A Visit From an Old Friend



I dreamed about Roger Blain last night. My late father-in-law has made an appearance from time to time over the years, in my dreams of course, but it's been a long time since the last. In the dream I was in my kitchen with my wife Linda when we heard the front door open and someone come in. No one comes in that door except the dogs so I walked into the front hall and found Roger looking through the front coat closet, which I'd converted into an art supply closet not long after the divorce (the rearrangement of things aged that event is a topic for another time). Now, Roger in the dream is older, about the age he was when he got sick in his late-eighties. He was a sweet man who took his time with things, granted he had no choice later in life but he never was in much if a rush having growing up on a farm and all.

Roger was looking for felt letters for some project he was working on. Being a dream, I seemed to know what the project was about, though none if the specifics come to mind now. We couldn’t find any - I was helping him look through the closet - but I managed to find a scrap piece of felt he could use. He seemed to agree. We chatted a little more about something, but the details elude me now. Something about the dogs, maybe? He pretended to not care about dogs but I think he always had a soft spot for them, as long as they were behaved. 
 
Not until I woke up did I realize the importance of this moment. I got to spend some time with Roger again. Something people don't normally get to do when those they love have died. That's the beauty of dreams. A chance to do the impossible. And this moment, as short as it was, was very vivid. I was with him, saw him exactly as I remember him, and can still remember the dream though perhaps not many of the words we spoke. This seemingly in inconsequential firing of synapses in my brain... whether dreams are more than should be further discussed as well someday… was a wonderful gift, a new moment with someone I should not have had new moments with on this earth.

Be grateful for dreams, then. Sometimes they seem pointless and sometimes they scare us. Sometimes, though, they give us something priceless.

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