Ghosts

Traci Kenworth

I’ve been thinking about ghosts a lot lately. Most likely because I’m writing a short story dealing with them. I don’t want the Casper, the friendly type kind but something deeper, more damaging to our world and the people in it. The last movie I saw on ghosts was The Thirteen Ghosts. Talk about scary. Shudder. The wolverine-type ghost was just way too freaky. I been thinking how the people were trapped in the house with the ghosts and how each ghost dealt with a different layer of unease, the last one being directly with their past.

I’ve been thinking how in our day-to-day lives we deal with different types of ghosts as well: The old high school boyfriend. Death of a loved one. The loss of someone in our lives due to a move or just a disagreement perhaps. We go through our day thinking about them, sometimes seeing their faces in a crowd, remembering some memory shared. There is a wound we carry for each person lost in our lives. As time passes, we find a way to release that hurt, but sometimes people hold on to the harm. This is never healthy. To let go is to survive, to overcome.

It’s how the survivors got the house to unlock in The Thirteen Ghosts. It’s how we can move on into a better life. Strange how things you work on in fiction can open your eyes to things you need to change/accept/forgive in your own life. These ghosts need to be dealt with, chased away. You learn to hold on to the good, what really matters and be thankful. I am grateful to God and my family and friends for standing through my past with me. There’s nothing so sweet as overcoming the dark and basking in the light again.