Thought Picnic: They are never dead in dreams

We are touched at all times

In conveying my sympathises at the passing of a loved one, I strive for a form of words that hope to give comfort and succour in addressing irreparable loss. Part of the cycle of life is in the record of the birth, the living, and the death of people interweaving generations and leaving their marks in the lives of the persons they have impacted.

Impact on an individual basis is fundamentally significant from a miscarriage in the short existence of foetus to the passing of a matriarch or patriarch wizen with age as eras turn to epochs of history and genealogy. Grief is an expression that lives in our humanity.

When I condole in words to the effect that in the passing of someone, they have passed in the memories and recollections of experiences, fondness, and love, things we remember of them that are now forever crystallised in reminiscences, I believe there is some truth in that sentiment.

In dreams and memories

On my blog, I remember anniversaries and birthdays, I write tributes, maybe not so much eulogies. There are many things I do not understand, of what might be or not be of the afterlife, I do sometimes wonder if in my passing something of an eternal consciousness that could be a remnant of my lived existence can review the things said of me. I would not know if the people dear to me that I have lost can read of my fondness for them, even for those I failed to cherish enough until they were gone.

The Yoruba would eulogise the dead and rather than decline into the fortuitousness of the termination of life, we move on to another phase and of the dead, we look to meet in dreams or bump into them in places where our minds are given to the suggestion that a reincarnation has placed our loved one in another place.

Resurrecting utter discomfort

I sometimes wonder about what would have happened to the people of Jerusalem who experience the resurrection of the dead from their tombs when the earthquake struck at the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. It probably would not have been a comforting sight to suddenly see a known dead relative alive and interacting with you.

⁵¹ Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, ⁵² and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; ⁵³ and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. [Matthew 27:51-53]

It remains a mystery for which there might be a revelation in due course. I have dreams and many of them are vivid, the recesses of my mind folding the landscapes of times past into the tapestry of the present continuous.

Dream a little dream

I create a theatre of dramatis personae who have never met in life making conversation and interacting in my dreams. A subconscious part of me recognises these people are no more alive, but in my dreams, I can live the impossible and not be overwhelmed by the incredible.

Maybe, the things we do for the dead are not essentially for the dead but are part of the coping mechanisms of the living. We who remain need to manage the complexities of the presence and the absence of those who were integral to our life experiences. We may not have our transfiguration moments, but when Jesus brought Moses and Elijah into the sight of Peter, James, and John, you knew that the stuff of dreams is an exposition that is not bounded by the strictures of time, manner, or space. [Wikipedia – the Transfiguration of Jesus]

Our dearly departed and not really gone, they remain alive in the fond memories we have of them. That is also a celebration of their lives in us.