Animas

Ghosts.  I want to write about the ghosts that I hope are there, next to me, but that I am too naive, unprepared, deaf and blind, to notice.  I adore the notion that I could commune with them, but have so little faith in my own powers of perception that I no doubt block them out.  I do interact with them in my dreams.  My mom, Dad, and Stepdad, especially, and lately my first love, because I've just learned he died years ago--but that's just my subconscious, right?
After Mom died, my brother heard her voice while he was vacuuming his living room rug.  "It's okay.  It's okay."  I believe him--yet, why, I wondered, didn't she come to comfort me?  Do the dead have only a limited number of contacts they are allowed to make?  Minutes?  If so, is that why I didn't make the cut?  He was born first?
Or maybe, and I like this one better, the dead choose to communicate with those they love (with their limited minutes), those who most need the message.  Maybe I was okay.  Mom always said, "I never worry about you."  A compliment.  Still... I wish, want, yearn for, a moment... when somewhere, someone I've loved will reach me in the quiet of the night or the midst of a busy day, and make me believe in forever.