I saw a post today on twitter about being haunted by ghosts. I posted here previously about ghosts, including the spectre of the child that sits at the bottom of our stairs, but it got me thinking about those other ghosts that haunt us. Not the lingering spirit form of the departed, but those of regret.

The ghosts that visit us in the past and ask for help.

I had a childhood friend, and for the longest possible five years or so we were utterly inseparable. But we were apparently, on different paths, or perhaps just one of us was. As we approached adulthood our lives diverged until just a couple of years ago and we got back in touch.

The intervening years had not gone so well for my friend and for reasons I can’t go into, he is no longer with us. This haunts me. Had I known I would have helped, wouldn’t I? All he had to do was ask.

The mind can take you to the strangest of places and it reaches back, far beyond our grasp. What if he did ask? What if he asked when it was possible to do some good, but I didn’t recognise it. A call for help stretching back through time to the one moment I could have made a difference. And I said no.

I didn’t know. I still don’t know. But what I do know is that one day, thirty years ago, a strange little man knocked on my door and offered his hand in friendship, and I had better things to do. How different things might have been had I not been so self absorbed. If there is a next time round, I will go for that walk and set the path differently.

She came to me in a dream the other night. His mother. I do believe that we can communicate in dreams, with both the living and the dead. She came to me in the night and brought a message that I cannot share, but I did get the chance to tell her that I loved her son. I impressed this upon her like her life and mine depended on it. Love, like brotherly love, and that I was sorry I wasn’t there.

Ghosts are real. They don’t always rattle chains and say boo, but they are with us, and we need to do right by them.