The Necklace

I still blame myself because I was the one to walk away from the accident. I stare at our pictures on the book shelf and think about that argument. I should have been paying attention to the road and ignored your comment. Instead I failed to see the stop sign and now live in torment. Now days I'm constantly depressed and restless. I can still see all that blood on her sundress, and you gripping your family's necklace. She's no longer living in my physical world. It's difficult asking to be forgiven when I buried my girl. Am I going crazy because I can't let go? It was 2 years ago. I desperately want to move away from Buffalo; but selling our home has become a troubling decision. Especially when I began seeing things out of my peripheral vision. Slowly activities around this house became abnormal. Now I've never believed in the paranormal, but things weren't right. Suddenly eerie sounds would go "bump" in the night. Shadows and strange movements would play tricks on my eyesight. All would be "still" when I would switch on the overhead light. I feel I'm being watched as I sit in my favorite arm chair. I'm aware her presence is here somewhere. Just the other day our wedding picture fell from the night stand. I was quite sure it was not the "boogeyman." I'm a realistic type of man. Oh how I miss Joann. Losing her is still so hard to digest, and I've been waking in the night from troubling dreams of finding her necklace. One night I fell asleep thinking about something I once told her. I could have sworn I awoke to someone or something shaking my shoulder. The air around my bed seemed colder. I sat up immediately looking all about the room. I smelled her sweet familiar perfume. I then noticed something in my hand, the necklace...her family heirloom. I remembered where we were, when I first said how beautiful the necklace looked on her. Reaching over I turned the light on, on the night stand. I examined that gorgeous necklace in my hand. I had to double check. I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck. She knew I loved seeing her wear this beautiful necklace. I always commented to her how much it made her look like a princess. But I had not seen it since that awful wreck. Because the necklace had been around her neck! Then realization hit me. Through my own misery I could not see. Her spirit was now free. Tears ran down my cheek. Down the hall I heard the stairs creak. I giggled like a funnyman, and called out "I love you too Joann"....