It has been a while. I have had a bit of a dry spell, perhaps even a drought of ideas. So, I asked for help. I prayed for ideas and inspiration, and I wasn’t disappointed. Our parents are the inspiration for this blog–their lives and their deaths, so I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Again, be careful what you wish for.

I woke up early this morning after a relatively late night–11:00 is way past my bedtime. It was not yet six, so I went back to sleep. When I am lucky enough to fall back asleep, I often have the strangest dreams. This morning was no exception, except that it was perhaps the strongest, most moving dream I have in the last fourteen years. And, it took me a moment to realize it was just a dream. It was still real when I woke up an hour later, for just that moment, and I had to wrap my mind around what I thought was my new reality.

In the dream, Mom had called to tell me that Dad had died in his sleep. I was awake now–barely, and my own heart was broken. I didn’t know how I would live without him. And then I realized it was a dream. I had already been living without him for over fourteen years, and without Mom for just as long.

It was real, just for that moment.

Perhaps it was because I was thinking about them yesterday as my husband and I traveled close to the accident site. I considered taking the short detour to stop there, but there was no reason. I had already been there once. (And You Will Go On, October 14th, 2018. )

Perhaps the dream was portended by the five cardinals I saw the day before. Yes, five. I even had to slow down to avoid hitting two of them with my car on two different occasions.

Perhaps it was the dime I found on the floor of a store yesterday. Mom and Dad had a dime bank they often contributed to, and after I wrote the blog about the six amazing sisters (The Magnificent Seven, November 11th, 2018 ) and they told me about the connection they have to their parents through dimes–“Dimes from heaven,” they call them, I started to find dimes lying randomly here and there, including one in the middle of my bedroom floor later that afternoon. I had just tidied up the room, and left it with no trace of anything stray on the floor. Yet, the dime showed up. And they have been showing up ever since. I put that one next to their picture and each one since then has been placed in a skinny shot glass next to it.

One of Gail’s daughters has this same connection to her grandparents through dimes. We send pictures of our latest dime finds to each other via text along with a short story. I sent her the picture of yesterday’s dime, and not long after that I got one back from her–this one was wedged in the crack of a table.

**

I get good ideas when I take my morning run/walk. Last night’s dream was still bouncing around in my head as I ran, stirring up more ideas. I came in the house ready to get them on paper, because ideas don’t always stick around. I left the house with CD music playing, and when I walked in the door, a lyric I’d heard dozens of times, but never noticed, jumped out at me: “I‘ll hold you in my dreams.”

I will. I am.

**

I long to dream about my parents in a way that brings them back to me. Except for this morning’s dream, whenever they show up in my dreams, it’s always as if they never left, so there is no grand reunion. It’s just another day of my life with my parents in it, as if they were still alive.

Gail says she rarely dreams of them. I doubt she sleeps enough to dream. Suzanne says she dreams about them, but it is as if they never died. The most memorable one she had is that, after a long absence, they showed up, having moved to a nearby town. When she asked them if they were moving back, they said, “No, we like it here. We plan to stay.”

We all long to connect with them again in grand style in a dream. However, we don’t get to order one up as if we are ordering at a restaurant. I remember visiting with a friend who had lost his young son. He longed to dream about him, he said, because this was the only way he could see him again.

If only we could put that order in, and expect it to be filled.

**

I hope that not a single one of you can relate to this strong desire to connect to a lost loved one. I hope none of you have ever experienced a loss of a loved one. But I doubt that. I am guessing that each one of you has had to let go of a loved one at some point in your past. For that, I am so sorry.

If, perhaps, you have not felt this pain, or even if you have, and you want to discount any of these “signs”–the dreams, the dimes, the cardinals, please be my guest. I have no proof that they mean anything. There is no science to back this up. Yet, I believe. And, if it brings you peace, I hope you believe, too.

Sweet dreams, my friends.