dreaming

last night i dreamed of my sister. since july i've had 3 dreams where she is present.

in the first dream i was at work running around from office to office trying to get some important things done and her and my grandmother (the one my family was closest to) were following me around waiting for me to be done so we could leave. they were eating ice cream and being very patient. i don't know where we were going, but somehow, when i woke up, i knew they were together and that gave me comfort. to be perfectly honest, i don't believe in heaven or hell. eternal salvation or eternal damnation is a savage concept in my mind. i truly believe that if there is a heaven, only dogs belong there.

in the second dream i was at her house and she was on her couch in her jammers and i remember only us talking. but it was still rather nice.

last night's dream was weird. i dreamed she 'came back to life'. but not in the zombie apocalypse way. what happened was i received an email from a hospital telling me that she was ready to be released. this was my "second notice", as it were. i was reviewing the police report and also the coroner's report and her medical records. it turned out, in my dream, when they arrived with her to the hospital after the car accident she was presumed dead. they were all ready to send her to the morgue but she started showing signs of life and they transferred her to a hospital in a city far away from her home. she was in a coma. no one notified us that she went to the hospital and we continued to set out arrangements for her funeral and it went planned as usual. i was going over her papers while in a church at a family wedding and i was thinking it was very odd that no one notified us and i was very angry but at the same time i was so elated that i had my sister back! i couldn't be angry for long and then i would focus on having her back and be so ecstatic with that and the anger would lift. i also kept thinking "oh my god, who's ashes do we have???" because that was really freaky. since everything she owned we donated to family or charities it was decided she would come live with me. i couldn't be happier. now, i don't know what that means on a psychological level. to be truthful, i don't think it means entirely too much. i don't believe in the hocus pocus of dream analysis. i think that our dreams are made up as an unedited stream of consciousness that weaves through our recent and and perhaps deep-seeded thoughts. but i do remember one thing very, very clearly. i didn't want to wake up. i just wanted my sister back.

i've come to accept that she is "gone". i'll never see her again, and although that hurts like a punch in the face and burns my heart like a white-hot branding iron, i know that the imprint she has left on my life is bigger and stronger and more wonderful than any of the pain that comes with losing her. i accept losing her easier on the days when that wonderful feeling actually does outweigh the pain. and yah, time is beginning to heal the gaping wound on my heart in very small ways. but that dream reminded me how far i still need to go in order to wake up with a smile after i dream of her and not tears.

*sigh*