Dreams

I've had a lot of feelings this last few days. I usually believe it makes it easier for me to write when this happens. This hasn't been the case. In truth all my feelings I could have shared, albeit I thought they were too personal. Or rather too much risk involved. But I think taking bigger steps towards risks is essential to me growing as a human being. So, I'm going to challenge myself and I hope anyone reading this can understand the risk and how hard this really is.

In the early morning hours of today my chocolate lab Amber died. I have never had a pet die in my lifetime. The sheer suprise of losing her took my breath away the moment I heard it. For the first few moments I wasn't even sad in the true sense of the word. I was more than anything in disbelief. My concious brain, my memories, and everything that remembered Amber only knew her as alive. I could only remember the deep warm glow of her eyes. Her timidness of everything loud and unknown. The way she couldn't stop smiling and shaking her entire body when she realized she had your approval. These things will forever remain smile makers. The sadness took over several minutes later when a realization sets in. You realize you cannot ever access these things again. And that like a doorway into certain sentiments and feelings the lock has been put on forever. And then you understand that you love them like a person. You see their amazing impact on you and the equality of life, human or animal.

There really can't be enough said the fragility of all things in life. I'm sure Amber in her own way of thinking as an animal has no idea that today was her last day here. And surely neither did anyone in my family. But when the moment came I was asleep in bed. There was nothing romantic or cinematic about they way she passed away. And unlike the

popular concept of a sad soundtrack playing to the tune of departure the passing was instead quiet and unfamiliar as doctors attempted to save her but couldn't.

All this just made me think of the passing of humans. And I say passing because I know they leave the physical form we know but I don't know where they go. The act of accepting death is a timeless task. You cannot ask anyone to surrender their memories of anyone when they die. Nor can you ask them to relinquish the dreams and desires they had for the future. Yet broken promises and painful nostalgia are not all those who live on are left with. Most assuredly, there is a piece of the passed inside those they impacted.

I can only imagine what my father's own reality of his deceased brother, father, and mother. Three different people to him with all their own set of bitter memories, passions, and sweet nostalgic time spent. What are his dreams like and how do they all live in him today?

And so I have also made another decision. I don't want surrender anything in love, passion, and friendship anymore. Time will not stop moving. How can you pace something if you don't know the distance? It is simply best to follow the heart in all directions it pulls I'm beginning to believe. I'm aware of the possible pain but pain makes a human. I don't mind hurting if it means seeing things to the end. Most of all I want to live on the edge because when I fall off I'll know what awaits.

I recently had a conversation with someone who lost their father a few years ago. And she said to me the most compelling words I have heard in a long time. When I asked her the hardest part about not having him around she said that her dreams of him hurt the most. She still doesn't have any idea of the emotion she stirred in my heart when she said that or the understanding I truely had. The truth in her words was so inspiring because I began to realize something else at that very moment. That dreams are a gift. That although she found it hard to dream about him I think more than anything she didn't want the dream to end.

Of course I also realized she just wanted him back. Or that the dream wasn't as tangible as she wanted. But I do see that dreams are real. That not only do our loved ones live in memories but they may come back at any time we are reminded of them. Perhaps not in a form we may want but still a form. The power of a dream to change our actions in the moment, the now, speaks to its reality. Her father and my dog still are alive just in a different way. A dream is all the proof I need.

So this is the raw copy ...im going to edit and fully turn in to something sharper. coming soon.