An Elegy — By Veronica Rafael
artwork by Ciara Duffy
I took off the ring immediately. My initial impulse was to bury it somewhere, to give it a decent and humane memorial, to ensure that the love knew, while floating aimlessly in the ether, that someone, at some point, remembered it had been alive. But then I thought, what the hell, the extra money could be nice; I didn’t get a eulogy—it’s the least he could do. I’d lost almost all of my savings to avoid breaking our lease early and practically all of my youth—why should I feel guilty about anything?
My moral dilemma was short-lived, however, because apparently, it was worthless. I went to jeweler after jeweler, watching in horror as each one inspected the bands with a magnifying glass before immediately handing them back, shaking their heads—“they might be worth the cost of the melted gold, if that.” The fifth jeweler noticed me tense up as he rolled the rings between his thick fingers and gave me a sad smile. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, handing them back to me, “if no one offers you anything for them, I’ll give you $200. Just promise to go to at least three more places first.” I walked back to my car and laughed so hard I cried.
***
The decency of a human divorce is lost on a ghost. There is a shared pain when you’re an actual person—a mutual acknowledgment of a life you’d spent building together, a reciprocal sorrow in packing up your own boxes and walking out of your front door one last time. But the ghost has no concern for earthly possessions, logistics, goodbyes, or unpaid electric bills. Before you even realize what’s happening, it has drifted right through you, out of the room, out of the house, out of the city, the state. When you’re the human in the ghost divorce, you’re still writhing in the semantics, still untangling the knots inside of you, still struggling to take full possession of your own flesh before you even realize what’s happened. By then, the ghost is playing house and husband elsewhere—a loose sock and a receipt in a drawer the only evidence that your life together ever existed at all.
It’s reasonable, I think, to expect some light haunting—maybe a flicker of bedroom lights, the slamming of a door - anything to remind you that this was their house and their life once, too. Instead, my ghost quietly retreated to his childhood home in New Jersey and tucked himself back into a past where he could easily live, undetected, as the kind, caring person he’d pretended to be when he was alive.
***
It's mid-October in New England. When I arrive, the leaves are gorgeously red and yellow, the morning air is crisp, and a spooky mist hovers on the highway. I’d forgotten how much I love it here. I am back for a Bar Mitzvah—my first ever. My friend’s son and I share a birthday and a deep love for the ocean, and my heart is full watching him recite his prayers while his family beams from the front row. The rabbi guides us from page to page, and I’m following along when a poem catches my eye. I want to earmark it, but it’s not my Tanakh, so I memorize the first line to revisit later : ’tis a fearful thing to love…
That evening, I drive three hours to Newark Airport to return my rental car, tense and unnerved. I cross the Hudson, taking in the tree line, the cliffs, the distant view of Manhattan. Part of me unclenches, remembering what home used to feel like, but my human form is white knuckling the steering wheel, holding on for dear life. I drive past the Mountain House, where my once-human and I used to share a pizza on snowy days. Past the Boy Scout camp where he’d gotten lost on a run one summer, shirtless and frantic, stuck without any water for hours. Past the lookout on the Palisades near the Marina. Past the road that leads to his new street. Past the road that leads to his old one.
It is full-blown Autumn in New Jersey, and I can see how easily one might feel alive again here—how simple it might be to forget that you’d left an entire world behind when the seasons make it seem normal to have an ever-changing form.
***
I sell the rings online to a girl in San Francisco for $900. I dip them in soapy water and scrub the diamonds until they glisten, just like I used to in our old kitchen. But this time, instead of slipping them back onto my left hand, I carefully tuck them into a pink velvet ring box. I wrap the box in tissue, place it into a larger cardboard box, and seal it with tight, clear tape—the coffin, ready to be mailed.
I am not the type to haunt, but I question whether I will have to wait until I merge with the infinite to find the understanding. I wonder if, without a proper grave, his ghost still wanders the astral plane, forced to revisit the secrets he tried to bury in me.
I am parked outside of the post office now, the only mourner at the service. There will be no monument to my dignity or tribute to my devotion, but I have found the words, regardless. I will bring our love forgiveness. I will adorn it with flowers.
‘Tis a fearful thing
to love what death can touch.
A fearful thing
to love, to hope, to dream, to be –
to be,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
And a holy thing,
a holy thing
to love.
For your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
‘Tis a human thing, love,
a holy thing, to love
what death has touched.
— Yehuda Halevi
Veronica Rafael is a Los Angeles-based writer and photographer. Her work orbits memory, place, and the invisible threads that tether us to what’s gone. Blending poetic precision with emotional depth, she writes elegiac pieces that explore grief, longing, and reinvention. Her creative practice spans both visual and written mediums, rooted in the quiet belief that beauty can be a form of remembering.