Maurice Merleau-Ponty in Phenomenology of Perception writes
We do not understand the absence or death of a friend until the time comes when we expect a reply from him and when we realize that we shall never again receive one, so at first we avoid asking in order not to have to notice this silence; we turn aside from those areas of our life in which we might meet this nothingness, but this very fact necessitates that we intuit them. .... The man with one leg feels the missing limb in the same way as I feel keenly the existence of a friend who is, nevertheless, not before my eyes ....
There remains, after death or departure, a deposit or a shadow, or the patterning of closeness and distance, that now defines the empty present and seeks to interpret present and future events. The relationship with the departed continues in the void the opens in the present and future. One may speak of this 'absent presence' as the spirit of the person who is no longer present, the ghost of personal encounter with the object of one's devotion.
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