Dream Aaron

Cathy and I visited with a young Mother yesterday. The Mom held her infant daughter on her lap. Another daughter, maybe 5, came down from upstairs playing a pink hand-held game. A typical Saturday afternoon; except this Mom and Cathy were discussing the anxiety surrounding the act of dismantling their deceased son's bedrooms. To do the job soon after the death or later. Quickly in a day, or slowly over years. However the job gets done there is no way to avoid taking the shirts he hung off of the hangers, and undoing the "decorating" so uniquely him. When every moment of your days ache for another touch of his person, to undo his space is to self-inflict a wound to your own heart, soul, and mind. You can't put things back. A rolled up sleeve on a shirt hung where he hung it, or a half drunk bottle of water resting where he placed it can't be moved without tearing fabric of the heart.

We left the house and went about taking care of things on our to-do list. A drive into DeForest would take us past Aaron's accident site. I asked Cathy if it was OK to go down that road as opposed to going a mile out of the way. I looked over at her as we approached the grim reminder. Cathy had her head back, the sun was on her face, and tears welled in the corners of her eyes. I can't imagine being a Mom.

The conflict of absurdity of caring on in a world which keeps spinning was maybe a trigger for my middle of the night dream this morning; a dream where I was losing control. In my dream, I was angry about religion, God, and losing Aaron. My dream rant was emotional enough to wake Cathy but not before Aaron appeared. In the dream, Cathy and I were in our room and I saw Aaron standing in the doorway, just as he had appeared many times at night when he came to our room for one reason or another. We could clearly see his shadowy outline.

The dream Aaron came into our room and layed down on the bed. Cathy hugged him and I hovered over looking at his face. Every bit of the dream Aaron was every bit Aaron--ears, eyebrows, lips, nose, haircut, and voice inflection. Dream Aaron assured us he was doing well and didn't want to come home. Dream Aaron said he would be there if Patrick needed him, but otherwise, "no offense but..." he wanted to stay where he was.

Cathy and I were hugging Dream Aaron, Cathy was holding on to never let him go, when we heard little-boy Patrick's voice on the porch. Dream Patrick was crying "help me Momma" in his voice of 3-4 years old. We left Aaron and rushed to the door. Dream Patrick came in with his friends Amanda and Jackson. Not the little boy of the sound of his voice, dream Patrick was his current six feet tall, with a baseball cap, crying huge tears. Dream Amanda told us Dream Patrick started crying uncontrollably and they rushed him home.

That was a rough night. There's been a string of smoother days. I'll cry more today.

Tom