I used to think of waiting as a kind of suspended animation. Every so often and against my will, I find myself in a space where my heart is slowed to a whisper; all my biological functions reduced to imperceptible movement. I am asked to wait for something or someone, not knowing when it will end. My body is there, stuck upright like a heavy weight on the ground, while my soul floats up and wanders. I can hear people calling me, but I can’t figure out who or where it’s from. Time isn’t waiting while I levitate and haunt the halls like a ghost, confused by decades of change around me while I remain untouched by it. I’m watching life take place, trying to return to my body that is now gathering cobwebs and dust on the ground. An untethered cosmonaut in space, I spin into the void, wondering if this torment will end in rescue or in death, if it even has an end at all.

This waiting place, this limbo I place my mind in, I’ve had enough of it. I realize that I am neither ghost nor ghoul, and I am very much inside this physical body. I can feel the ground beneath my feet and the air on my skin. My hair is its usual mess and my glasses are sliding down my nose. I realize now that I am here, and while I wait I can’t bedevil the living with my wailing in dark corners. As much as I love to linger in liminal spaces, they aren’t real places. They’re not destinations. They’re lonely, empty in-betweens, and I have to stop inhabiting them. Even if they are just in my mind.

My spirit returns to my body, gently awakening it. With slow intention, my muscles stretch, my lungs expand, and my heart starts to beat louder. I inhale to fill my lungs with living breath, and watch as the dust falls off with my release. I pull off this white sheet, and my joints are creaking; the start is slow, but I am starting. No one else can do this for me here, in this place of waiting. I put myself where no one can reach, and it’s on me to get myself out.

Gingerly, my feet take one step after another, out into the sunlight, out from under the shadows. The color returns to my skin, losing its ghostly pallor. Looking ahead, the forest seems lush and untamed, its wildness a promise. I don’t know what’s behind it, but I intend to feel the crunch of every leaf under my feet, even the sting of thorns on my limbs. Life is to be lived, not to be waited on. As I disappear into the fog, towards the mountains of unknown things, I know that Help is never far away. I may even, perhaps, be leading the way for other ghosts to return home.

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“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they set it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Matthew 5:14-16