Letters From the Dead and Other Dreams
January 26, 2012 by Jaci Dawn
I am going to do a little cut-and-paste project tonight. I have to because I simply can’t remember all of the words. And this is important to me: to remember the words.
It started with a dream I had which I posted on a homeschool forum that I have been a member of since, um, 1997. I think 1997: I joined when I first started homeschooling my kids who are now grown and moved away. The women on the list are old friends and some I know in real life (IRL). Kris is one I know IRL.
I have a photo of us somewhere in my vast collection of digital photos, but I have no idea where.
I posted my dream, Kris posted an interpretation of that dream that brought tears to my eyes (I think she was very close to right), and then Kris had a dream. The following are excerpts from those exchanges:
ME – “My dream is really bugging me.Most of it was the usual dream stuff: rooms and loud noises and things you can’t control. But the interesting part was when we went into the living room of the house. It was dark: dark wood, like all the houses I lived in as a kid. Curtains could all be open but it still seemed dark. There was a flagstone hearth in one corner but no fireplace. The house was a MESS: visibly dirty carpets, litter, things not put away. Not really as messy as dad’s old house is now in real life (with my nephew the pig at the helm), but certainly not presentable. I felt overwhelmed and wondered WHERE to start??? I decided to go with picking up, then vacuuming afterward. I zeroed in on the flagstone corner and went there to pick up newspapers &… Christmas ornaments? Silver, gold & blue glass balls with red curling ribbon, neatly arranged on the hearth by my mother’s hand. i thought how sweet: my dad never put the Christmas stuff away after Mom died (in reality, he got rid of it all or gave it to the mice in the garage). As I started to pick up the ornaments, I noticed there were several creations made out of heavy duty aluminum foil. I called my brother over to show him: Dad made little aluminum foil replicas of our baby shoes (Terry’s, mine, Deni’s), but he converted them into silver sailing ships with long “sails” of aluminum foil. There was also a pair of either my mom’s shoes or my dad’s shoes (the dream gets fuzzy, but I think it was Mom’s). I wanted to preserve these perfect little replicas but you know how fragile aluminum foil is? We had to figure out a ways to store them so the foil wouldn’t dent or the shoes lose shape.
I cut the “sails” away, deciding to preserve the foil shoes only. Then we boxed them individually in shoe boxes: one foil shoe per box. And stacked the weightless boxes in a corner in an attic, labeled. We couldn’t even put tissue paper in the boxes for fear the shoe-boats would crumple. And we were going to pull them out again next Christmas.
There was much more to the dream, but that part was so vivid. My mom felt much the same about Christmas as I do, so no surprise on the Christmas theme. But my dad creating little aluminum foil shoe-boats? My mom was the creative one. My dad sometimes rolled his eyes at her creations…”
KRIS: “A couple of things occurred to me, ornaments are fragile, especially the foil ones you found. The ornament represent people, loved ones, and people are fragile. Ornaments also represent memories, Christmas is a ritual that unites family.
Your dad was a keeper of memories but your mom was an active memory maker. She made the most fragile ornaments, also the ones with the most meaning. They are extremely personal and individual. They make those people part of every Christmas and the care you took with them is what you give to the memories of those people.
The fact that your dad never put them away seems to say that although he valued them he wasn’t sure how to handle them. My dad, being from the same generation of men, was sentimental but uncomfortable being so. The sails, to me, represent mobility. I think with your father’s passing it could feel that those bonds are slipping/sailing away. Taking the sails off means they can’t take off. You needed to remove the sails and take possession of the ornaments/memories and keep them safe.
You know, already, that these cannot be taken from you but some part of you needs reassurance, needs to make sure they are safe and preserved. You’re coming to terms with physical death but also that memories and love are more concrete than items.
That was the picture I got when I read your dream.”
And KRIS (again):
“My dream…was about Jaci! Last night I was thinking how cool Jaci’s dream was, so detailed and full of forward motion. I guess I have dream envy, lol.
Anyway, then I was sitting in my living room (not my actual living room but a different one that, in the dream, was mine). Jaci came in and said that she had been told that I had a letter from her father that he had sent. Even though I had no clue what she was talking about I felt guilty, then I realized that I DID have the letter and that it had been opened because I had spilled soda on it. I was afraid she would think I had opened it to read it but she didn’t really care why it was open, she just wanted to read it.
I handed it to her, it was stiff like paper that has been wet and then dried. It was on blue paper, was hand written and had a title like it was a short story or poem. The title was “Tears Of the Son”, interesting because I had just seen something on TV where the people were watching a movie called “Tears Of The Sun” but this was spelled S-O-N.
Jaci, read the letter then asked where the “signature page” was, I looked and there WAS another page with her dad’s signature on it. I gave her this and she read it as well. She then put her hand, still holding the letter, in her lap and began to weep. I stayed with her and held her hand. We sat there for some time and then went shopping at Big Lots and were talking excitedly about living frugally.
So, perhaps it is the curse of being the “dreamer”, I have only a couple of clues on what it means. Of course, it could be just a jumble of my thoughts over the past few days.”
Now, I don’t really have a clue why we were shopping at Big Lots and talking excitedly about living frugally, but what the heck. I’m just excited that my dad thought to write me a letter, even though he sent it to Kris (a woman he never had the privilege of meeting). And I can guess at the meaning of Kris’ dream and the letter my dad wrote me, but once again Kris jumps in with deep insight:
“The only part that seems clear to me is that the dream was from your dad. The title being significant, Tears Of The Son, seems to be an explanation of how his childhood and generation left him less able to express love and sentiment. He sees it clearly now and wants you to know. I didn’t read the letter, no idea what it said, obviously only you and your dad would be able to know what he would say to you.
Maybe because my dad had childhood trauma and came from the same generation, God was able to give me the dream to share with you. Who knows?
As for the shopping, I think it just expresses how you and I are both on a journey of taking on the power of what we allow into our lives. It’s about taking positive control, going out towards the world and expecting to find what we need.
Whatcha think?”
What I think is this: Kris & I need to meet for coffee & shopping in the near future. She lost her mom last year, so her grief is just as palpable as mine. That reads like chocolate and coffee and a shopping date at Big Lots.
Whatcha think??
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