taught my kids to swim, taught me how to use the gym weights, had an awesome whistle that grabbed every kid's attention in a 500 foot radius, a passion for Auburn in a Bama dominated region...but he couldn't save himself. I cannot imagine a pain so deep it violates every sense of a body's natural instinct to survive.

I wish I would have given him the name of a counselor instead of the divorce attorney. I wish I would have listened to the voice telling me he was acting like someone else I knew who once wanted to take his life. The voice was so strong in my head but the memory of the other experience was so painful that I just pushed it down and didn't listen to it.

I wish...I wish...I wish...I wish I had seen Steve today. Living, breathing, walking in front of me, cursing all the Bama paraphernalia...my memory of him is fading, transparent, distant, seen infrequently...a ghost.