It is always a surprise, and I sometimes ask her, "But...you died! How can you be here?" She laughs and tells me that death is something one recovers from, that it is a passage from one part of your life to the next, and do I want that coffee table? "Don't worry about your father," she often says, "he can't get you, I don't know where he is, but you should tell him to go to hell." I don't dream of him except as an accessory to her, and he is still a sullen, drunk memory and I dream wish him to die and stay dead, permanently. If I thought it would help, I would really stick a sock with button eyes full of pins to keep him catatonic, petrified, and bottled up. Compassion, maybe later. My brother cried, heartbroken, when my father died, possibly because he was loved. Me? The angels played banjo music and I hopped like a bunny.
Mom is busy, seemingly on her way somewhere to shop or visit; she hugs me, drives our old Ford Galaxy, and heads on out. Always glad, always healthy. So, what connection am I leading to? While sitting on a desk, my down-to-earth neighbor teacher related a similar experience with a departed, beloved relative. She said that in spite of the debilitating dying process, in dreams this person is now vibrant, healthy, and saying that death is just a change of address. I have other friends who have visited with dead relatives in dreams, almost every single one with the same reassurance of death being a minor inconvenience. What does this say about us?
Is it a wish for resolution with the deceased person, or are we humans processing the death of a loved one through the available tool of dreams? Is it a way we use to explain death to ourselves? I think there is more to it than that, too much else that happens during waking hours directs attention to paranormal bridges to other places, other times. If it is a self-contrived comfort, I will take it and enjoy the solace it brings. If, as I believe, it is a true connection with loved ones traveling time and space, the comfort is abetted by curiosity with a half-wish to know more, the other half a desire to be left alone so that the metaphysical tides don't get too deep. You know what I mean. Myself, I already have five cats, going to Purple Quartz Junction is just around the aromatherapy bend if I don't watch it.
Talk of death and dreams was opened by the last Sunday morning passing of my friend. Many other friends have also died, and how do I put this, I get feelings about them. My mother is busy, happy, and has more power in death than in life; when I ask her for help, I often get a "I'm busy, figure it out" sensation. My late teacher friend is practical and supportive. My closest friend passed away in 2009, and from her I get no sensation at all, the same for a beloved aunt. Nothing. Something is stopping them, holding them in stasis. Maybe they asked for a break, a rest. But this most recent sorrow has an unexpected impression: happy, she is happy. Regretful to leave so soon, but wherever she is in whatever company, there has been provoked a sense of joy. In pace.
I pay little other attention to my dreams, they are often quick in scene changes and garbled. There is another whole world, a village where I buy Easter candy in the woods and swim the backstroke in pods of other people down the Niagara River. There is a hotel that has an expensive Chinese restaurant that you want to visit before the tornado drops by and scares the old people living in the basement nursing home. There I am naked in Tops dairy department, not understanding why everyone is making a fuss for I do this all the time, I've been going naked for years, maybe I should start wearing clothes. I rebuild my house that I lived in while married, repairing floors, adding orchids to a now attached greenhouse. It is haunted by 17th century royalty, and we have to move after fixing it; we leave, I sneak back to grab more stuff left behind, get lectured by the new owners that they will call the police if I show up again. I am able to get through their silly locks. I order the Sunday paper to be delivered again. My house.
In reality, I have given in and brought out the air conditioner; the cats are now lolling blissfully in boneless repose on the floor and furniture. Why do I think it necessary to tough it out when all utilities are included? Possibly because this is powerful juju, this air conditioning business, a flabbergastment of chemistry and coils, and I was brought up not to complain and work with what I have. Fans were permitted, automatic ice makers led to devilment and a life of immoral choices, like you would suddenly begin smoking unfiltered cigarettes while walking an ocelot on a leash if you had more ice. Not understood was the idea that if things were cooler, more work was completed; you should quit complaining and start canning something, go throw a pot roast into the oven at 400 degrees in 90 degree heat.
The sky is past sunset, the building are turning grey in dim light. Check the cats, the latches, feed the fish, and put away the supper dishes. Water laps at the shore, Mars and Venus descend at the western horizon. It is a good thing to hope. Good night, all.
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