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The desire for immortality paints the storyline of Lincoln in the Bardo. The spirits have left things undone back in the living world, and they hope to return, so they delude themselves, believing that they are simply ill, and not truly dead. They use softer terms to underplay their unpleasant conditions. The coffin is a sick-box (Saunders 5), the hearse is a sick-cart (Saunders 6), and dead bodies are simply sick-form[s] (Saunders 58). Being dead makes one unlovable (Saunders 70), and the ghosts of Oak Lawn Cemetery yearn for love more than anything. When Willie Lincoln arrives in the Bardo and his father, Abraham Lincoln, visits his grave to hold his lifeless body, the other souls in the Bardo are shocked. This creates the hope that their loved ones will come back for them, too, allowing them to reunite and go back to that life with them. To be touched so lovingly, so fondly, as if one were stillHealthy. As if one were still worthy of affection and respect? It was cheering. It gave us hope. We were perhaps not so unloveable as we had come to believe (Saunders 70), Roger Bevins III, Hans Vollman, and the Reverend Everly Thomas say. They continue to hope that their current state is only temporary and that they can go back to the world and remain immortal. This is the understanding and mi

ndset of the souls in the Bardo for the majority of the book until this hope is taken away from them by Willies revelation on their condition.
After Willie realized that he was dead through hearing his father say it himself, he turned to the Bardo-dwellers and told them May I tell you something?…You are not sick…There is a name for what ails us…Do you not know it? Do you really not know it?…Dead…Everyone, we are dead! (Saunders 95-96). Suddenly, the matterlightblooming phenomenon occurred, and those who succeed are transported into the next realm. This clears the shocked souls of their desire to stay behind. The souls are unintelligent, and their fear of leaving behind forever the beautiful things of this world (Saunders 40) takes on an unrealistic magnificence, as even after Willies claims, many continue to refuse the truth. But little by little, more are able to move on through matterlightblooming. However, some continue to remain in the Bardo to await those who are still alive in joining them, that desire for immortality remaining, even in the slightest. Although they have accepted that they cannot be immortal, they still linger because of their attachment to the living world. The Bardo is a place of unfinished business, nostalgic longing, and hope for interaction with the living.