What Dreams May Come

                 

1/20/13

What Dreams May Come.  If you haven't seen the movie - you should.  This movie was one of our favorites as it was our story, our life, our journey as soulmates across thousands of years. If you have ever been in love or been lucky like me to find your soulmate, this movie is about you too.


I have had many people make comments to me that I am lucky to have found such a love and experienced the time I had with my soulmate - as if they themselves have not had the same opportunity.  I feel sad that so many people feel they are not with that one person the Universe, Cosmos or God intended for them.  This life is not a dress rehearsal and you don't get to go back and do it over.  Each day is a blessing and if you think the person you are with is not "the one true love" after all, then you have two choices.  1.  Get out of the relationship and move on.  2. Find your way back to the place of wondrous love and excitement and  joy you once knew with the person you are currently with.  Time has a way of softening or even dulling a relationship and making it seem unfulfilling and lackluster.  Looking out across the landscape of the world, so many others seem to be more exciting, sexy, fun, interesting -  you know, "The grass is greener" syndrome.  If you have been with one person for a long time, you have heard all the stories, know all the history and there isn't much left to discover. I get it, I felt that way sometimes with Ron and I would feel like AUGH! I'm bored!   I do not get to go back and fix those missed moments - and neither will you. Life and death go in one direction and there is no reverse.


I have spent the past 7 months in various stages of grief, often tears, despair and sadness prevailed. I also did a great job outrunning many of the feelings that came from losing someone I loved so deeply.  All the projects I started and chaos from the many disasters around the house were great distractions and kept me from doing my grief work.  Like a hamster on a running wheel, I had to fall off and get to a place of breakdown before I could experience the wonder of breakthrough.   Now, I find my days are less filled with the tears of sadness and more with the happy memories of our life together.  I speak about Ron and realize I almost speak as if he is in the other room, like he is still alive.  I feel like I can now speak of him and not always feel that desperate emptiness.  I wonder when I say things with a smile on my face or express my happiness that people must think "wow, she's over him".  Far from it - it's just that I don't want to live in sadness and I am purposing to be a happier person.  To be healthy, I need to live my life in the moment, live in today.  With that recognition of what I "need" to do, there is that part of me that still wants to search heaven and hell looking for Ron.  If you know the love for which I speak, you know you would do the same.  I feel him, know he is nearby reaching out for me and wrapping his arms around me like Patrick Swayze to Demi Moore in Ghost.  We had that kind of connection.

Thinking about dreams and dreamlike thoughts. The strangest experience happened the other day and it is still tipping me off balance.  I was looking at a few pictures of Ron and thinking about him when he was alive, how he felt, looked, how he smelled, tasted, moved, smiled and spoke.  I suddenly had a thought overtake me - it was that his being alive, being his wife and all that we had experienced together was the dream and these past 7 months of foggy dreamlike nightmare were really what I had lived all along.  It was a scary, unsettling feeling because it made me wonder if I was going to erase him from my memories like so many other dreams I have had in my lifetime.   What if my memories of Ron become so clouded and distant that I can't rekindle them again?  This thing called grief is such a fickle creature.  Dashing in and out of the shadows like Robin Hood, taking and giving as he sees fit then getting whacked on the back of the head with no warning at all, just when life feels at its most stable and secure.  It's a game of tag where nobody really wins, just a lot of yelling and running about until all the players are exhausted and collapse.  Grief likes to play games.

In the movie, the beautiful images of heaven were actually their dream home where the family is reunited once again after they have all transitioned from this earthly life.  They joyfully came together recognizing the love and devotion each shared for one another, celebrating being a family once again.   I see that possibility for Ron and I.  I imagine he is spending his time at the BBQ, fixing things and preparing our dream home, waiting for me to arrive.  Just as he did most days while he was alive, waiting at the front door, or on the front porch of our home with that big smile on his face.  Welcoming me home.

Until then, I will see you in my dreams my love!