On Ghosts

When I was younger my father, brother and I would occasionally visit my grandfather's grave. Each time, we would stop by the market and pick up a few pears because my brother and he would enjoy eating them together. He would leave the pears at the grave, and in my child logic I believed his ghost would consume them after we were gone.

I was six months old when my father's father died. My mother tells me that he often held me, and spoke to me, even going so far as advising me to avoid alcohol and cigarettes. As much as I wish could, I recall none of it. Any knowledge I have of my grandfather comes from the stories my cousin's told me and the memories my brother recalls. Of course there are stories about him as a father, his time in Beirut, his restaurant, and more. None of it is enough.

My mother's parents died when she was in her late teens. She tells stories about them whenever prompted, the kind of people they were, the life they led, and the tragedies they endured, all in what feels like some idyllic Lebanon filled with colorful characters and unique happenings. Though she's been orphaned for more than fifty years, I hear the longing in her voice, and can only imagine how painful it must be to recall. 

I tend to sensationalize my grandparents because I never knew them. I imagine them as people I would have liked to have known. I know about their quirks and tempers, their personalities and their interests. And they long lived in my imagination as ghosts, and the various factors that ended their lives a reminder to me that even in the best of things can be cut short by unforeseen circumstances. 

About seven years ago I moved to Armenia and during my first visit back I was shown a video recently transferred from film of my parents' first engagement. My mother, always excited at being able to show me the past, began pointing to people and naming names, my uncles and aunts, her friends, and distant relatives. I saw then the shot I will never forget. Standing together were the three grandparents I had never known, smiling, dancing, moving. Alive. 

They footage was black and white, the film was aged and dirty; but for a moment they were no longer ghosts.