I’ve spent my year with ghosts.
First were the family ghosts, the scenes and snippets of stories that I found at the edges of my memory, as isolation stretched on and the rooms of the house grew more and more dull. Then curiosity got the best of me and I found myself down a 23&Me rabbit hole that ended with me staring at the livestream of a stranger’s funeral, watching my dad’s estranged father mourn his own. I imagined the ghost of the old man peering back at me from the tent set up in the middle of the graveyard — now, too, burdened with the secrets I’d been unraveling.
But I can’t help his ghost. I’ve never learned to help people through their grief, or even to navigate my own. And in a year of widespread loss and grief en masse, I have struggled to feel like a good friend, a good partner, a good daughter. And then I found more ghosts, this time through a smaller screen.
From a cozy seat on my couch, I watch my best friend Gwen, in the form of a beautiful animated deer, take a drag from a cigarette as she reminisces with me about our youth shared in Europe, before turning solemn as she considers unresolved feelings about her family. She is, of course, not real.
I’m playing a Nintendo Switch game, “Spiritfarer,” released in August 2020. In it, I am Gwen’s friend Stella, come to ferry her soul through the afterlife. But before she’s ready to cross through the final threshold, Gwen has to first confront the painful struggles of her life.
And the pain takes me by surprise, pinching in my chest as I read her dialogue, relating to a rift in her family, which seems to be her unfinished business.
“I’ve been thinking about Father recently,” she tells me from her cabin on the ship, as the sound of waves plays in the background. “When he left with Doug, I didn’t feel anything. No sorrow. No hate. No relief.”
As she begins to work through it, we set sail back to her old haunts, her old home.
We pick up other spirits as we sail — my old mentor, a loving uncle, a neighbor suffering dementia, a pair of criminals looking to pull one last job. With them, they bring joy and love, but also regret. They bring challenges that I must help them with, by creating safe and cozy homes for them on my ship, taking them to places they used to visit, and helping to move their stories forward until they feel the pull of the Everdoor.
As I row Gwen through her final crossing, she reflects. On the way she thought people went through life without caring about each other; but she knows better now. On forgiveness.
“I still don’t know about Father,” she tells me as I row her through her final passage. “I should probably forgive him now. Find that last shred of strength left in me. Would that make me a better person?” she asks me as the game’s quiet music lets me hear the splash of my oar, cutting through the red water.
As we approach the Everdoor, she tells me her questions no longer matter, because I’m there with her in the end. “I can’t hold it any longer,” she says and I ferry her through the last few feet. She crosses over, her spirit rising to become a constellation …….
Source: https://www.salon.com/2021/10/31/ghost-video-games-spiritfarer-cozy-grove-grief/