I’m communing with ghosts this weekend, have been all week.

My mother died a year ago, and the reality of that has been becoming sharper with time. I’m almost used to not seeing her show up in my email inbox. She was an intermittent physical presence in my adult life, in that her itinerant lifestyle meant that she passed through on her way north or south, never staying long. This was partly by inclination, partly by necessity, but consequently her physical absence has become more acute now that a longer time has passed without any “I’m headed your way” visits.

On the exact anniversary day of her death, I received an email from the specter who haunted her last year of life. Not a true ghost, but rather the person my mother believed, quite accurately, was going to attempt to replace and erase her. I believe this person chose to contact me on this particular day with intent, to let me know that she is indeed doing so, at least in certain places and aspects. Living ghosts are worse than true ones.

Much of my childhood and teen years were spent either wholly or in part in in a fairly remote place.  I fell down an internet rabbit hole one night this past week when I found a Facebook page about this place, one particular part of it. Scrolling through posts of old photos and reminiscences by people who were there around the same time my family was odd. On one hand, so much was familiar – names, sights, some faces – yet we, my family, were completely absent, even though I recall us, specifically my parents, being very involved within that small expat community. Normally not figuring in a social media world isn’t something that bothers me, but this does. It was such a small intimate world, and among other things my mother and father were instrumental in setting up the school there, so their absence of even a mention is unsettling. When looking at the photos it seems like they are hovering just out of frame or have been erased from the picture like disgraced or purged party members in old USSR days. Either way, ghosts.