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It’s not so bad being dead.
After the initial shock you kind of get used to it. Obviously, the toughest hurdle was being invisible - knowing no one could touch or hear you. He’d screamed and thrashed about for days after the accident, so desperate for someone to notice him. However, he soon learned that doing that for too long would turn him into a poltergeist and that was the last thing he wanted. So, like most of the undead, he settled for being a silent observer.
He didn’t know what else to do but watch over his family. She didn’t know it but he stood by his wife’s side as she laid his body to rest. He sat next to his oldest son’s bed as he thrashed in his sleep, plagued by nightmares of the night he died. He accompanied his youngest son to school and watched him deal with the whispers and stares that came with living through a tragedy. And four months after he died, he sat with his newborn daughter in the maternity ward seeing her through her first day on this earth.
It was a special sort of helplessness, being the ghostly spector in your own family. Watching them as they grieved his loss was unimaginably painful. Seeing them sad and knowing that he could no longer kiss away their pain or banish their nightmares with a hug was torture. He wanted to help them so desperately… and it wasn’t long before he found a way to do so.
Possession was a tricky game. There were many ways it could go right, there were many ways it could go wrong. However, it was the only way someone in his predicament could impact the living world. If only for a short while.
The ice cream man was the first person he inhabited. An impulsive decision made to brighten his youngest son’s day. Since his death, Roland had become withdrawn, barely speaking to anyone, never going out with his friends. Regina had finally convinced him to head out with the old gang when they decided to go to the ice cream shop. Robin watched as his son stuck his hands in his pockets, biting his lip - a tell-tale sign that he was thinking up an excuse. Money was tight around the house now that he was dead, he’d watched Regina fret over the past due statements and so had Roland. Things like trips to the ice cream shop - a near weekly occurrence when he was alive - were now considered a luxury his family could no longer afford.
Before he knew it he was in the shop owner’s body, pressing a generous scoop of rocky road onto a waffle cone. He held it out his son, nearly breathless at the opportunity to speak to him again. “On the house?” he offered. “I always get a little generous on my birthday.”
Hesitating, Roland shrugged before accepting the cone with a soft
happy birthday
and a shy smile. He was expelled from his host before the moment was even over but it had already been enough. Back in his ghostly form, he watched his son lick at his ice cream cone, his lips pulling into the his first genuine smile in weeks. It made his unbeating heart soar.
His oldest son, Henry, was hard to watch. Ever the caretaker, he’d been trying to fill his absence since the funeral. Robin watched, silently, as he cleared gutters, mowed lawns for extra cash and watched over his brother and sister when his mother couldn’t. He’d piled so much responsibility on his shoulders, Robin was afraid he’d break.
For the third time in a week, he’d fallen in the back of the classroom and his teacher had finally decided to take action. His son had barely sat down in front of her desk, before Robin slipped into her body to offer his son some fatherly advice.
“It’s alright to want to care for others… but I hope you make time to care for you too,” he advised.
Ever his father’s son, Henry just shrugged his shoulders and put on a brave face. “I’m fine,” he replied. “Just looking out for my family… like my father taught me.”
He couldn’t even stay long enough to say he was proud of him. The woman pushed his soul out before he could, assigning Henry extra work to make up for the time he’d spent sleeping. Following his son out into the hall, he wondered if his words had even made a difference.
He never had to possess anyone with Margot. His baby girl was far too young to need such extraordinary lengths for contact. She saw him. Always. Smiling whenever he appeared, calming at the ghost of his touch. He spent whole days following Margot, telling her stories and teaching her lesson, praying to god it would all sink in before the day came when her physical vision overpowered her spiritual sight. He cherished his moments with her the most, knowing that she’d never get anything more of him.
Watching his wife was the hardest. He’d married a force of nature in heels. She was strong, resilient and in life, she’d gotten him through the toughest of times. From the day they’d met, she’d become his rock but in all his praise of her… he’d never considered that she’d thought of him as hers. He never thought off all the times she’d vented to him, confessed and cried on his shoulder. He never imagined what it would be like for her to no longer have him. Now he no longer had to. He saw the picture of it, upclose and in color.
He watched as she forced herself to get out of bed in the morning and drive to work, holding it together through presentations only to break down in the bathroom minutes later. He stood behind her as she spoke to their sons at the dinner table promising that she had everything under control, waiting until they were asleep in their beds to go over the bank statements and figure out where to slash and bolster their budget. He laid next to her in bed as she cried, still unable to sleep on his side of the mattress. And over time he watched her grief faded and her loneliness grew. The sad look in her eyes asking the same question that had sat on his mind since he’d died. Would she ever love again?
It was three years after he died when he finally spoke to her again. She’d sat on the the couch in her therapists office, eyes glued to the ground as she recounted the moment two days prior when a man had asked her for her number. A tear fell down her face as she spoke of the guilt that flooded her chest when - for the briefest moment - she’d considered saying giving it to home.
He’d slipped into the therapist’s body, fighting the urge to rush over and physically console her. Instead he asked her a question. “Do you think your husband loved you Regina?”
“I know he did,” she sniffled.
“And does a lifetime of loneliness seem like something you’d wish upon someone you loved?”
“No…”
“Then how could you ever think your husband would wish such a fate on you?”
Holding onto to doctor’s body for as long as he could he reminded that moving on was not something she should ever feel guilty about. That she never needed to apologize for any happiness she experienced after his death. Moving on was natural and when she felt ready she shouldn’t hesitate in taking the first step.
She’d been wiping tears from her face by the time he was forced to leave. Two weeks later she had her first date since his death. Sitting through it with her was one of the most excruciating experiences of his entire afterlife. But she ended the date with a smile and a kiss and he was glad.
In death, just as in life, her happiness meant everything.