Visits in my dreams

“Logic cannot comprehend love; so much the worse for logic.”

Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by N.T. Wright

I’m in a resort. I go to the loo. Somehow this process is convoluted and slow as I’m carrying shopping bags and cannot find my mobile. When I come out the whole location has changed. My brother hands over the ‘looking-after’ responsibilities and we venture into a music shop. More obstacles – a gutter too deep, crowds, too much noise – and now suddenly we’re not in a shop we’re in a stadium and I’m trying to find a way to climb out of the camera box. I’ve lost him again and the search I’ve carried out so many times begins anew …

Last night I had another visit from my Dad.

Mourning and processing is a funny animal …

Since he died 2 years ago on the May Bank holiday 2017, my Dad has visited me in my dreams more than I ever remember him doing so when he was alive.

Though the details and obstacles differ in every dream, there are 3 basic versions:

1. He died, but is now alive and I’m not sure what to tell people.
2. He never died and never got sick and our relationship is lively and strong.
3. He’s in varying stages of illness and keeps wondering off and I / we have to search for him.

In the 1st, I feel guilty and secretive – we, as a family, have done something wrong and don’t know how to fix it. In this version Dad is fairly compos mentis, but still unwell and it’s never clear whether or not he knows he died.

Dream number 2 is a happy one, but fleeting.

The 3rd, the searching dream, is the hardest. I’m restless, anxious and lost and wake up exhausted in the morning.

So strange, the human brain, the human relationship, the human condition … when you think about it.

Did Yoda say that? Or was is Zummi Gummi?

I’m not too wise on these things, but I’m trying to understand more by reading books by wise people like N.T. Wright (quoted above).

I’ll leave you with a poem Hubby told me about recently which, as poetry goes, does somehow make some sense.

The Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heaven’s embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light;
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W. B. Yeats

SMALL PRINT:
P.s. Last night I poured myself a glass of wine (Hubby is in Holland) and did about 90% of our packing for 5 weeks in Equatorial and Southern Africa. I remembered that Dad had a packing list taped to the inside of our kitchen grocery cupboard to remind us what to pack on trips. Maybe that’s why he visited me? I blame the wine.