Ups and Downs of Grief

I dreamed Gage was alive last night. Over the eight years since his sudden passing, this doesn’t happen very often anymore. Each time it does, there’s a point in the dream where I know it’s wrong and the old ache rises tight in my chest again, making it hard to breathe. 

As with every other one of those dreams, I woke this morning with that ache’s heaviness still here hours later. There’s a tightness in my chest that I can’t rub away. My shoulders hunch and my arms are heavy. Skin pinches around my eyes and mouth. The old weariness pulls out my energy.

It doesn’t matter how many years have passed or what I’ve done since his death, my loss is always with me and can take a physical toll when I’m caught off guard. I know it’ll likely be heavy on my heart for the next few days. When I dream of him like this, my grief has a chance to rise right in front of me again, like an attacker out of the shadows that brings all the darkness I’ve gathered from my loss. Reminding me that he’s gone, my past is gone, and that it all hurt so much.

In my dream, Gage was helping with some project around the house, as he would have done when he was alive. Thoughtful and efficient, he was talking through options while I was speechless. I’m usually speechless in these dreams. Maybe it’s because even in them, I know he’s dead, but my dream Gage doesn’t know. He kept on walking around the house he’s never lived in as if nothing had changed and the night in the hospital where I let him go didn’t happen.

My dream Gage didn’t know that I’ve been living a whole different life without him all this time. He didn’t know what I’ve done on my own to get the kids and me to where we are now. He didn’t know that his part in our lives now is only in memories and wishes. And in anger, sadness, and disappointment. But also in gratitude and hope. 

Grief doesn’t follow a process flow that people expect. The stairway we take while living with loss goes both ways. It’s completely acceptable that all the ups and downs in my heart and mind over the years can bring me way down whenever the trigger is pulled, like after a dream of my dead husband who doesn’t know he’s dead. I’ve come to accept this truth. So in a few days when I feel that I can, I’ll walk back up again and see where I go from there.