Grief renders the world itself ghostly

In Joseph Bottum's touching eulogy for his friend and colleague Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, he captures the essence of grief:

Only a month ago--it was only a month ago that he was still whole, still sharp, still himself. Novels and movies always seem to me to get it wrong. Grief doesn't conjure up ghosts. Grief renders the world itself ghostly. The absent thing alone is real, and in comparison, all present things are pale, gray, and indistinct: a vague background to the sharp-edged portrait of what is gone.

Anyone who has suffered the loss of a loved one knows what he means. Simple things that I once enjoyed with my father -- cooking on the grill, watching football games, visiting the ocean -- are altogether less real without him in the world. Ditto for my beloved maternal grandparents. The fact that I am blessed -- or cursed -- with an uncanny ability to store and retrieve memories as though my brain were a digital recorder adds to this sensation. It has rendered Rochester, in a certain sense, a ghost town.