Debra Lally

Conversations about my mother involve shame, guilt, or the insistence that I forgive her for her many transgressions.

I heard that.

So hearing that my own Gigi had issues with her mom was illuminating.

I finally decided I needed to tell Gigi.

With the complexity of our relationship and my own mother lingering in the background of every conversation like an uninvited specter, it took me nine full years to tell my grandma about this bizarre coincidence.

It also took a while because it never felt right telling Gigi randomly through a phone call that maybe her late mother might have been visiting her great-great-granddaughter to take care of us while I was mentally a ghost myself.

I couldn't have said the words out loud if I tried.

And I did.

So nine years later, I finally mustered the courage to share this experience with Gigi.

At this point, she was in a nursing home after a bad fall and was having several complications.

She also had found out my mother had recently committed some shenanigans with her bank account.

Why do people do that shit?

We know him.

Yep.

We know him.

I didn't know any of this was going on when I called and she was so glad just to talk to someone.

When I asked if I could share a weird story and then told her about Mimi the shadow guest, she took a long pause before speaking.

The kind any sane person would need to take if their loved one told them that they were communicating with their dead mother.

When she started to talk, I realized she had paused because she was crying.

This was out of character and I started to feel like an idiot when she finally said, thank you.