A DREAM

The day after Lula died, someone told me a dream.  I keep it with me like the locket around my neck. Like my L and R tattoos, I revisit it constantly, retracing it with my thoughts.

Lula had several therapists who came to work with her at our house on a daily basis.  One of them I liked especially, a feeding therapist, but she had to leave because she was pregnant and a therapists'  job can be quite physical.  The day after Lula died she showed up at my door and I looked at her face - she has a beautiful, open face - and I knew she had lost her baby.  She looked pained, almost startled. She told me she wasn't pregnant any more.  She came inside and told me her dream.

When she was pregnant she and her husband discussed names for the baby, as all expectant parents do, and they could never seem to quite agree.  At one point her husband said that she could name the baby whatever she wanted but insisted, "just don't call him Pablo!"  So, of course, she started to call the baby Pablo, and they affectionately referred to the baby as Pablo after that.

There were complications and she lost Pablo.  It was agony.  She was devastated and frightened and sad. And so angry.  A couple of weeks later she had a dream about Pablo.  He was standing in front of a tree branch in the sky among the clouds.  He was a 3 or 4 years old, a healthy little boy. He spoke and said "don't cry mommy, it's ok, I'm ok". To his left was a little girl about the same age in a white dress with a scalloped collar and bangs. He pointed to her and said "she's ok too, see she can eat". She was holding a slice of cantaloupe.  She smiled as she ate it.

It was Lula.   She had never safely been able to eat very much by mouth in real life, but she loved gnawing on pieces of cantaloupe, which the therapist often gave to her. In the dream Lula was a happy little girl and Pablo was happy too and they were keeping each other company.

She had this dream two weeks before Lula died.  She hadn't worked with Lula in months. At the time the dream confused her but made her feel a little bit better.

When she told me this dream it was a moment of utter clarity.  I knew that Lula's life was meant to be exactly what it was for exactly as long as it was.  I knew that she was no longer in pain, no longer frightened or suffering. I knew we had done the right thing in letting her go.

I don't really believe in religion or reincarnation or spirits or ghosts.  But I believe in, I guess "energy" for lack of a better word, and I believe that we pass it like a torch to one another.  I believe that we all take care of each other even after we are gone from this earth.