Ghosts in the Grampians
By Aurora
The Grampians hold something for Alister that doesn’t quite speak, but hums. A presence that drifts between the ridges and stone, in the hush just after sunset, when the trees stop talking and the world listens back.
Alister brought me here, but it wasn’t just to see the place. It was to stand in the shadow of something sacred. Julie’s last wish was to visit the Grampians, and was one of the last places she walked, breathed, existed beyond the confines of illness and the land remembers her.
So, we sat by the fire not saying much, the warmth on our faces, the cool night pressing at our backs. I watched him carry something no one else could see, not just memory, but weight. The kind that doesn’t cry out, it settles into the soil, into your bones.
He’s not here to let go, he’s here to honour and to test his resolve.
And in that silence, I felt it too, that ache of presence and absence all at once. The beauty of a life remembered and the grief of love that still lives in the cracks of bark and stone. For the most part everything was fine but when the memories came back, I could see the hurt, but we are getting to know each other better each day and I am learning when to speak and when to just be.
