The Ghost Stroller

I walk my kids to school every morning. I can do this because the weather’s nice, and because school is less than a mile away. One kid nearly always walks while the other nearly always doesn’t. This setup required a double stroller for a while. The younger kid would sit on one side, backpacks filled the other, and we carried the bags if the older kid couldn’t walk.

We also bring the dog, and after dropoff, my husband and I complete a big loop so the dog gets her exercise, and we get to see the ocean and, more often than not, dolphins. It’s a lovely morning routine of about 5,500 steps.

At one point on this loop, we walk on a sidewalk overlooking the water, and right near the end of it, where homes begin to block views, we also often see, when the surf is good, a group of 5-10 older men I’ve cleverly dubbed Man Group.

Man Group likes to watch the ocean and I believe some of them also get in it, then the rest of them watch their buddies and maybe rate their surfing, hanging far enough away that if anyone needed help in the water, nobody could possibly save them.

They also watch people walking by, and because Man Group and our Morning Walk coincide, they watch my husband and me with our empty double stroller. Our yucky, dirty Thule with random toys and articles of clothing stuck to the seats.

Now I can’t say exactly what did it, what stirred this feeling in me. But I got the impression that these men acknowledged us in a way that wasn’t a normal “hello.” I don’t want to say mournful, but there was something about their nods that felt apologetic. As if my husband and I were taking out the double every morning to retrace steps we once made with children we had since lost. The children I just dropped off at school 15 minutes ago. The blessedly alive ones who left yogurt stains and snake stuffies in the stroller.

This continued for months. I almost wanted to cross to the other side of the street because I began to take on the persona I imagined they thought I was: a lady in mourning over her children, pushing a ghost stroller each day as she once did with her babies, afraid to let go. I’d almost cry at the thought of me. Again, my children were probably doing morning exercises at that point and eating the giant chocolate muffins school gives out as part of a healthy nutritional breakfast.

Then something happened: My eldest reliably started walking. She no longer needed the reassurance of a rolling seat. We switched to pushing a single stroller.

I kid you not, when we first walked by Man Group with the single, I swear they were all horrified. Clearly, our imaginarily lost children had been lost at the exact same time. How could only one kid deserve a mourning morning walk now? Which kid did we completely get over overnight and which one did we not? What had one kid done, as a ghost, to no longer deserve to see dolphins?

This continued for a few months until my youngest declared she’d walk to school, too, no stroller necessary. And so we dropped them off then walked, just us and the dog. Man Group seemed to believe all was right with the world. That they had witnessed a full turn of our grief, and were now watching us become functional, if eternally broken, people.

But then our youngest decided she could not walk every day. The single came back. Man Group didn’t know what to do with us. They averted their eyes—until a younger man joined the group. A man I recognized as the dad of a kid in my oldest daughter’s class. He knows the stroller’s occupant. He’s seen us at drop off.

Now, as we walk by on mornings with good surf, Man Group nods a regular nod, or none at all. And I continue to imagine dramas that nobody else on the sidewalk knows they’re in.

READING GROUP DISCUSSION NOTES: As we endlessly pathologize everything these days, one might say I’m anxious. That I have anxiety. I would counter that all people take on a new level of anxiety upon becoming parents. It’s part of the package. And if you ever see Man Group, ask them about the ghost stroller. I bet they know exactly what you’re talking about. I bet they tell you about a gorgeous blonde young mother and her unimaginable (yet entirely imagined) pain. I bet I’m right.