Ghosts and Angels

Dear Mummy

I'd like to start by telling you about a movie i saw today. it was made the year after you died and is called the 6th sense. it starts when a child psychiatrist gets shot by a former patient he failed to help - the patient then shoots himself. the rest of the movie is about this psychiatrist, malcolm, trying to improve the life of a boy with a similar case so that he doesnt make the same mistake twice. his marriage seemingly falls apart over it and his whole life is distracted by it.

the new patient is a boy called cole who lives in fear of the things he can see that other people only feel along the back of their neck or down their spine. cole can see ghosts. anyway malcolm helps him by believing in his story and convincing him to listen to these ghosts and help them. the boy is a lot better for it. in return cole tells malcolm how to communicate with his wife again - he tells him to talk to her in her sleep when she is listening, even if she doesnt know it.

malcolm goes home and finds her sleeping in the armchair. she stirs and asks why he left her. he tells her sleeping form he never left and he loves her. she drops from her hand his wedding ring.

i never saw it coming.

malcolm died the day he was shot. he spent 9/10ths of the movie as a ghost - hovering between this world and the next. i just sat there with silent tears pouring down my cheeks at the wonder of how alone he must have been never to realise that people never spoke to him on the street or in a shop. the only voice in his life was that of a small, frightened boy.

i was standing at the bus stop in Glasgow on Saturday. a man came up to me wheeling a small blue suitcase and wearing a rather untidy beard. he asked if i was alright. as a true British i answered with yes and hoped he would move on, which he did. but he had not reached the end of the pavement before turning around and heading back to me. he asked again if i was ok. he said he was not trying to pick me up or come on to me - he said that i looked so solemn and so sad. he explained that he had fucked up his life and said i should live mine. he told me to be happy.

it broke my heart to think people i see everyday do not notice how i am suffering at the moment - especially over missing you - and yet a complete stranger can see it so clearly, even from over the other side of the road.

he was right behind me when the bus came. i got on the bus, showed my ticket and sat down before looking out the window. the man was gone. i looked out the other side of the window and down the lengths of the long street and he was nowhere.

i always thought an angel would wear white and be very pretty. but i think i encountered one on Saturday. i sat on that bus and cried. i had been ready to slit my wrists and take my tablets til i never woke up again. but by the time that bus had pulled away i knew i wanted to live again; i wanted to live life to the full.

maybe i am blessed, maybe i was lucky. maybe i was so low and upset that i was hallucinating. but maybe, just maybe, this live is worth living after all

Happy Mothering Sunday Mum,
Your loving daughter,

Heather xoxoxox