A year ago today, my best friend died.

I don’t actually believe in ghosts. I do believe in an afterlife. Quite firmly. I have solid reasons, reasons that are as convincing for me as the evidence of gravity that we all have any time we drop a glass and wind up with milk spread all over our floor.

My grandmother had Alzheimer’s. Long before her actual physical death, she had mentally left her body. She was alive but absent. And yet there were times when I felt her in my life, when I knew that even though she was actually trapped in a nursing home, a prisoner of a body that no longer worked, she was with me. I felt her presence in a room. And I knew it was ridiculous, because she wasn’t there. But I felt her love for me, her affection, nonetheless. And then she died, and I stopped feeling her. She moved on.

My grandfather died much sooner. But he left behind one of those plastic circles with a rough surface that you use to open jars. It held the name of his hardware store. It was a promotional thing, just a piece of plastic. Except when I couldn’t get a bottle of pickles open, I could say–can still say–“Boomie, give me a hand,”–and the jar would open after having been stuck for minutes. Okay, sure, it’s ridiculous. It’s psychological. It’s just some subliminal thing that lets me think that those words mean something. No one with any sense would believe that he’s actually helping me. But I feel him with me in those moments and he is helping me. Sometimes he’s laughing at me, not in a mean way, but in a loving way. So, okay, it’s just some quirk of psychology. “I feel” proves nothing.

My father-in-law, Malcolm, didn’t believe in life after death. He was a wonderful human being. At his memorial service, people talked about what a curmudgeon he was. Yep, he was a curmudgeon. It didn’t stop him from being wonderful. He was filled with energy, with life, with persistence, with joy. He wasn’t perfect, but no one is. I think, if he could have gone back in time, he would have been a different kind of parent. But he did the best he could with the information he had available to him at the time that he had it. Malcolm was…oh, love is such a strange thing sometimes. Malcolm was technically my ex-father-in-law–I divorced his son. Realistically, he probably had lots of people in his life that he loved more than he loved me. Except I don’t think so. Honestly, I don’t think so. He had four sons. I think his life would have been different if he’d had daughters instead. He probably should have had daughters instead, but he loved me like a daughter. And I was lucky to have him, to know him.

I’m not actually easy to love. I’m kind of a pain in the ass. I’m rigid, I’m stubborn, I’m opinionated, I tend to be sure I’m right. Malcolm and I had one final conversation, in which I said to him, well, we’ll see. He knew that death meant dead, gone forever. I knew that he was wrong.

The day after he died, I woke up to weird light. The sky was strange. I went outside and I didn’t see it. I knew that something was odd, but I didn’t know what. I went back inside. Then R went outside and called me to join him, his voice hushed. A double rainbow was spread across our house, starting at one side, ending at the other. I absolutely believe, one hundred percent, not a doubt in my mind believe, that Malcolm was responsible for that rainbow. That his spirit broke out of the shell that had been trapping him for so long and danced across the sky. That he found my mom–who had died exactly one month before him, to the day–and said, come on, let’s paint her a picture. You don’t have to believe that. It’s okay if you don’t. But I know, absolutely, that Malcolm and my mom painted me a double rainbow.

Michelle died a year ago. I’ve felt her with me. And she’s mostly exasperated with me. I can feel her kicking me. I know she’s telling me to get over it.  I hear her voice saying that I should use the time that I have. I know that’s what she wants from me.

But I miss her.

I called tonight. I’ve been thinking of doing it for ages, weeks, months. Chris hasn’t changed the voice mail. It’s still her voice.

I started using a site called OhLife last year. It’s sort of a diary — it sends you an email every day and you reply and it saves your messages and then sends them back to you. The ideal scenario is that five years from now, you see something you wrote and feel charmingly nostalgic. Oh, I remember that, what a good choice I made, how fun that was, whatever.

Holy bad words, I picked the wrong year to start using it.

Yesterday, we worked on cleaning out the house. It had to be done. I have no argument with that. It should have been done nine months ago. Maybe a year ago even. I think a year ago I might have cried my way through packing up my mom’s things for Goodwill with resolution and dignity and sorrow, but not despair. Yesterday, not so much. I want to keep it all. Everything. She cared about those things. She valued them. I look at them now and think, this was from the trip they took to Russia and they bought this in New Orleans and we got this together on our trip to London and she loved these dishes and I am just unwilling, unable, to let anything go.

I hate clutter. But I miss my mother.

So today’s OhLife? Said, “Michelle’s tumor is back. She’s having surgery on Friday. Pretty sure that’s enough said, but until I found that out, it was a nice day. I feel…numb. Not sure there are words, really.”

 I stayed numb for a long while. I wish I was still numb. The hardest part is the moments when I think, I am so, so, so sad, I should call…and there I stop. Because I should call my mom or I should call Michelle. They are who I reach out to when life is simply unbearable — my mom for the unconditional love, Michelle for the unconditional support.

And they’re gone.

I didn’t sleep last night. Really truly didn’t sleep. I was still wide-awake at 4:17 at which time I resolutely stopped watching the clock. I was awake by 6:45. The mosquito flying around my room was the most persistent, determined and agile bug I have ever, ever encountered. At 4AM, I decided maybe there was more than one. Maybe there were two. Or five. Or ten. But my bed was not littered with dead mosquito bodies when the room finally got light, so I’m thinking not — just one seriously hard-working little pest. I actually told it — yes, out loud — that I didn’t care if it bit me 100 times if it would just stop whining around my ear. It did not listen. I suppose mosquitoes don’t really speak English.

Anyway, Mother’s Day. I can’t remember last year’s Mother’s Day but I wish we’d done something special. I wish I’d bought my mother flowers and written her a sappy card and cooked her a fancy dinner. I don’t think I did. I told a therapist last summer that I didn’t think I’d have any regrets: my relationship with my mother was strong and loving and friendly. She was, in so many ways, my closest friend. She was the person I called when I felt good and when I felt bad, or when I needed advice about cooking or cleaning or health or shopping. She was the person I did things with — Saturday morning garage sales and shopping for clothes or shoes. I talked to her more often and about more than anyone else in my life. But we never did much to celebrate Mother’s Day. She knew I loved her and I knew she loved me. I think I felt — and I think she felt — that the way we lived was a regular recognition of how important and special our relationship was and that I didn’t need one day a year to tell her she was wonderful. But I do regret — so much — that I don’t have a special memory from last year to make this year more bearable.

My sister’s kids sent me chocolate-covered strawberries. My delightful son brought me tea in bed, and an omelet, and a bagel — not just one breakfast but two. Today, we’re going to see The Avengers together — it’s the first time, we’ve gone to a movie together since . . . ugh, I wanted to say years, but actually, we went to the movies together on the day my mom died. We needed a distraction. I suppose that’s what today’s movie is, too.

Today would probably be easier if I’d slept last night.

The strangest part of having started OhLife when I did (last April) is that my reminders wind up being all about grief. Or almost all about grief. Today’s OhLife message:

“Spent the day hanging out with Mom at the hospice. It’s almost the end. And the whole thing is surreal. You want the last moment to be right — to be reading a psalm or saying I love you or being focused on her face (most beautiful as it happens, she is lovely in her last moments). And yet — what the hell, eventually listening to Britney Spears is just a fucking relief.”

Eventually, a decade from now, the days could all merge together. Maybe in ten years worth of February 17ths, there will be some good, some bad, some uncertain. Instead, though, I have a year that’s almost all about dying. But hey, listening to Britney Spears is still a relief.

You can always hear it in the voice, always.

Words are almost unnecessary.

I heard it in my dad’s voice yesterday, when he asked a question.  He knew the answer. He just didn’t want to know.

And I heard it in Chris’s voice this morning, when he left a message on my answering machine.

He told Finn on Friday. I won’t imagine that conversation. I don’t want to. But he said that Finn said, “I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

Maybe he didn’t. But probably he did. He just didn’t want to.

I knew.

I was crying even before I picked up the phone to call Chris back.

Tomorrow, it will be six months since my mother died. She was the only person I really wanted to talk to today.