lilac colored ghosts

a springtime haunting

Lately, I’ve been seeing double, the past and present overlapping in my mind. Memories cluster like ghosts in the corner, growing larger, filling my vision, with each passing day.

It started mid-March, with the return of the light. Sun trails tracing familiar patterns across my living room floor like a sundial telling the time. The golden stripes on my office wall, a rectangular patch from the bedroom skylight—landmarks that whisper, it’s here, it’s almost time.  

My baby was born in the spring. Memory of his arrival will always be wreathed in lilac blossoms. For the past year, I’ve held the emotions surrounding his birth tightly buried in a box beneath the sea. Now, it rattles, demanding me to open it.

I brace myself, like Pandora if she knew exactly what would happen when she lifted that lid. His first birthday. The anniversary of my birth trauma. The cruel irony that one must accompany the other. 

What are you afraid of? My therapist asked me the other day.

I’m scared of reliving it all, I replied.

Then I started crying. 

I remind myself that we’re okay now. That we made it through without any lasting damage (other than the invisible scars on my heart). But still the grief lingers, the hurt and anger. 

It didn’t have to go that way. 

Birth is rarely predictable—I knew that going in. The fact that my experience didn’t go how I’d hoped would’ve been easier to accept if I hadn’t also felt mistreated; if the midwife I’d entrusted my and my baby’s health and safety to hadn’t given me bad advice, mishandled my birth both physically and emotionally. 

There would’ve been grief, yes, but not betrayal. Betrayal is what has made the ghosts so hungry. 

I prepare myself, take necessary precautions as the day approaches: time off from work, mornings set aside to journal, little distractions planned throughout the week, quality time with my son. But still the echoes linger.

This time last year my water broke. This time last year the contractions started. This time last year we drove to the birth center. This time last year I was pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing. This time last year we transferred to the hospital.

I recognize this for what it is: a haunting. At first, I try to confront the ghosts, making space, inviting them to tea. But I balk—it’s too much, I’m not ready—and focus on the present instead. We are healthy and thriving now. Let that be a balm to the bad memories. It works at first, until it doesn’t, waves of grief possessing me in the pre-sleep hours. 

I finally realize: the answer is somewhere in-between. 

I can acknowledge the ghosts without inviting them in—not let them take over, but not shoo them away. I can let the double exposure of this time simply exist.

It was awful then. We are happy now. 

Both can be true. Both are true. 

I know that, one day, the rose-tinted moments will blur out the past, like washes of paint over jagged-edged lines. Chubby cheeks and tinsel hats, sparkling party balloons and a gap-toothed smile. We’ll build new memories, layer by layer, until joy replaces heartbreak.

Until the ghosts turn to lilac clouds and float away.

Hello friends,

There’s a song from the musical Hamilton where, when faced with potential ruin, Alexander says, “I’ll write my way out.” That line has always stuck with me.

I write my way out of pain. I write my way into peace. I let emotions bleed out of me as ink. I’ve always done so, ever since I was a child.

This week, I’ve been writing my way through the complicated emotions surrounding my son’s birthday. At first, the words wouldn’t flow—I was trying too hard to craft them into something they weren’t. Then I let go, simply followed the footprints of memory and trailed inkblots in their wake. They led me to this piece.

I debated at first whether I was ready to share it. This subject is still so tender. I’d actually decided not to when I stumbled over

Laura Pashby

essay on lilacs. It felt serendipitous.

What do lilacs mean? I asked myself.

I pulled down Floriography by Jessica Roux, a book I’ve used to decorate my office but hadn’t actually cracked the spin on before.

Lilac. Meaning: First Love, Reminiscence.

I believe in listening when the universe gives me little nudges, and this felt like a tap on the shoulder.

So here it is, my raw exposed heart.

Thank you for reading,

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Book News & Updates:

After a whirlwind 100+ combined hours of work, my sister and I have finished our book revisions and are almost done with line edits on our novel. I can’t describe how proud I am with the changes we made to the manuscript. Our agent’s suggestions helped us tie together the lingering loose threads of the story’s emotional arc. Little details that we’d never considered integrated with the characters seamlessly, as if they’d been part of the narrative the whole time.

That’s probably my favorite part of writing fiction—the discovery process. How things come up unexpectedly. You’d think that being the author of the story would be like playing an omniscient god, but there are so many times that my characters surprise me (maybe that’s how god feels about us sometimes; someone ask her for me).

We’ll be going on submission in early May. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to share much about book stuff after that or if I’ll need to keep it under wraps for while. In the meantime, I’ll be sharing more fantasy art, personal stories, and photos here as the weather gets nicer.

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