Musings & Meditations

Spent a quiet weekend remembering Jenny and Gus, remembering all of the good times, and appreciating how far I’ve come since their deaths. It was our first really gorgeous spring day yesterday, and spent a wonderful day out enjoying the sunshine. I went to the farmers’ market, and picked up a few things. Then I headed to the nursery to pick up a few plants for the garden.

It was such a wonderful day to dig in the dirt, to turn the soil, and plant seedlings. There’s so much more work to do in the yard, but it seems less insurmountable than it has these last few years.

Having had such a peaceful weekend, and such a lovely day, I was surprised by the dream I had last night.

I was in Norrie’s house. Jenny had disappeared again, as she used to do so often in her 20s. Not run away or anything like that. She’d be busily involved in whatever caught her fancy, and not call, get her phone cut off, and perhaps move to a new apartment, and then suddenly we wouldn’t know where she was. That’s when my mom would call and ask me to “find” Jenny. And off I’d go to her favorite haunts, asking her friends to tell her to call her mother.

In this dream, it was much the same situation, but for some reason I’d gone to Norrie’s and we were going to look for Jenny together. Norrie’s house was flooding — which it has just recently, with all the precipitation in North Dakota. I don’t know if it was a reflection of current events, or a symbol of some kind. The image of being overcome with water is so full of meaning on its own.

We took some pipes to a house down the street, and it was there we found Jenny. Suddenly, my perspective changed. I went from standing and walking to a reclining position, as though I were lying in a hospital bed with my head and shoulders slightly raised. And Jenny turned to look at me and stared at me intently with a look of grave concern on her face. I remember that look from when she’d come to see me in the hospital after being rushed to the emergency room — fear, love, concern, all rolled into one.

She came close, talking to me, saying words I don’t entirely remember until she said, quite clearly, “Are you broken-hearted?”

I felt the emotion swell up inside me, and I awoke with tears in my eyes. I didn’t feel sad at all, but suprised, and comforted by her presence.