Two things I have come to understand during my benign existence, marked by a disproportionate maturity:
- Ghosts are not real.
- People can be haunted.
In the first episode of Mike Flanagan’s “The Haunting of Hill House,” adapted from Shirley Jackson’s novel of the same name (I have yet to be moved to read the novel), Steven Crain, eldest of the Crain siblings, tells a recent widow that the ghost of her dead husband she believes she saw is not real.
“A ghost can be a lot of things,” he tells her. “A memory, a daydream, a secret. Grief, anger, guilt. But in my experience, most times they’re just what we want to see.”
This is a rather unimaginative take for a character who, by the end of the episode, will come face to face with a ghost of his own and whose childhood has been marred by their appearance. In this fictional world of horror, Steven is notably incorrect.
But his theory applies aptly to the real world. Ghosts are not real, and he tells the widow that her “grieving mind” is likely the culprit. Flanagan makes a claim I am already keenly familiar with.
Sometimes, when I’m in the kitchen of my childhood home (ages 7 & up) late at night, putting together a snack or pouring a glass of water, I see a ghost in the hallway.
It happens for a grain of a moment — there is a figure standing in the darkened hallway, still. And when I turn over my shoulder to see it in full, it is gone. It was never there, so I shake my head and chastise my overzealous imagination.
The ghosts are not real, no matter how strong the unsettling feeling or hairs standing on end. But the haunting is.
It happens when you meet death at a young age, it grows up with you, and for most of your life, you see someone over your shoulder or standing behind you in the mirror. For a split second, your grieving mind takes over and creates a ghost.
These are jokes told in my house. The dogs stare down empty hallways or into vacant spaces because they can see the ghosts. Of course, our house is haunted; my mother’s ashes sit on the bookshelf in a wooden box. Of course, our house is haunted, so am I.
It is not physical ghosts, but the feeling of being followed — by loss and death. By grief.
When an awful grief day appears, when the hollowness in the chest caves in and cobwebs take up space, the haunting is obvious.
On average days, more common than not now, the haunting is not so apparent. It goes dormant like a ghost might, dissipating into the walls and waiting to show its face.
If I say I am a haunted person, it sounds rather morbid, and to those who might not understand or might have never had the thought themselves, they find it appalling — their mouths hang open in uncomfortableness.
But for those of us who do understand, who have dealt with death and trauma like dealing with a loose floorboard or squeaky door jam, it makes sense.
With Halloween approaching in the next few hours, sidewalks will be filled with kids dressed in monster and ghost costumes. They’ll brave the chill of night in search of candy, their shoes dirtying and pillowcases fattening. How many of them might be haunted already?
This Hollywood idea of ghosts and haunted houses is only an allusion. Or a modern-day myth.
Ghost stories are a metaphor for those who feel haunted by grief.
When Steven sees a ghost at the end of the episode, it is the ghost of his newly dead sister. Apply my theory, and the reasoning is clear — the ghost is not real, and Steven is now haunted.
He understands.
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