The Dream

The first winter after we lost Jack, my friend Courtney shared a dream with me. If you have read Rare Bird or followed this blog for a while, you remember how she and other friends experienced signs, visions, and dreams regarding Jack during those first few months. I was no longer surprised, so I just took it in.

I was disappointed that this dream didn't have to do with Jack, but with me.


In it, Courtney saw me walking beside a creek. Not THE creek in the woods behind our neighbors' house, but a different one, on a bright day. I had bare feet and I walked in about an inch of water that saturated the grass beside the creek. Then, I lay down face-first in the grass, getting wet all over. People walking with me tried to tell me to get up, saying that I didn't need to get myself wet, telling me I might become muddy. But I stayed on the ground, wet but not muddy, and continued to splash the crystal clear water. Before long, another woman whom Courtney knew, in pain and also grieving, traced my footsteps, following me.


Courtney and I both interpreted this dream to mean that I was letting myself feel my grief, and while that might have seemed too messy or uncomfortable for others who so wanted to spare me pain, it was something I was going to do anyway. And there were others, even people I didn't know, who came behind me, observing.


I didn't realize at that point that my grief journey would be a public one, first through this blog, and eventually a book. I didn't have any sort of mission to demystify grief, or to peel back the curtain as to what survival could look like. I just wanted to get through the holidays without giving up. I wanted to shake the cobwebs of shock and horror out of my head, and write from my heart. I wanted write about my fierce longing for Jack, a longing that grew out of great love.


I don't know if I will write about grief forever.


There are other things to be discussed, of course. Light topics such as fleece-lined tights (yay!) and the making and eating of scones. Heavier topics such as our failure to live better, as lights in the darkness, even when we know better.  


I never planned to lose Jack. I never planned to write about grief. In my first years of  blogging, when people asked me what kind of writer I was, I  would answer, "A Life Blogger" because I wasn't sure if my writing was more about my kids, decorating, my faith, or candy corn.


And even in writing so much about death, I guess that's what I still am. I write about LIFE. And I hope I can do justice to those dear ones who come after me, watching.