Ghosts

I was just leaving the last of the Grand Rounds in Columbia's program in Narrative and Medicine and, walking out in the light, warm evening I thought I saw Rachel - again. Columbia and everywhere around it was the part of New York that Rachel called home, but I wasn't thinking about that when I glimpsed - only for a second - a tall, pale, slim woman with Rachel's blue eyes and uncontrollable hair. How long will Rachel haunt all of us, who enjoyed her smiles and raucous laughter (when they were there), but never told her; who thought she was a brilliant talent, but only sometimes told her; who wanted to be her friend, but didn't know how.

After that awful day in December, that shocking phone call, the helplessness settled in on me like a thick fog; I was in despair, but it seemed way out of proportion, because in truth, I didn't know Rachel that well. We never went out for drinks, never went to a museum or had dinner. But I'd met her long before I ever knew where I would wind up, and in the six degrees of separation, she was only at a single remove. When I arrived, she greeted me with genuine pleasure, and I felt proud to say that we were already acquainted.

The spring semester started maybe three weeks later, and my fog had dissipated enough to let me get some work done. But as I was going up the elevator, a chill seized me: because it was always in the sunny airy atrium space where the elevator opened up that I would run into Rachel, coming out of her office, and there we would chat, never in a darkish, crowded office, but always in full view, in the sun. I always thought there would be time, for us to hang out, one day, always one day.

Extra credit...

...for anyone who can tell me where I got the blogname from.