Hallucination
Dec 16 2024
I wouldn’t do it now.
Wouldn’t scoff, with the arrogance of youth
when she told me he’d been there,
stubbornly insisting
that she could see him
as real as life.
As if death isn’t final.
As if you must believe your eyes,
even knowing
we see what we expect to see
and sometimes what we wish.
The husband
of over 50 years
who had been laid to rest
but refused to depart.
I explained, with the certainty of science
how the brain abhors a vacuum,
fills in
the missing parts;
the absence
in the shape of a man
that after half a century
was firmly lodged in there.
Perhaps now, I’d humour her.
What harm, after all, to feel his presence,
hang on to dreams,
simply believe?
Because people die, but love doesn’t.
And while reason is cold comfort
hope lifts us up.
Which is why the widow
who restlessly paces the halls
of her empty house
well into the night
hasn’t simply taken to bed,
pulled the covers over her head,
and let the emptiness
swallow her up.
For some reason, I’ve never forgotten this small long ago incident.
My parents’ old friend who told me she could absolutely see him there, and who resolutely believed it was real.
Since I knew something of how the recently bereaved can hallucinate, and how hallucinations can land with the weight of reality, I couldn’t let it go; couldn’t pass up the chance to demonstrate my superior knowledge and cool rationality. When what I should have done was play along, express sympathy, mutter some anodyne reassurance.
But I was a know-it-all who couldn’t suppress his contempt for superstition, and who valued correction over comfort. I can only hope that with age and experience I’ve become more compassionate and less insecure.
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