“Miss Claire, Taryn’s been visiting again.”

Maya comes in three times a week to keep my house sparkling … and use the Wi-Fi. Not that there’s much to do, but I’m not one for household chores.

She’s a part-time psychology student, working her way through college to relieve her parents of the financial strain. She always calls me Miss Claire, even though I’m only five years older than her.

I look at her quizzically to see if she’s trying to mess with my head — you know, turn me into a project for her psychology course.

But she seems sincere.

You see, Taryn is dead. She passed away three months ago. She was my best friend, and I miss her fiercely.

Why are we scared to say ‘died’, as if the euphemism ‘passed away’ will make someone not fully dead. Is it the sound of the finality of it, especially if we haven’t yet accepted that that person is no longer with us?

But Taryn is dead — I know it. After all, I saw her lifeless body at the mortuary, the heart-wrenching sorrow on her parents’ faces. I’ve had to accept it.

I’m reminded of her absence every time I see the hot chocolate I bought for us to share. And the ashtray, purchased just for her, the only one in my home, now collecting dust on a side table next to the sofa. It reminds me of hours spent chatting together, a cigarette always dangling from Taryn’s fingers. Happier times.

I’d tried getting her to quit smoking by showing her pictures of the lungs of smokers, explaining the risks of heart disease and cancer.

“One in four people will die of cancer, Taryn! Why challenge the statistics?”

She’d replied, with a cheeky look, “Someone once said, ‘If you worry, you die. If you don’t worry, you’ll still die. So why worry?’”

She was impossible, but I loved her … Not enough to allow her to smoke indoors, though. So she’d grab the ashtray and sashay to the back garden, swinging her hips.

She didn’t wake up one morning. One day the picture of health, despite her smoking, and dead the next. No prolonged illness, no time for those of us left behind to get used to the idea that she’d be gone forever. The coroner’s report listed cause of death as, ‘Myocardial Infarction’ — a heart attack. I should have taken a tough love approach with her about her smoking.

There hadn’t been a funeral as she’d donated her body to science for the purposes of medical research.

“At least I know no-one will be burdened with the cost of a burial service, and they’ll cremate me at no cost when they’ve done all they can with my body. It’s a win-win situation,” she’d said when she made the decision to become a body donor.

Maya’s comment about Taryn visiting disturbs me.

“Maya?” I say softly.

“Yes, Miss Claire?”

“Maya, Taryn is dead.”

“I know. I was at the memorial service,” she says. “She is so pretty… And she has a great talent.”

Taryn had been an artist. While I’d gone off to university to study science and then work in cancer research, she’d followed her passion — sketching and painting.

I wonder why Maya has referred to Taryn in the present tense. But I shake it off. English is not Maya’s home language.  She comes from an Afrikaans family.

It was just a grammatical mistake.

***

Tell us what you think: Is it helpful of Maya to mention that Taryn’s ghost has been visiting, knowing how much Claire is grieving the loss of her friend?