A man and his wife lived quiet but happy lives together. Each had their own room and their own bed because of the difference in their schedules. The man worked at night and didn't want to disturb his wife when he came home, and she didn't want to wake him during the day while he slept.
One day they were in a terrible accident that each thought the other had not survived, but which each had survived by some miracle. They each entered the house through a different entrance, and proceeded to mourn in shock, quietly. For three days they each mourned, and each carefully avoided the rest of the house, remaining quiet and crying quietly.
Each lived a Ghostly Life, quietly avoiding living life, mourning the other, not realizing the other was alive. When one glimpsed the other they believed it was just a memory coming to them during their mourning. They cried, and they mourned, and they stopped living life.
Finally, on the third day, each quite unintentionally met in the main living room of the house, and saw that they were alive. They each felt a rush of relief and joy, they shouted and hugged, they kissed and embraced each other. Then the same realization dawned on them of how foolishly they had each lived ghostly lives while they mourned.
The couple promised, then and there, to change their lives and cease to live quietly. They promised each other that they would gladly disrupt the other's life, to remind them that they live. They promised that if one of them dies, the other will live life Twice as loud, and Twice as boisterous, that they would live life enough for both. They promised that instead of crying softly they would shout out their sorrow loudly, that they would stomp the floor, and rush into every room, and never again be so foolish as to live a ghostly life.
The couple kept their promise to each other, the man changed his line of work and matched his schedule to hers. They lived life more loudly together, and slept soundly in each other's arms. And when the day came when the man's wife died, he kept his promise and shouted his grief, he stomped the floors, he rushed into every room, and he lived his life enough for two. He refused to live his life foolishly, never again a ghostly life.
His neighbors may have thought he'd gone mad, but he felt his sorrow and grief as fully as he could, then lived his life to the maximum. He celebrated her life, and celebrated his own. He enriched the lives of all around him for all his remaining years. And when he died everyone who knew him threw him a Wake instead of a quiet, mournful, funeral. They were loud, they stomped, they shouted, they lived life enough for two. They celebrated his life, they celebrated their own life, and never lived a ghostly life.