I dreamed of Tiff again.

A wonderful dream where we were all sitting around chatting.
Again, the physical surroundings unfamiliar but so normal.
Nana was going through our Christmas cards and Tiff was blooming - her hair wavy and with its pre-chemo fullness. Smudges underneath her eyes but she looked well and the inference was, although unspoken, that she'd beaten the cancer.

She seemed very self assured and exhibited a wisdom that put me in my place, albeit telepathically! There appeared to be a continuity; as if we'd never been apart and we were not sad as I would have expected to be!

I had such a feeling of peace which I know from experience won't last long. But in those few hours after dawn I feel that all is well and try to recapture the fragments ..."

As I wrote in my diary and pondered on the seamless quality of the dream, it posed the question. Are we ever truly separated from our loved ones after death? Is it as simple or as complex as we make it. Do we visit them in our dreams?

I write this as an exploration of my own crises of faith that occur only too often during these early months after our daughter's death.
Prior to this I had no cause to question my belief of an "afterlife". This belief had never been challenged. What form and substance this afterlife entailed was always rather woolly, but intellectually, and emotionally, my faith had rested comfortably within the parameters prescribed by the teachings of Judaic-Christianity plus some other fairly liberal interpretations of alternative religions.

These crises of faith are like the sound of bat wings flapping in the dark ... what if she doesn't exist in this other place and what if I don't ever see her again? The notion of a void ... a nothingness ... is explored and despite the bats, dismissed.
How could matter/the soul cease to exist. Logic dictates that there must be a repository for all that energy. In the early days I would search and sift through books in the vain hope of finding some answers - [there aren't any!].
I have also listened and heard the stories told and retold by the vast numbers of bereaved within our society...

to be continued soon.
Helen Hickford (c)