All in a Dream

July 18, 2020

Unexpectedly you came for a visit. Early, early morning around 5:00am. I've been forcing myself back to sleep, I am so tired still and some days I just want to stay in bed forever but Charlie, Bella, and Addie let me know they are hungry and I smell the coffee Mary has made. Mary is a tea person so I know it's for me.

Anyway I digress.

My friend Judy has spoken to me about how some folks and religions believe that the one who has died remains for a bit before moving on. And I have been so heartbroken believing you have left me forever and how would I ever know if you persisted or even if you had that we would ever meet again. I mean how does one know these things? My faith stops at God in whose existence I firmly believe (that is another story). What happens to us after this life has always seemed not to be logical or necessary. God yes, every living creature, come on, that's a pretty full afterworld!? Who knows? Haven't we had our chance to accomplish what was set out from our birth? And reincarnation? OMG this life has been so hard at times. Why another round at torture? Unless of course it was confirmed in advance that it would be with you and those I love and who unabashedly love me? I mean really, another round at torture? But there is the joy.

I think now that Judy was right about those who are gone staying close for a bit. Because like how my mother visited me in a dream the week she died, you and I were together again as if there was no curtain of death separating us. It was so wonderful. 

I dreamt of you this morning. It was one of those dreams where one wakes and hopes the dream will resume when one falls back to sleep but it never does. This morning the dream continued. You were teasing me, getting me to laugh, letting me know you love me and are happy. You knew how we cared for you and surrounded you in love. You knew you were not in this world and you looked like your robust, vibrant, silly pre-cancer self. It was so wonderful to be embraced by you again. You have made my day so much brighter knowing you exist even if in a world I can not enter and from a space you may move on from.

Genesis 28: 11-17

When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.  Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”