When Angels Dream

I post­ed on Face­book when I woke up:

Woke up in tears…I had a very real-feel­ing bit­ter­sweet dream…long sto­ry short: I was “vis­it­ed” by my great Aunt (who inspired me to be cre­ative grow­ing up) and I was able to final­ly say good­bye, which I was­n’t able to do when she died 2 years ago.

So I thought I would post the whole thing, main­ly to record this down somewhere.

Some back­ground first. My great-Aunt and Grand­moth­er (sis­ters) lived togeth­er most of their adult lives (after my dad and his broth­er moved out). They lived in the same house in High­land Park for my entire life, until my Great-Aunt passed away in 2009.

My great-aunt was a huge influ­ence in my life. I would go over to their house every week­end, my whole life. I learned so much from them and have so many mem­o­ries. Out of my fam­i­ly, I was prob­a­bly the clos­est to them.

My great-aunt (Muriel) was a very cre­ative per­son. She sewed, she paint­ed, she sketched, she would make crafts (occa­sion­al­ly) but she was very artis­tic. She would let me play with her oils, pas­tels, acrylics or what-have-you for hours and just exper­i­ment. She always made sure that I expe­ri­enced so many things or tried dif­fer­ent medi­ums. I still remem­ber, clear as ever, the day she showed me what paper-mache was and how to make glue from flour.

So, she was a very impor­tant per­son in my life, and the main rea­son I am a graph­ic design­er. She was always so proud (and I was always so proud to show her) all the things I would design or cre­ate. She was my #1 fan.

Now that you have that information.…back to my story.

I rarely dream any­more. It’s very rare. When I do, they are very whacked out dreams, and this was no dif­fer­ent, but it had a very pleas­ant ending.

I first start­ed dream­ing that I was in a record­ing stu­dio in Nashville in 1967-ish, and was lis­ten­ing to Dol­ly Par­ton record one of my favorite songs. (Side note: I don’t dream about Dol­ly Par­ton all the time, don’t get any ideas…this was the first time I ever recall hav­ing a dream with her in it. Nor­mal­ly I dream about friends, or places that are con­stant­ly around me).

The scene shift­ed and I was out­side of a large church (which may have been my old North­east Church of God) and there were a lot of peo­ple sit­ting on the lawn in lawn chairs (this is impor­tant, because my Aunt and grams were “Good Sam”-ers and would go camp­ing all the time, and every­one sat in Lawn Chairs).

We were all watch­ing a TV screen (straight out of 1986–big boxy thing) and my grand­moth­er was on the screen, read­ing her will. So appar­ent­ly she had passed away.

My fam­i­ly was there (my sis­ter, my dad and me…not sure if my mom was there too or Amy and any of my kids) and a lot of my grand­moth­er and great-aun­t’s friends (most of whom are deceased…deceased in real life, not the dream).

But, I turn around, and there…set off from the rest of the group…is my Great-Aunt.

She was just how I remem­bered her look­ing, sit­ting her “cer­tain” way in her lawn-chair (leg crossed, lean­ing on one arm, with her thumb anf fore-fin­ger on her cheek/temple.) Wear­ing her green spring jack­et and match­ing green slacks, her hair done the way it always was in this sort of round poof).

I ran over to her and I don’t recall what we talked about, but we vis­it­ed. I do remem­ber that I was cry­ing while talk­ing to her and telling her how good it was to see her again and she smiled at me and she spoke-back many times, but I don’t recall what she said as I am awake now.

Then every­thing start­ed to fade as I woke up..still crying.

I nev­er real­ly got to say good­bye to her. We knew she was­n’t going to be around long. She had been in a nurs­ing home tem­porar­i­ly for being ill, then went in for a surgery, (all the while she was still pret­ty lucid, but she would for­get mun­dane things or what you just talked about). But she nev­er recov­ered from that surgery. After that surgery, she did­n’t know any­one, could bare­ly talk, and she passed away three-days later.

I nev­er got to see her in those three-days. We had planned a fam­i­ly-trip to Ten­nessee and had spend quite a lot of mon­ey reserv­ing a cab­in, so I missed the funer­al in Duluth as well.

So I did­n’t real­ly did­n’t get clo­sure, I nev­er got to real­ly mourn her ful­ly. When I awoke from this dream, I final­ly felt at peace with her pass­ing. Like she was let­ting me say good­bye. I think with all the stuff that I have been deal­ing with late­ly, and the tired­ness and stress of it all, left me more recep­tive to this visit.

They say that when you dream mag­i­cal things hap­pen (like, peo­ple find­ing answers to prob­lems they have been ago­niz­ing over) and I believe its true.