The Nature of Doors

This week has been bittersweet with new doors opening while I've watched others close.

If you've been to my home page or seen my posts on social media, I announced I contracted The Passenger for a 2024 re-release.

I am over the moon about this. I am in awe that taking inspired action after listening to an inspired thought led to this opportunity. I've experienced firsthand that listening to the whisperings of my mind can lead to a new beginning.

This week, I also said a goodbye to a family member. When I was two and a half, I became an aunt. He and I grew up together and eventually stopped explaining to people that we weren't brother and sister because that was how it felt to us.

Those people had it right.

It's been almost a year of coming to terms with the fact that he's gone. It began with a call from my sister late one-night last December and rushing to the hospital to say that first goodbye.

Then there was the celebration of life with those pictures projected on the wall. Pictures of his life—of childhood and adulthood. That day, I found myself saying another goodbye with so many others who'd known and loved him from all eras of his life.

In late August, at a small family gathering we said goodbye again at his interment. Then this week I helped my sister finish packing up his things. When we were finished, we sat in a space that no longer felt like him. A sanitized house, devoid of his personality and it was yet another goodbye.

My intuition tells me this won't be the last goodbye I say to him, and I don't think I'll ever stop saying it. Nor will he ever be truly gone.

And it occurred to me this week to consider why I write what I do—my ghosts. Stories of people passing and of saying goodbye. I believe it is my way of saying that those we've lost are never truly gone. Existence changes and they live on with us through our memories.

In the scent of the cologne that hits us out of nowhere. In the jersey a stranger is wearing from his favorite childhood sports team. In that REM song playing in your ear buds from your favorite cassette tape he borrowed when you were teenagers. Now you’re glad you never got it back because you’ll always think of him whenever you hear those songs.

And perhaps in that motion we catch out of the corner of our eye.

Perhaps some doors never fully close even when new ones open.

Until next time,

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About the Author

Minnesota-based author, Joie Lesin is a life-long fiction writer and the author of The Passenger. She has long been fascinated by anything otherworldly including ghosts. She loves to write a good ghost story—especially when it includes a touch of romance.