The Ghosts We Cling To

Hayden Bicknell
The Old Man in the mountain. A ghost worshiped by people who don’t know
how to live without him. A rock face on the side of a mountain that looked like a man.
He very well might have been around for thousands of years so it was only fitting he
was called old, in fact, ancient might have fit him better.
As people continued to worship and idolize the Old Man, he started to crumble.
Except people would be damned if they didn’t try and save him. They took cables and
tied them around his face, used cement for his cracks, and bleach for polish; they held
him up as best as they could. He had to remain. He means so much to many. Eventually,
since all things must fall, the Old Man fell on May 3rd, 2003.
I grew up in the very place where the Old Man used to lie, New Hampshire. I
never saw the Old Man because I was born in 2007. However, I feel a connection to him,
because his ghost lies everywhere — on license plates, state quarters, symbols for the
state, and every welcome center.
New Hampshire has lots to offer, we have real maple syrup, Mount Washington,
no sales tax, beautiful fall colors, and over eight hundred lakes. Yet we still cling to this
past beauty others have long forgotten. For you, this might seem silly, because it was a
rock face and nothing else, but he was so much more than that. He was a keeper, a
protector. For some, he symbolized God engraving his creation of man into stone. For
others, he felt like family, a constant, like the tree you see every morning on your
commute. They couldn’t just let go of someone that they put so much love and care into,
someone who was part of them.
As I think about the Old Man’s fall along with the legacy he created. I reflect on
how it relates to the changes and transitions in my own life and the things I worried
would be lost forever.
Have I lost the girl who talked too much and was too loud? Could I ever be the
girl before the friendly toast? Could I go back to being someone before the pandemic
and would I forget I had gone to preschool in a church basement?
Sometimes I sit and wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t experienced
these changes. I’d probably still be told to be quieter. I definitely would have gone to
high school with one of my best friends. My class would have gone on our class trip,
and I wouldn’t know my sister in all but blood.
I wonder what would have happened if the Old Man fell at a different time too.
A day or two later, or maybe a year earlier. Would people have made a different choice?
Would they have rebuilt him with cement and poles or would a memorial for him never
have gotten made?
 Unfortunately, these things happened and there’s nothing you can do about
them. Unless of course, you’ve somehow solved the secret of time, then you get to be
the exception. But for the rest of us, these changes and milestones and the people we
used to be before them have all but disappeared in everything but memory and
photography.
One memory I have was a day my mom and I were driving down I-93 on a
section that goes by Franconia Notch. It was the summer and even though fall is the
prettiest, the Notch does truly take your breath away no matter the season or how often
you’ve seen it. The way the mountain parts for you like you were meant for this path
and there’s no better place to be at that moment than blasting music you miraculously
have downloaded.
We must have been talking about the Old Man because we passed where he
would be, and my mom pointed the place out. Even though I had driven through the
Notch a couple of times, it was my first time acknowledging where the Old Man the
state prided with such joy had been, and even though the leaves and wind cannot
speak, they told me a story of loss through change.
A big shift was happening in my life at that time. This was the summer before I
would start high school in a new state. A state with fewer family and friends and
absolutely no maple syrup weekends — perhaps the biggest disappointment of all.
Moving to Colorado would be one of the biggest changes of my life.
But that day I was told a story, and although I didn’t understand at the time, I do
now. I was told the story of how the scenery before me grew and changed each year,
each season, and each day. For the final line of that story, the ghost of an Old Man
whispered to me “And as you too, grow and change, know that you are still as beautiful
as the day before.”