Hungry Ghosts or Loss and the ghosts it leaves behind January 2, 2012

It would seem strange to be talking about ghosts, after ringing in what promises to be a good year. After spending the morning at my uncles house; a combination of new walls and old, 4 generations of family and so many smaller tribes of children running through it seems fitting. Each new years day, my uncle and his immediate family go to the cemetary, a tradition that my family also does, albeit not on the same day every year. They go to pay respect, and also I think to remember the bonds that remain. It is a certain strength this, to remember who is left and to honor who is gone.
My cousin Tommy died when he was 14, much too young of course and unexpected to all of us. It was the end of an age of innocent happiness for all of us. Because even though we were scattered all over the island, and the west coast, we could always rely on coming back together, and the 3rd gen running around the house, or the beach eating, screaming, and getting scoldings. I remember taking him and my brother to the beach; they were so little, caked with dried sand, drinking passionfruit juice and eating chips. Tussling little boys are always beautiful to behold, brown limbs flailing, enlisting any passerby to help them build the biggest fort ever. Tommy’s mother is like a sister to me, she made sure I stayed out of trouble, gave me dating advice, snuck me beer when we would go out for Thai food.
Tommy toggled between Washington and Hawaii, just like me, but only because his father lived there. Eventually, somehow, his father got full custody, and my cousin only got him during the holidays. We were all very upset, but we made the best of it. No one completely understood how miserable this made Tommy, how he felt displaced from both his mother’s family, which now had three little ones, and his father’s, which had a new addition of its own. In the family pictures of him as a young man, he looked increasingly forlorn, and not of the typical teenage variety. But who could know? Having gone through custody battles myself, his mom and I would discuss the stupidity and injustice of it all, but it was like discussing the weather, or sports, it seemed normal. When I turned twenty eight, I got a phone call from my mother telling me he had died, killed himself while his parents were out and he was babysitting his baby halfbrother. Never have I seen my entire family cross the ocean at once. Never had I seen them so…empty. My cousin never looked as happy or as mischevious again. She and her parents, so proud of their washington boy became for many years, what I refer to as hungry ghosts. After a great loss, there is a greyish green sheen of light that hangs over the ones left behind. They laugh, and move forward, but their voices become softer on the subject of those gone, and the reminiscence can range from a pause over favorite foods, or a drive past a park or well loved destination.
I never knew what it was exactly, only a creeping sadness. Not until I lost my mother two years ago. It comes and goes like the ebbing tide. I know this now, and it informs how I appreciate and move through the world myself. But I am determined not to become a hungry ghost, it is too much, it can suck the fire out of life this loss and grieving.
How to cling to the happinesses that remain, when you are confronted with profound loss, even from lifes blows? This much is clear: you cannot stop dreaming, you cannot keep yourself empty, because waiting for someone’s return is not giving them a better evolved version of yourself. Anyone, even someone long gone, would not want that, not if they loved you that much.
So this post, while a recollection of a young man ten years gone, is also a celebration. It is a reminder to myself that this year I have seen myself at my best, and my worst and both have given me the tools to move forward in earnest.

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