Ghosts/Haunted

So this is about ghosts, but not in the way it seems at first. 

It's not a "spooky season" pre-Halloween kind of ghost, or a horror story movie night kind of ghost. It's about being haunted in the way we all really eventually are, and these kinds of ghosts absolutely exist. If you've never seen one, just wait, because you probably will eventually. Unfortunately. You, too, will probably be haunted. 

My first ghost, I guess, was my father-in-law. He was so much more of a dad to me than the in-real-life biological guy, who honestly took off when I was four, but I have a feeling it was way sooner in reality.

From what my mom said, I was supposed to be the baby that brought them back together after my sister Peggy died as a toddler.... apparently kind of my dad's fault, or at least he blamed himself.... (he's a ghost too, but that comes later.) My father-in-law died coming up on 20ish years ago (give or take a year or two because I suck at math.) 

He was a very tall man, and funny, and stubborn, and a real pain in the butt sometimes. He had that Texas loping walk, lanky, cowboy poet thing happening. I used to tell him about this poem called "Reincarnation," by Wallace McCrae, because he reminded me of that lazy, funny, serious vibe, all the time.  (There's a long story about that, including a funny night with his cousin Will, and an old man fight [verbally, not physically, although I think that wasn't completely out of the cards]).  But yeah.... he was a guy that meant a lot to me, pain in the butt and all. 

I made this image illustration of the poem-- which is kinda fun, and it definitely took way longer than it should have 'cause I should be working on my course in Canvas, but nah. 

And after he died-- I would see him all. the. damn. time. Still do.  

He's a very tall man who looms over everyone else in the crowd, wearing a plaid shirt and a longer torso than most, with his belt around his hips, that belt doing the lord's work keeping up his pants because he didn't want it to go over his substantial belly..... Or an older man, greyish hair slicked back in the 1950s way that was pretty cool/hot back in the day, wearing wire frame glasses, squinting up at something he was trying to figure out. He was always at the cafeteria-style restaurant he used to like best of all (Luby's, for those who know.) Or off in the distance, there he would be, walking through Costco. It wasn't REALLY him, but it was him. I could almost smell his aftershave. And don't get me started about the giant Hershey bar he once ate in one sitting in the car driving home AFTER eating at Luby's.... Chocolate, and him just basking in the pleasure of having all of it to himself. 

But still. Haunted.

My next ghost was my mom. She is actually the "ghost" I saw today that inspired this blog musing. So there you have it... what is going through my mind when I'm walking around the library. (Among many other things. I'm a bit of an overthinker.)

When I lived with her as an older teen/young adult, sometimes we would fight, and I just couldn't wait to not live with her anymore, because she was an opinionated old lady with a loud ass voice and a smoker's rasp. She smoked two packs of More Reds a day, and God, I could never get that smoke out of my nonsmoker's clothes. I hated it. I sometimes hated her a little bit because of it. Being the only nonsmoker in a house full of heavy smokers is rough sometimes. 

She had been in the Navy in the late 1950s/early 1960s; her call sign was Rocky, (based on her last name, not the movie, which arrived way later) and she had a Drill Instructor's voice that would put the fear of God in you if you were acting up (and by the way, I now can do that in my old age... yes!!) She once took a sawed-off shotgun away from a guy in a bar (called the Purple Peacock and I think it was a Biker Bar she worked at?) in the early 80s when he was threatening to shoot up the place because his heart was way broken by a woman who was cheating on him, (not my mom, by the way; she was the bartender) and shamed him into sitting down and behaving himself..... and then was scared after the fact and had to sit down because what he heck did she just do? (And for the record-- I do things like that all the time, too... not thinking about the danger I'm in until after, but dang it, that dude should not have tried to steal from that Home Depot that one time! One of my coworkers used to joke that he was scared of me after that incident I could maybe tell you about but won't for now cause this one isn't really about me.....) 

And I'm going to interject here to anyone who stumbles on reading this to ASK your loved ones their stories, over and over again, because you never know when they won't be there later to tell them to you to clarify what the HELL she was doing in that biker bar, but also COOL you were a bartender in a biker bar? Tell me MORE. 

And we got along GREAT on the phone after my kids were born. I would call her, and tell her that I felt awful for dropping them off at a daycare-- I was the worst mom ever for trying to get them acclimated before I started work (and for the record, they did spew from both ends like three days into it, so it was kind of a terrible daycare) and she calmed me down off the ledge and I learned that it's a process of letting them have their own lives.... and every mom thinks that, and sometimes we're right, but sometimes we're just trying to do TOO DAMN MUCH. 

But boy, do I miss her. I miss her almost every time I get into a car alone for a longer drive, even this many years (like 15? Again, I'm not going to do the math) later. I want to call her, and talk over my day, and get advice, and hear her stories. 

And sometimes, I'll see a silver-haired older lady, especially like the housekeeping staff lady I saw today at work, stooped over a little, her eyebrow furrowed in concentration while she held one of those weird long duster gadgets, and thinking about how she was going to finish cleaning this one spot near the escalator, and suddenly, there is the ghost of my mom. I wanted to ask her (a little bit but I didn't) for a hug, beause there she was. My mom. But this Mexican American lady in San Antonio would have thought I was crazy.... 

But for a moment, she was Iva. Just for a moment. 

I was haunted. I am haunted. 

Ghosts. They're all over the place, and just kind of growing in number for me these days. I didn't really have ANY until my late 30s and now I am perpetually running into someone who reminds me of someone, who for a moment IS that someone, even people I've never really even met. (Long story there but it's a doozy). 

It makes it difficult, and I don't entirely know what to do with this information. 

I could tell you about the ghost of my sister Judy, and her daughter Sara, and life choices and people I've loved or never even had a chance to love, and some I've hated and lost and no one ever wrote a eulogy for that loss but it's still there.  And it's both the lighthearted Cowboy poem above and the deeply sad moments when even an entire four servings (who set that single pint as FOUR people should eat it? Or you should eat it over a period of four different times??? Sadists, that's who) pint of Ben & Jerry's doesn't really push deeply enough down.  

But sheesh. Reading over this, maybe I just need to go find myself that therapist I've been musing over for a while. Or some Ben & Jerry's. Two pints this time. For the ghosts.