Two grief events occurred recently A friend from my late 20’s died. She called me a few weeks before to say goodbye. So many memories! Sadness, yes, but that kind of Autumn sadness. The other was a conversation that triggered a tsunami of raw grief from a death 35 years ago. It caught me completely off guard—a real amygdala hijack.
I have thought a lot about the two reactions. I am no stranger to Death’s aftermath. What was different about these two deaths?
My friend died in the fullness of time; surrounded by family; no loose ends. She made a lot of good trouble in her life. She made some in mine, bless her forever!
The death from 35 years ago was the death of a precious dream. I had worked and worked to actualize it to no avail. That work was real and occurred in real time and space. In contrast, the dream had its existence in a different realm—outside of three-dimensional time and space. This realm—call it the imaginal—is not powered by flesh and blood and oxygen. I sometimes wonder if it is fueled directly by the energy of the Big Bang. Pure unadulterated creative juice. Because it is outside of three-dimensional-space-time it cannot fade with time or resolve over time. It still calls; it still shines. Could it be that so-called closure is impossible because in that realm there is no death?
What to do then? How to cope with the very real (not imaginary) pain?
I decided to sit for some moments each day with the dream in all its glory. Feel the pathos. Breathe into the suffering. Gradually I came to appreciate more about this realm—what powers it; its geography; how it is peopled by all sorts of dreams—the ones that came to be and the ones that didn’t. Like a symphony with major and minor notes.
We are designed to dream. Some of us are lucky enough to be encouraged to dream.
The real challenge is to dream again; to choose again to visit the imaginal realm; to accept the risk.
