Samhain
One night per year, the veil is thin. Those that passed on are allowed to cross back over and visit. At least, that’s what I was taught when I was younger.
I never gave it much credence, yet I always set out food and drink for those I had lost. Doing so made me feel a bit silly, but even if it was all just a story, it felt good to honour the people I’d loved.
My grandfathers both got a shot of their favourite liquor, my dad got a beer, and I’d set out a glass of that cloyingly sweet wine she used to love for my mum.
And cat treats. Always a bowl of cat treats. Mitzy had been gone for over two decades, but she’d been family, so she got treats.
All of this went in the window-sill, and when it had all been set out, I’d light an orange candle and whisper the words I’d been taught: “Be welcome”.
I used to do this every year, back when I still could. When my hands still worked, when I could still walk. A single moment changed it all. It was late, rain was pouring down. I drove to fast, didn’t pay attention.
The next thing I knew, I was here, in this hospital bed.
Rationally, I knew my body from the neck down still existed, but I could no longer remember what it had felt like. What it had been like to taste something else than the tube down my throat, breathing for me.
That hateful tube which kept me tethered to this existence, holding me prisoner in my body. If my hands still worked, I would have torn it out long ago.
Time no longer had any meaning, yet I clung to my inner clock. Counting every night, checking off the days on my mental calendar. I had counted two thousand, three hundred and five of them. That meant tonight was October 31st. Samhain.
I heard someone enter.
That was odd. The lights had been off for an hour, and the night nurse wouldn’t do her rounds again for another thirty minutes. I tried to see who it was, but they never entered my field of vision. All I saw, was a sudden glow. Warm, flickering light.
A candle.
The door closed again, without them having said a single word. They’d just lit that candle and left.
There was no food or drink set out, no ritual performed, but I found myself reciting the familiar words in my mind. Be welcome. Be welcome. I slowly drifted off to sleep.
An old familiar sensation woke me. A warm, gentle pressure on my upper legs. And softly, ever so softly, a low rumble. Purring.
My groggy brain wanted to discount it. It’s just Mitzy, I told myself, she snuck into your bedroom again. Go back to sleep.
The thought jolted me wide awake.
I blinked my eyes, but the feeling was still there.
I felt it. I felt it.
I lifted my head as far as I could, and there she was. Purring in my lap, as if nothing had happened. There was a ghostly quality to her, she was here, yet she wasn’t.
She opened an eye, gave me that slow blinking stare I knew so well, and settled back in.
I was still processing this, as another sensation hit me. The warmth of another person’s touch coursed up my arm, connecting straight to my heart. Someone had taken my hand, holding in theirs. I shouldn’t be able to feel it, yet here it was.
I looked and my mother was there, smiling at me, stroking my cheek.
She nodded, and I found that while my body couldn’t move, I could.
I sat up and looked around the room, filled with faces I hadn’t seen for so long.
Realisation dawned.
Tonight, the veil was thin.
Tonight, I got to come home.