Category: memories

For the dead, still close. And for the living… (thank you, Brian Cole)

A Meeting In A Part – by Wendell Berry

In a dream I meet
my dead friend. He has,
I know, gone long and far,
and yet he is the same
for the dead are changeless.
They grow no older.
It is I who have changed,
grown strange to what I was.
Yet I, the changed one,
ask: “How you been?”
He grins and looks at me.
“I been eating peaches
off some mighty fine trees.”

I had such a dream this week. She met me in a doorway, filling the space like a picture frame. Her presence took my breath, her gentle hold gathered me in comfort. 

As if it were yesterday- she was the same in image and presence. For a moment I was filled with the familiar – deep love and possibility. Then only too soon our differences were realized. I welcomed her reminder that all is well both in my world as in hers. 

These dreams/visits are gifts. They shed the burden of time leaving the dreamer and the dreamed held in a moment meant only for them. A moment free of grief’s heavy weight or the cautious stretch to ‘remember when’. 

I had such a dream this week. It left me grateful for the gift of memories and of healing enabled by time. 

For all who have known the loss of loved ones-may you find comfort in such dreams.