The smile that I miss so much

I have had very limited dreams of David and most of them leave me feeling sad since it was generally based on David being ill or his untimely death. I also dreaded having dreams in which David was still alive and we were living our normal lives because I knew I would wake up to life without David and disappointed it is not a bad dream.

Recently, I had a dream that I was running, running because something was chasing me. I had a very clear lead and it was practically impossible to be caught but I had to keep running to maintain the pace because whatever I was running from was relentless. Just as I was about to stop running, David appeared. He was full of smiles and looked at me with great pride and said “don’t stop, keep going, I knew you could do it, see I told you you can do it, keep going, do not stop”, you are doing great”. Shortly after he disappeared and I continued running.

When I woke up and reflected on the dream, it made me feel happy. I felt happy especially because I saw David the way I want to remember him. In his usual form – full of energy and enthusiasm and the brightest smile. Also, I reflected on the dream as a message of encouragement from David because there are so many times that I have felt too sad or overwhelmed about the absence of David in our lives.

I remembered how I used to tell David he could not leave me alone with the girls and that we needed to raise the girls together. He knew this was one of my biggest concern and in hindsight I think i made him feel sad as he worried that I would fall apart. Given his happy disposition in the dream, I at least feel like he is content that somehow we are managing to function in the midst of our devastation.

David was always encouraging, adaptable to situations to find solutions. One of his common phrase when we faced challenging situations was “we press on”. So we will continue to press on regardless of how difficult it is. I am so grateful for this dream – for me it was the perfect dream, because it felt like I had an actual conversation with David.