Undead

Sorry to disappoint you, but this post is not about zombies.

I see Paul so much in my dreams, and in them he is undead. The conditions of his being there are always the same – we thought he was gone but he came back, only temporarily. So usually there is this urgency to do certain things, to celebrate, to put things in order, to tell him things, before he dies for real. Or, it’s just a chance to chat. The other night I was telling him about a scary thing that happened to a friend, when an intruder tried to get in her house. Last night, we were looking up bands that were playing in Seattle soon so we could ask one of them to play a private party at our house. Which happened to be on the beach. Somewhere warm.

I am fascinated with recurring dreams because I seem to have a lot of them. There are the obvious ones, like trying to find a bathroom stall and the next thing I know, the stall barely exists and I am on a toilet in public. Other people have that dream, right? But in my undead dreams, the situations vary depending (presumably) on how I lost that person. When I see and talk to my brother in a dream, it is an incredibly rare and tenuous chance to make contact with him, because he is a recluse and doesn’t want to be reached. Maybe this is because it was so inconceivable that he died when he did. With Paul it is always this brief but celebratory miracle, despite an in-dream awareness that I watched him take his last breath.

In these dreams with Paul, I am usually talking with him about something that is a real waking life issue.  There are details both bizarre and yet so reflective of the silly and fun parts of our day-to-day relationship. It’s an emotional tease – I feel boosted by the feeling of being with him but then I’m always palpably sad when I wake up to realize he is really, truly, gone.