Personal Essay: Shadow

One Saturday, at around seven or eight in the evening, I had been writing and playing piano in the art building of my high school when I decided to go play the piano in 他he chapel, where the best piano at our school was. For exactly what reason I chose to go that night I could not explain, but I could say that I was working on Fantasie Impromptu by Chopin and Flickering Night, a story I had been working on about music, souls, and the past. 

So I packed up and walked, along the winding brick pathway, past Dowd house and Griffin, past cars and street lamps, dripping water and soft grass. On the way a car drove into the parking lot in front of me, and two people got off—a boy and his father, I assume—and stood next to the car, chatting. I then turned left to the road leading up to the Chapel. On my left a tall row of trees extended down the road; on the right rested short bushes, and behind them taller ones. The chapel stood behind those bushes, with a short walkway between. When I arrived in front of the chapel I saw a sign—I could not remember its exact words—that said Mr. Glover’s memorial will be held here tomorrow. He was a well known teacher at my school before he retired and passed away. I stopped and looked at the sign. 

Crickets, water dripping, insects' scuttling, and distant conversation sounded behind me. I turned right onto the walkway and faced the chapel. A distant building to my right lit the chapel dimly. I peered through two small, square windows on the front door. Darkness. The window seemed to be eyes, staring at me. I looked absently into the door of the chapel, the weight of my backpack leaned against me, the moist air pressed against my skin, and my toes were wet. 

I had never known Mr. Glover, only heard stories and jokes about him. Yet that night, at the chapel, I felt his shadow, his absence. It was not clear, but a feeling that pressed upon me through the darkness. I turned around, knowing that for tonight, the chapel would not be mine, but of a shadow of one who I had never seen or knew, but nevertheless felt. 

When I walked back, I passed the father and boy who stood next to their car. Someone else had joined them. They did not notice me who had walked past them, stood in front of the chapel for a while, and then walked back; they were also oblivious to the shadow that I felt, and continued in their lighthearted conversation. 

Today, should someone mention Mr. Glover, I would not have felt the same as that night. I might barely feel anything at all—I had never known him, after all. Yet that night, I had felt the shadow, as if a tiny weight of that shadow was magnified by my thoughts on dreams and souls, the weight of my backpack, the crickets, the darkness, the drops of rain, and the talking behind me. 

One could say that there was no shadow there, and that it was all my imagination. But why, then, go to honor or grieve one’s absence? Put a grave up for the dead? Why do we use these words? All these are what others have passed on to us, part of their shadow which still exists just as the stones that have been put up in their honor. But in order for a shadow to exist in the first place, one has to be connected, somehow, with that person, be that through a story told or a 60-year long relationship. One cannot feel the shadow of a person to which they have no knowledge of. 

That being said, some shadows are felt stronger than others, and differ for each person, each time, and each place. The extent to which a shadow exists depends on the extent to which the people connect. But it also depends heavily on one’s connection with the force casting the shadow, or, in other words, the amplifier. It could be an object, nature, weather, or time; words, crickets, rain, or night. The closer the connection, the more the shadow is amplified, and the more weight it has. 

Perhaps it is not the the absence of things that we grieve, but rather the lasting connections not yet broken, reminding us that people are never fully gone, but lingers through places and objects left behind.