Dream time

I had my first dream about him in weeks.

At some point yesterday, we realized it was the 17th. Since he died on September 17, that makes that day of every month more poignant. Perhaps that was on my mind as I went to sleep.

Here’s what I remember. It was his funeral. Only it was in a much more ornate church and we hadn’t had him cremated. And it was open casket. Everyone was there. And it was as nice as a funeral could be.

Then, for unexplained reasons, we had to have the funeral again five days later. Everyone was annoyed that they had to come all the way back to Berlin to have the funeral again. It was hectic. My mother was there and so was my brother Markus, but I was annoyed that “my two other” brothers weren’t there, so apparently my family tree is more complicated in dream land.

We finished the ceremony and then we had his body lying in state. We were on this enormous lawn with an artificial island cut off from the rest by two streams. His body was on the island. And then it rolled off into one of the streams and got caught by the current. So, I grabbed him and pulled him out. Which is when he sat up, looked at me and said “Soul’s in heaven.”

And then I woke up and it was 4:30 a.m. and there was no way in hell I was going back to sleep.

And here’s the thing. I know there’s a decent chance this is just the random firing of synapses in my head. I know it might just be a dream. But, in the same way that I choose to believe it’s his ghost every time a lamp goes out unexpectedly in our house, I’m choosing to believe that the dream means something. Because, as “Pet Semetary” as the dream got towards the end, a soul in heaven doesn’t sound like a bad thing. The honest truth is, as creepy as the dream got, I still enjoyed the sensation of being with him for those three seconds more than I’ve enjoyed many moments since his cancer diagnosis. So, here’s looking at you Colin. Come back to visit in Dreamworld any time you feel like.