Dependence Day
I awake most every morning from a bad dream—this varies from a stressful or troubling scenario to an outright nightmare. It’s so hard to start a day like that. I get off on the wrong foot even before putting my foot on the floor on the right side of my bed. I write this not for pity, but for context.
I awoke this morning from a different type–the rare kind of dream–the kind from which I don’t want to wake: Joey came home. It was a party. A welcome home party. It was a gathering of his family and friends from all walks of his life—his long short life.
His Hollywood friends had prepared some sort of presentation for him. They were milling around, excitedly—joyously—making plans. It began with a full-throated—full-hearted—song by the throng. They were showing him how deeply they missed him, how they loved him, in the way they best knew.
We were all honoring him the way we knew.
I woke up feeling his touch. I woke up feeling his sweet, familiar hug. I always loved how my open hand covered the side of his face, feeling his scruffy beard. A couple of days ago, I was thinking of this and I had the ensuing terror that I might one day forget what my palm feels like touching his cheek.
As memory fades, how, HOW can I retain this?
This morning I woke with a sort of cognitive dissonance. The dream was wonderful, yes, but the moment I realized it was only a dream and that Joey was NOT here was crushing. The devastation that there was and is no party.
No friends and family celebrating Joey and his return.
No hand caressing his face.
It was just a dream.
And I knew at some moment very soon I’d again have to put my foot to the floor.
I also knew, at this moment, I could choose, however imperfectly, where to focus my mind: I told myself this wasn’t just a dream. Not really. It is a trailer for what is to come. I tell myself I can depend on this thought which is, in reality, a foreshadowing. And this thought will carry me today:
There will be a reunion
There will be a reunion
There will be a reunion
There will be a reunion.
