Rain and Sun

I'll try a little post here, but it isn't easy. Last week I fell asleep, and it happened. 

There I was talking to my mother, and she was laughing, how the doctors were saying there was nothing they could do for her, how she would die in just a few hours. And the doctors were standing next to her shaking their heads in disbelief, that she was still standing there in that simple but nice white blouse. Out of pure happiness I grabbed her and hugged her for a long time as we kept on talking. And she kept saying "I'm still here, I've never gone away." And her white blouse surrounded us and became a wonderful cloud, but then something happened, and I saw yellow - the yellow of the wall of my bedroom, and I thought, "well, now I am dreaming, because I am in bed somewhere. But after a few moments of reflection, I realized that white must have been the dream, and yellow was reality - I guess. 

I still think often about that experience that many might call a dream, for there was a crispness and three-dimensionality to that conversation with my mother that separates it from all other dreams, and I experienced her nearness in such a unique way, that seeing the yellow of my bedroom wall made me think that dream and reality were mixed up. 

I have decided it was not a dream, but the grace of God, that he gave me the comfort of knowing that she - as the rest of our family also - is still here with us. 

To close, I have a CD recommendation. Maurice Durufle's Requiem, Opus 9, performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under Robert Shaw. Telarc CD-80135. 

Now that I know the grief of loss freshly, I listen to this mass of loss and realize the subtelty of grief, how it captures you when you think it might abate, how you stand there mourning as your loved one ascends into glory in the first movement of the Requiem. Then following movements accompany the anger and grief with the noble restraint so typical of anything French. It rains and the sun shines often in this mass, as you realize life as we know it now can leave us mourning and baffled as we search for comfort. 

And comfort is there, as my previous post mentions...