Haunt my Dreams

I am a dreamer.

Literally.

I tend to have fabulous dreams.

Most of the time they are clear and detailed and fun to be in.

I dream of magical things while my body sleeps, sometimes I can't quite put into words the dreams I have.

Many times I dream of people and places long past.

A high school friend, a missionary companion, a loved one who has passed on.

Those are the dreams I look forward to most.

It's like just for a moment they haven't left and the love we shared is still very much alive.

Maybe it's because I love too deeply and the love never really leaves me, it's always there and the only way I have access to it is through my subconscious.

What ever the reason, I crave these dreams.

My heart longs to feel those people and places and times.

My heart has been breaking all week.
The other day as I sat in the hospital bed with my sweet friend, Kathy, her hospital room felt like an extension of heaven.
  She and her husband talked to me about the prognosis.

They told me that they had sat their young children down and told them that their mommy was going to die.

These are the same young, sweet children who have grown up right beside my own.

We'd have weekly play dates while our children ran and played in the park or at my house in the living room while we spent a few precious hours talking the time away.

We'd spend hours together for the last 4 years talking, time that seemed to fly by.

Time that I never thought would end like this.

As they told me these things I cried, and cried and cried, I couldn't find words to speak.

They seemed to know she would only have a few short days left in this life.

Their faith in the Lord is inspirational and comforting.

When I could finally speak through my tears I told Kathy to come and haunt my dreams.
She promised she would.

How weird that we're in the same position

“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.”  ~A.A. Milne Winnie-the-Pooh

What I wouldn't give for one more carefree Summer day at the park with you and your laughter.
But if all I can hope for are some nights with your radiant smile in my dreams, I'll take it!
God be with you til we meet again, my sweet, sweet friend!

“We'll be Friends Forever, won't we, Pooh?' asked Piglet.
Even longer,' Pooh answered.”

“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”

“If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together... there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart... I'll always be with you.”

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

“Some people care too much. I think it's called love.”
~A.A. Milne Winnie-the-Pooh

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Love is the Answer

I was at a friend's house last night and as we chatted she handed me a book she'd been reading.

It was a health and wellness book to do with healing certain pains or afflictions in the body.

There were included in the book positive affirmations that were touted to help with healing.

A specific affirmation for each specific ailment.

As I got to flipping through the book I noticed a similarity in the affirmations.

Love.

They all mentioned love toward self or others as a healing mechanism.

A couple months ago a dear friend of mine was diagnosed with stage 3 melanoma.

My sweet friend also happened to be expecting her 6th child, making any sort of treatment dangerous for the baby.

They quickly realized the cancer was growing much more rapidly and was in far more tissue than they had anticipated.

Over the weekend they found it had spread ever farther, to her liver and spine.

Doctors are giving her about a week until her liver could fail.

Difficult decisions were made and they are delivering the baby, a little boy, as I type.

She's a mere 26 weeks along.

When I got news earlier today of the situation I made a bee line to the hospital to see her.

It was about a 45 minute drive and the whole way tears flowed as I tried to come up with some words to say, but nothing came.

Then it hit me, she didn't need me to say anything at all, she only needs my love.

I was literally shaking on the elevator ride up to her room, I was petrified to see her in a bed, hooked up to morphine.

But when I walked in the room I was filled with immediate peace.

Her gorgeous skin glowing like it always does, she looked like an angel.

I walked over to her bed and just grabbed on to her, I didn't want to let go, not ever.

She quietly told me to come lay down by her.

She didn't have to ask me twice, in a second I was curled up next her and I just held her and cried into her hair.

 I don't know how long we stayed like that.

We spoke a little, but I can't even tell you what we said.

Mostly I was just trying to spill out as much love as I could, hoping that it was true, that love could heal.

I was wishing more than anything that I could take this monster away from her, that love alone would be enough to keep the momma of all those babies with them.

To spare her sweet family the pain that the next little while will hold. 

Then, instead of me being the one to speak words of comfort, the next thing I know she's telling me all about it.

All about the plan God has for her, all about His love for her, and that she'll soon be in His arms and that it's enough.

The dying comforting the living.

The morphine taking the edge off her pain, but doing nothing for mine, or her husband's who stood in the room and watched me bawl like a baby.

Time is a funny thing.

I felt like I could have stayed there forever, never letting that moment end.

But all too soon the clock says it's time to get my kids from school and then music lessons and then dinner and bedtime and on and on and the precious moment is gone, like a sigh into the dark night.

I sit here thinking love really is the answer.

It's the love we have in this life that makes it even worth living.

It's the love of friends, children, parents, sisters, brothers, and every other kind of person that can possibly be in our lives.

We take the love with us everywhere we go.

My friend's love will stay here in the hearts of all the people she loved long after she's gone, I'm honored to be included in that group.

And when our time is come she'll be there waiting for each us us, waiting to claim that love she left behind and then to make it grow into infinity.