The Shelving of A Book

Driving home today from my uncle's funeral, several things crossed my mind. The most stand out thought was the book on that side of the family is finished. Each chapter one by one came to a conclusion as we lost each and every family member over the past years. The people and stories which spun the web of fibers around my life have one by one left this world. It was a moment I knew regretfully would one day come, yet I never really pictured this day in my mind. How do you visualize a day like today when it is unimaginable to comprehend the fact that the family on my dad's side have all left, and you are still here? It is unsettling.

For the people who are close to me, they know I avoid funerals at all cost. I don't handle them well, I am a blubbering mess. I don't even have to have known the person well, for me to have a hard time with the funeral. It is something that I can't control and can not help. When it is family.....well, it is the most difficult thing to try and handle and control oneself that I know of. Today was different. Today was like none other. Since I can not vocalize the why of that, I am going to record it here.

My uncle passed away Thursday at 3:18pm. I know he was ready, and I know he had suffered many years without my aunt. My heart was heavy and I have carried a huge weight in my heart through the years over something he had shared with me about the moments before my aunt's passing. These are things I have a hard time letting go of. These types of things stay with me and don't seem to leave and I carry them with me.

Thursday night I had a dream. I have only had one other dream like it in my life and it was when I was eleven years old. It was real. As real as the breath I take and it is hard to explain just how different this was from what you would call a normal dream. The place in this dream was like none other I have ever seen. It was a normal scene that you might imagine seeing in the back roads of rural America, but yet I think you could search forever and never find a place like it.

There was no beginning or end of this dream.....more like a screen shot with darkened edges, as if looking through a lenses of a camera from on top of a hill. It was like I was there, but removed from it at the same time.  It could have lasted a spit second, or a few minutes, I don't know. 

The scene was of a golden field which was all you could see across the horizon up to the sky. Everything had a light yellowish tint and the breeze was blowing the tassels of the crops in this forever field. In the distance was a tractor. It was so far away that it was just a speck in the field. 

There also was a split rail fence closest to me. It was as if my eyes scanned the scene and at that fence was where my eyes rested. I saw my Aunt and Uncle standing together with their backs to me. Their arms around each other gazing out unto the field. For an instant, and only an instant I felt that breeze, which was unlike anything I can describe. It was unlike any breeze I have ever felt before. At that moment, a peace washed over me and just that quick, it was over. When I woke up the next morning, I remembered every detail about it and the great sorrow was replaced with knowing my aunt and uncle are together again on the other side. It was a feeling that all was right and as it was supposed to me.  It was a gift. One I will treasure all the rest of my days.

Today, even if I could not share with anyone what had happened, I carried the knowledge in my heart that all was right again and as it should be for my family members. I was able to hold on to that dream and knew without a shadow of a doubt my uncle was far removed from the shell that lay in the casket. He was with the love of his life and had started the forever journey they were destined for all the days of their lives. I was sad for my loss, but was able to cope far better than I could have imagined.

As we drove home and I looked out the window at the landscape that was a big part of my childhood memories, I saw. I visually saw the binders of the book which formed the story of my life snap shut. It was finished. And as the dust settled from the warn pages I knew it was shelved in the walls of my heart, never to be read again.



Footnote:
(1) The photo was found online, it represents the field in my dreams, but is in no way as magnificent as what I saw. Everything I experienced was much grander.
(2) I am sure some will read this and think I am nuts. I am sure some family will read it and say to themselves I have lost it. But the fact is, that is farthest from the truth. I was given a gift. That, I believe. And I am thankful I am receptive enough to allow such gifts to happen in my life.
(3) Sometimes you have to believe in something that goes against all logic.
(4) I wanted to record this in a place where if I need to, I can reread what I felt and experienced. Maybe these words will mean something to someone one day other than myself.