Hi, I am Em, and this is not just a sad story. So I have been in love with him for over 25 years. He was always there for me and took care of everything that I wanted. He taught me how to love unconditionally and how to fall in love with myself. But like every happy and supportive person, he left me after 25 years of my life, of being together. He died just before the covid outbreak and left a hole in my heart. For the first fifteen days, I had no idea that he had already left me as I was in a quarantine center all by myself. After I was released from the quarantine center, my mother gave me the news that the person whom I loved the most is no more. I don't want to get into the details of the pain but imagine someone drowning in the same lake over and over again, for three years. I still see him, though. I still feel his presence. Sometimes, I see him standing in the dark corner of my room smiling at me with dark hollow eyes. He comes to visit me in my dreams. Mom says that it's not good for my health that I have been seeing a dead person for so long and I can't stop seeing him. In fact, I don't want him to go away. According to my mom, it's the bad spirits that have taken over his body and now they are trying to take me from her. I see him standing while I am with friends or at a party or in a music concert. I always see him. He keeps on calling me into the other side. "It's fun", he says. I will not have to go through this earthly pain anymore, he assures.

Last week I had a major accident and lost my senses immediately. I woke up in the hospital, seeing just him standing beside in the empty room, solemnly but with that same creepy smile. He was trying to hold my hand but it was futile. He had no physical body and I was not dead yet. He disappeared as soon as my mother entered the room.

My father never visited though. He was never there for me. He was that typical abusive, alcoholic parent that you find so easily in most households these days. It was yesterday night that my father came home drunk and started hitting my mother. I was there witnessing it. He was there too, invisible to all but me. I rushed over to help my mom but I got hit in the process. I fell down hard from the staircase. This time, he couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't tolerate the fact that someone abused me this way. I was lying down on the staircase but could see everything happening upstairs. This time he did not spare the incident. He went over to my father, held his throat and continued to choke him. My father started vomitting and even before we could help him, he choked in his own vomit and died.

When the police came for investigation, the report came normal. They all thought he died from choking in his vomit due to excess alcohol. I was taken to the hospital, again. This time the apparition was not smiling anymore. He was just sitting there with tears in his eyes. He held my hand and said, "My child, I want you to live long. I want you to live healthy. I will always protect you. No matter what. No matter where".

I held out my hand, trying to hold his hand. All I could manage to whisper was, "I love you grandpa".