The Shoebox

There are no friendly ghosts.  Just angry ones. 

I ran to the home of the girl who was raped the night before.  This debate of what to say played in my head.  It was last year, let's move on, I thought.  Then I realized, it all occured after midnight.

I could have married her, I sometimes think.
I should have, at the very least, kissed her.

And the image of what she looked like has been erased from my mind.  She was taller than me.  Not in some awkward way but more model-like.  She was beautiful; that I know. 

A few years later, she gave birth to twins and only the twins left that hospital.  I heard it was a brain aneurysm during labor.  They tried to warn her months before.  Then, they tried to save her.  She is probably the best mother I've ever known.  That could be construed as hyperbole.  That's not my intention.

Those twins; they're out of college.  They've got their mother's character and good genes. 

I wouldn't mind a few minutes with them to recollect but I don't remember much; just an unfortunate crime and a shoebox of handwritten letters she mailed to me.  She only lived two miles away. 

And those letters; they seem a lifetime ago written to someone almost like me. 

I read them for the first time in twenty eight years.  I didn't even know I had them.  They just kind of reappeared during a random search for something else.  My first instinct was to hold one of the letters up to my nose as if I would recapture a familiar scent. 

Then I read her affectionate words.

Of course, there was a lump in my throat.  That's natural.  But I couldn't determine if it was because those words came from her or if it was simply nice to be reminded that I am loveable.  Even if it was what seems a lifetime ago. 

I started to ask myself:  why do we seem to always dismiss those younger than us?  Why do we think that being in love is some adult thing and everything before adulthood is just a meaningless crush or phase? 

My younger self would resist this belief that my current self knows better than him.  I may be wiser now but I'm more careful, less carefree, less intense, more guarded, less affectionate, and more cynical.  I think my younger self was more loveable than my current self because I loved with less judgment and more vulnerability.

I look at the first letter on top of several in this dusty old shoebox and it's dated September 14th, 1987. 
Two years before I would last see her.  Three and a half months before that unfortunate crime.  Four years before giving her twins the gift of life.  Four years before she left us. 

And twenty eight years before she would remind me that not all ghosts are angry.