Dreaming...

Today would be Derek’s 13^th birthday. And today also happens to be 999 days we have somehow survived without him. So what does my grief journey look like nearly three years in? I can attest to the fact that you don’t move past grief; you move through it. Time doesn’t heal wounds. Time makes the distance greater with no new memories of Derek made. We have no choice but to go on without

him, our lives lived in his absence. Time is forever divided in two – before Derek died and after. Time makes the “before” fade painfully into the distance. It feels a little like a nightmare where, on a long road trip, you accidentally leave your child at the rest area at which you last stopped. Imagine your terror at the discovery he is missing and your horror as you realize you have no way to return to retrieve him because there is no way to turn around. Imagine your panic as you realize that he wouldn’t be there even if you could return.  You can only keep moving forward, always driving farther away, always missing him with aching heart and arms, always trying to keep the memories alive, always wondering what life would be like now if he were here, only dreaming of him.

I don’t remember most of my dreams, and that’s probably a good thing. But a handful of times since Derek died, I have awakened from a dream about him. Some dreams are beautiful, and others are painful.

A few weeks ago, I awoke after my most recent dream of Derek. In my dream, Vince, Kristen, and I were walking into a hospital to see Derek. It didn’t look quite like any hospital we had been in, but as we walked down the hallway, I was looking for familiar faces though I didn’t see any. As we entered Derek’s room, we saw him lying on his bed propped up on one elbow. He was trying unsuccessfully not to throw up because there was no bucket and no one had been there to help him. He was crying with discomfort and frustration. He looked miserable. Brokenheartedly I ran to him and gave him something he could vomit into and tried to comfort him. And then I woke up.

It immediately brought me back to the life we used to live. When we were in it, it became normal – our new normal. The fact that living this way became normal was both horrible and necessary. It was necessary for psychological and emotional survival through long-term trauma, but it was horrible because somehow we all know that life isn’t supposed to be that way. Even though life was consumed with cancer, pokes and medicine, nausea and malaise, hospitals and clinics, we would rather have that life than none at all.

My recent dream brought back the stark reality that though we wished Derek’s life could be different, it wasn’t. In the last months of his life, Derek truly suffered more than anyone I have personally witnessed. He reached his absolute limit. As much as I wish it weren’t so and as painful as it is to say, it was better for him to rest than continue his suffering. This statement may seem blatantly obvious to one looking on from the outside, but we couldn’t imagine leaving him at the rest stop and driving on. As long as there was breath, there was hope, and that is what we clung to until his last breath. In that moment, we exchanged his pain for ours as we pulled out of the rest area without him.

Our experience with Derek’s cancer is representative of life on this planet. We’ve gotten used to it. We adapt to the proliferation of suffering and pain around us partly for psychological survival and mostly because it is out of our control. It is easy to keep living the way things are, but we intrinsically feel that this isn’t the way life is supposed to be. As a society, we try to imagine the ideal world where every disease has a cure, the poor have all they want, the rich and powerful are altruistic, wars permanently end in peace, and the climate is stable and pleasant.  It’s a lovely dream. 

As a believer in God, I believe that world is exactly what we were meant to experience. The reasons it is not that way are a different topic, but I believe that Jesus came to this earth to make a way for that perfect dream to be our reality. He exchanged our pain for his¹, and he came to end the nightmare by providing a way to return to the rest area and retrieve those who were left there.

I had my first dream of Derek several months after he died. In my dream, I was sitting on the edge of a field watching him play. He ran up to me, and I opened my arms for him to sit on my lap like he used to do. He sat looking into my eyes, knees bent under him with his arms around my neck, hands fingering my hair just as he used to. I wrapped my arms around him and said, “I love you, Derek.” He said, “I love you, too, Mommy.” I said, “I love you lots!” and he said, “I love you lots and lots!” We gave each other a quick squeeze, and he hopped off my lap and ran to play. Then I awoke. It was a painfully beautiful reminder of the love we shared, but it also gave me hope of what is still to come: Derek, healthy and vibrant, and I, with no more aching arms or heart. God promised to make all things new and perfect² and said no one can even imagine the amazing things he is planning³. Nightmares forever ended, the perfect dream will be reality.

1         Isaiah 53

2         Revelation 21:1-4

3         1 Corinthians 2:9