What Dreams May Come

For a little over a year now, my dreams have been haunted by a little boy with dusty black hair and sallow eyes of royal blue with a little band of yellowish brown bursting outward from the pupil. He’s short, or seems to be for someone with his cognitive behavior. He follows me around, and he does what I do. He seems to really like music and games. His eyes light up when I get the baseball and gloves out. He smiles, but not a lot. Most of the time he looks mad, but I don’t think that’s his disposition, I think it’s just his face. He’s a beautiful boy. He looks a little like Opal, a lot like me, and a little like his mama, but he doesn’t have a name. He never had a name.

There is no doubt to me that this boy in my dreams is the son we lost to miscarriage. A baby who we didn’t even know was a boy or a girl because we lost them too soon. These dreams, they’re mundane everyday things. There’s never any significant event, just a day in the life, except for the boy who isn’t here with us today. It’s family time, meals, chores, playing outside or at the park, or grocery shopping. It’s both of our girls and the little boy, and they love each other. We love each other. Those are always sad dreams and I tend to wake up with a lump in my throat. I don’t talk to Ashley about them. I don’t know if she even knows about them unless she reads this, and in that case babe, I’m sorry I made you cry.

Vivid dreams for me are commonplace. I often get my best ideas and stories from my dreams, so I recall a lot of details and write them down as often as I can. The other day, Opal was telling me about a dream she’d had and she mentioned a little boy. When asked, she described our boy. I asked if she knew him, but she said no. She thought it might have been the boy who lives down the street. Apparently he was staying at our house though and we had tacos, and then they played a jump rope game. Then, she changed the subject and I bet she doesn’t even remember talking about it. But it was significant to me. To me it means that he’s real. That he, the boy in our dreams, is a real person. He’s not someone that we can hug and kiss today, but he’s watching over us and one day I will get to hold my son and run my fingers through his dusty black hair, and kiss his sweet face.

We all grieve in different ways. I’m especially bad at it. I don’t give myself time or space to feel. I needed to with this, and I thought writing about it would help, which I did in October 2021. However, I don’t think I gave myself enough time or space to feel this pain, and that’s why my dreams are haunted. Of course there’s no way to know what’s really going on, and the dream Opal had was most likely a coincidence. I always heard, “the Lord works in mysterious ways,” and maybe this is how He chose to help me heal.

Be blessed. Thanks for reading.