The following occurred around this time last year, just days after initial out-of-the ordinary physical manifestation that was thought to be cured with antibiotics. Yet, before Irene was admitted to the hospital for the first time. Before we knew what she was about to go through, before things got bad. Before sleepless nights with uncontrollable movement of her arm and legs. Before disorientation, before becoming incapable of simply being herself. Before her ability to speak had left. Before any diagnosis. Before we were to realize this was the beginning of the end.
Irene passed away just 6 weeks and two days after her May 3 dream.
On the morning of May 3, 2024, I walked into our bedroom while Irene was just waking up. She was in an uncontrollable giggling state of emotion and it was combined with sobbing tears. Something I have never seen from her or had experienced in our nearly 45 years of being together.
I rushed over to her and asked if everything was alright. Her response, “Oh sweetie, I just had the most glorious dream!” She could hardly get words out without more laughter, giddy excitement, and running tears. “I just had the most glorious dream,… it was so glorious!”
‘Glorious’ was not a word that I ever heard from Irene. She hadn’t used the word to describe anything that I could remember. But while laying in bed she reached out to me and kept repeating herself without breaking her emotional joy of laughter and tears. Her hug with me was so warm and heartfelt, and she held on to me tightly.
I asked Irene to tell me about her dream, she said it was so real. Irene was not one to remember her dreams, ever. But she went on to describe this:
I was in some kind of craft, I don’t know if it was a spacecraft of sorts, a plane, or what? It was almost like I was an astronaut, but I don’t know. Nothing inside this craft looked familiar or recognizable. I was simply in this thing just floating, I was weightless. Then a young man appeared from ‘somewhere.’ He seemed to come from beyond a large circular window located on the side of the craft. And I saw him. He was good looking, young in his 20’s, tanned and had no hair on his head. His name was Glenn.
Although I did not know him, he knew who I was, and we were both floating inside this craft structure. I don’t know if I was meant to meet him or if he was there to meet me. But it was a union of sorts like passing ships in the sea. Was I coming? Was I Going? Was Glenn coming or going? What I did know however was the direction in which I needed to travel. Through the window and beyond. Beyond to…?
I told Glenn that it was time for me to leave and pointed in the direction I had intended to ‘go.’ Glenn told me that I couldn’t go that direction, that it wasn’t time for me yet and that I was still needed.
And then I looked out the window and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I can’t even explain it, almost like an entire solar system, or even galaxy. I could see all the colors and they were so bright and vibrant, it was glorious. All I could grasp was this expanse I looked at. It was beyond enormous. It was a vastness that went on forever.
[Still in her giddy/tear-filled state, she went on]…
It was then, once I saw everything that I realized I am part of something much bigger than the world in which I live. That there had to be something bigger than myself to explain all this, there had to be. It was then I realized there was a ‘greater purpose‘ in life, in my life. And everything I had done during my lifetime was done for a very important purpose. I was part of a much larger purpose.
I realized that I matter, I MATTER!
As we hugged, Irene looked at me and with tears in her eyes and running down her cheeks she just kept repeating “I matter, I matter, I matter!” ‘Yes Irene,’ I replied, ‘you DO matter’, and don’t you worry, we’re going to make you all the way better, I promise!’ Her words: “Do you promise?” ‘I promise Snuggles, I promise.’
We embraced, and she went on to apologize for all the negative things that she said about me when she was recently on the phone with her sister. Irene sobbed and sobbed saying that she didn’t know what she was saying, and that she didn’t mean any of it. She kept repeating to me, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Our embrace was tight and meaningful to the soul. In the midst of her sobs, she told me that she loved me. She didn’t have to tell me, I could feel it.
Irene continued to cry and laugh in happiness and love in what turned out to be a clear and full realization for the love of life. A self-realization that in hindsight was a gift to her and to me. Irene had a most glorious dream that night and her emotionally moving reaction reassured me of my own place in life. She mattered, and she got ‘it’ right before me. She does matter, still.
There will come a day when I too will get ‘it’ right, and Irene will be there for me, waiting.
Petdad 