We’re one day away from the completion of another year of 31 Ghosts. And, as is tradition, today is a birthday ghost story. I’ll be honest, I went through the last EIGHT YEARS of birthday ghost stories looking for… not inspiration, but some sort of blueprint. Coming into this year’s 31 Ghosts I started by looking for the same thing – what did this year mean? What am I trying to say? And then, tonight, what does this, my fifty-first birthday mean?

Dear reader, I don’t have an answer. But I have a story. I have a birthday ghost story for you – the ninth birthday ghost story, in fact. It’s been a great year so far, and I know we still have one more night to go, but thank you for coming along for the ride this year again. Let’s close out my birthday with a Birthday Shade.

I don’t know if it had been there for every birthday in my life, but I distinctly remember my sixth birthday. We were coming back from Bullwinkle’s Restaurant. The house we were living in had a big porch out front, and I remember walking up the steps ahead of my family and seeing the dark shadow seated on the porch swing. I blinked rapidly, but it didn’t go away. My family caught up with me and my dad moved past me saying, “What’s got you stalled there, squirt?”

They clearly didn’t see it. So, my young mind figured, neither did I and I hurried after my parents and sister into the house.

That’s how it went for a number of years – every birthday. When we were still in that house, it would be right there on the porch. When we moved into an apartment three towns over when I was ten, I remember it leaning against the hallway just past our door. Then I remembered it distinctly because where I could convince myself after the fact that the shadow wasn’t actually an entity, but a trick of the dim light under the cover of the porch. That year in the apartment building, though, the fluorescent lights overhead illuminated everything evenly – even the dark void that made up the shadow entity. Still, though, I hurried inside without so much as a second glance, another birthday, another sighting of the entity.

Maybe it was newfound bravado when I hit my “teens,” but on my thirteenth birthday we were living in the back half of a duplex on the east side. I came around the side of the first unit and spotted the shadow entity squatting on the far side of the front door. I saw it, it clearly saw me, and I nodded at it. That’s all, but that was unprecedented. That was bravery personified for newly-minted thirteen year old me.

And it nodded back.

When it did that my blood froze in my veins. But I was a cool, mature thirteen-year-old. I did my best to play it off like it was no big deal that this entity that had been haunting my birthdays for as long as I could remember just nodded at me. I slowly, carefully closed the front door behind me before I started hyperventilating.

Two years later my dad died. He’d had cancer for a while, but I… I don’t know. I guess I knew – hard not to when words like “terminal” and “incurable” get tossed around. But he was my dad and dads don’t die. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t stop when dads do, in fact, die. And a month later, I approached the front door of the tiny two-bedroom prefab house we were living in. In the bleached-green plastic lawn chair next to the door, the shadow entity sat.

“Hey,” I said starting up the three steps to the door.

“Hey,” it responded, its voice deep and sonorous, coming not from the entity exactly but from the whole area of the entity.

The voice stopped me. It should have scared me. Any other year it would have terrified me. But not this year. “This year sucked,” I said, anger seeping into my tone.

The entity nodded.

“This isn’t how life is supposed to be. Dads don’t die. And I shouldn’t have a birthday without my dad.” Hot, angry tears came unbidden and unchecked down my cheeks.

The entity nodded again.

“That’s it. That’s all you’ve got? You’ve been here every…” I sought a word that sounded profound, sounded adult. “You’ve been here every fucking year and that’s all you’ve got?”

The entity stared at me. And then it sighed deeply. It was the sound of a strong gust of wind gathering and passing through a tall forest, rustling all the branches on its way. The sound of a deluge of rain trailing off into a sprinkle.

I stared back, but the fight had left me. Without anger, without vitriol, without enmity, I opened the front door, stepped inside and closed the door behind me.

The next year I got my license on my birthday – Mom took me straight to the DMV after school. We got home, but before I got out, Mom asked me to go get milk from the store, and she got out of the car. I stared at her but her smile told me she wanted me to use my newly minted license. I smiled and nodded back before pulling away from the curb. She was already inside when I returned fifteen minutes later. Walking up to the door, I saw the entity sitting in the same faded green lawn chair by the door.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” it responded.

“This year was better,” I said shifting the gallon of milk from one hand to the other.

“I’m glad,” it said and regarded me as I nodded again and went inside.

My first year away at college, I found the entity standing by the door to my dorm room when I finished my classes for the day on my birthday. The hallway was empty – it was still early in the afternoon – so no one was around to overhear me talking to – what must have looked like to anyone else – myself.

“I didn’t think you would be here this year.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” It asked in that resonant directionless voice.

“Yeah…” I said. “You’re here for me, then?”

It nodded.

“Huh…” I said, thinking about the implications as I unlocked my dorm room door and stepped inside. I closed the door and then immediately reopened it, sticking my head out and saying to the shade, “Thanks.”

It nodded back.

In that first year after we got married, Nancy and I were living in that tiny little studio on the other side of the campus where I was going to grad school. As had been the case recently, birthdays haven’t stood much on ceremony, and I had just finished the office hours for the Intro Lit class I taught when I saw the entity standing by the front door. “Hey,” I said, smiling.

“Hey,” it responded.

I sat on the stairs next to it. “I’m married,” I said.

“You are,” it agreed.

“Did you know Nancy is pregnant?”

It nodded.

I sighed. “I haven’t told anyone yet. I don’t think she has either. It scares the hell out of me…”

The entity stared at me.

For some reason, I found that funny and laughed. “Am I ready for this?” I asked.

The entity was quiet for a moment then responded, “Are you ever really ready for anything?”

“Yeah… no. No, that’s a… that’s a solid point,” I said, nodding. “Thanks,” I said, getting to my feet and going inside to kiss Nancy who surprised me with a homemade confetti cake.

The entity sat on the porch swing I had built the previous year. I stepped up on the porch as the taillights of the old Subaru headed back down the street. I sat on the opposite side of the porch swing next to the shade. We sat there on the porch, looking out at my front yard in silence. Finally, I broke the stillness. “How is she already driving?”

“You’re fifty today,” the entity said in that same deep voice.

I sighed deeply and laughed. “I sent her to get milk.”

“You’re lactose intolerant.”

“It’s the principal of the thing,” I waved a hand. “You know…”

The entity nodded.

We were both quiet for a long time. So long, in fact, that the lights of the old Subaru flashed across the porch as Sasha pulled into the driveway. She turned the car off and practically bounced across the driveway and up onto the porch. She bounded onto the porch swing right where the entity had been sitting. She looked at me with a grin a mile wide. Then she held up a small carton.

“Almond milk,” she said. “You’re lactose intolerant.”

I chuckled to myself and nodded to her.

She dropped the keys to the car in my hand and bounded inside with a quick, “Thanks dad!” as she closed the front door.

I turned back to the entity who sat on the end of the bench still. “Same time next year?”

The entity nodded.

I stood up and walked to the front door. Opening the door, I could hear Sasha giving Nancy a breathless play-by-play of her driving test. I smiled and turned back to the entity. “Next year?”

It nodded.

“Thanks,” I said, closing the door behind me.