"Visitor In a Dream"

"Visitor in a Dream" - A true story

By Stacey L. Bolin

2/4/2013
Instrumental Musical Piece used to help me find the words to this story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9XeaGxHKgE&list=RDRKaeeU5kqzs

 

She had been experiencing many dreamless nights since her husband's best friend had passed away three months ago. She worried what this meant, because as far back as she could remember, all her life she had been touched by the dreams that she walked though in her sleep - both good ones and bad ones. Often times many of these vivid experiences would leave her with the inability to know the difference between being awake or living in a twilight world of images. On one particular night late in January of 2014, a visitor, in her dreams, and one she had anticipate would come to her over the past few months, finally arrived as she slept while she lay wrapped in the arms of her husband and the softness of their cotton sheets. She slowly walked around in the life inside her dream, listening to the sounds of seagulls above and enjoying the warmth from a sun that gave her the belief that she was in California. Images of people all walking by, all wearing smiles upon their faces gave the impression all was well - she felt safe.  He stood tall and walked up to her with his unique stride, unlike the last time she had seen him lying motionless on his bed in his home, in early July, as the effect of his disease continued to consume him until his dying day. Soon, he stood before her - she knew him and wanted so much to throw her arms around him and welcome him back.

He began to circle around her and moved gracefully - angelic. A voice, his voice, as strong and as clear as life had once given him so many years ago, spoke of a day that was important and where she would find it in a box of photos that had been sheltered from life's light. She knew of the day that he spoke of, but not a word did she speak. Soon a feeling of deep seeded sorrow began to grow inside her, as she knew that when he left, she would never see him again, as it would be the same as all the visitors that have passed on, and chose to come back to see her one last time - they knew she could help them connect with the ones they left behind. She looked upon him, wanting so much to touch him and bring him back to the life and the family that ached for his return. As his image slowly moved away, she found her words and promised him that she would find the picture and would get it to his wife.

Her eyes opened to the darkness of her bedroom - he was gone but the sorrow still lingered. She lay there quietly, not to disturb her husband as he slept peacefully. Tears rolled down her face to pool upon her pillow. The reality of death had been lost within her dream world where all lived on, healthy and free from the pain of disease and illness they had been battling. The alarm clock began to play its morning wake up tune as the coffee pot in the kitchen signaled, with several beeps, that a much needed morning jolt of caffeine was ready and waiting. She lay still in the bed as she watched her husband slowly rise and begin his morning routine. She wanted to tell him about his best friend coming to visit her in her dreams - but again couldn't find a voice without tears to be shed – she’d wait until later in the day.

She chose to set her sorrow aside and got up and helped her family prepare for their day at work and school, while silently reliving the dream. As she saw the last of her family off to begin their day, she stood in the sounds of silence of their home, still coping with the disbelief that their friend was no longer among them. The sorrow began to grow again as she knew that she needed to face her fears and find the moment in time that he spoke of.

Since the passing of their friend in November, she battled one emotion after another. She missed him tremendously as he had occasionally offered her guidance to understand the mind of a front line solider and how to connect with the man in her life and understand the continued battle of war that was still being fought within their minds. His words had been silenced until now and she knew that he would not have asked her to do something, if it wasn't for the best of reasons.

She feared the pictures that she would stumble upon - images of her children as they grew though the years, the smiles of her grandparents that had passed away some years ago, and the youthful look of her and her husband on their wedding day. 

Her hands shook as a deeper reality of her fears came forward forcing her to find an unknown strength to reach for the photo albums and photos boxes that had been tucked away because of her fears that she told nobody about. In a huge clear box that had been put away into the darkness of a closet, was her entire life on Kodak film that marked numerous life moments in a past that she missed and would live over and over again, if given the ability to go back in time.  Her heart cried out as she touched each picture and relieved each memory - she was finally facing her fears of saying goodbye to each day that has passed though the hands of time, the fear of getting older and seeing the difference in her hair color that was now turning gray, the fear of her parents passing away, the fear of never getting to hold her babies like she did when she brought them into the world, the fear of them moving away and not missing her,  the fear of her guilt for not telling a person how much she loved and appreciated them, before they passed away and fearing the death of her relationship knowing that one day, her and the love of her life  would be separated to pass through heaven's gate and the endless wonder if they would ever meet again?

"God please help me,” was all she could say as she continued through the photos one by one. Without warning immediately she found herself back on a warm California day in December of 1992. The picture she had been asked to find was now in her grasp. A moment captured in time and was what the visitor in her dream now looked like once again. She laughed and cried as the memories of that day flooded her mind, heart, and soul. She now understood why it was important for her to get this photo to his wife. She also knew why he asked her to find it. It wasn't just for him and his wife, it was also for her and her husband as well.

 

Knottsberry Farm - California 92

 

 ***

The four of us knew what this day meant, as the military was going to transfer my husband and I to a different duty station and his best friend and his wife would remain in California. We knew that there was a good chance we might never see one another again.  What we took from this day was something nobody could ever take from us both in life and in death - A bond of brothers in arms, friendships that would last forever, and that we had all found our love of a lifetime.

 

Finding this picture, helped me realize that he is watching over his family ,and ours, and that when our time comes - he'll be waiting to greet us at heavens gate, but for now, we must enjoy our time on this massive earth, don't fear the past, don't dwell in the past, learn from it and enjoy what you have done in your life and keep moving forward doing what you do to the best of your ability -  as you only get once chance to make it the best it can be.

"Gold Rings"



This is the mantel in our dining room that displays
over 50 Crystal Snowflakes from my collection.

Greetings One and All - I hope this post finds everyone Happy and Healthy this Holiday Season.

 

I'm sorry that I have not been available for my story writing, as some of you know I have an online store that keeps me very busy this time of year - and I love it. I have also been working on one story that has become very sentimental to me that needed the time to develop  vs. writing many stories for the entire month of November and December. It is a piece near and dear to my heart and is a true story.

 

I hope you join me for its debut on Christmas Eve 2013.  

"Gold Rings"

 

By: Stacey L. Bolin

"The Seabee" Written by: Stacey L. Bolin

“The Seabee”

Written By: Stacey L. Bolin

Veterans Day – Monday November 11, 2013

 

I lay motionless next to my sleeping husband, tears slowly traveling down my cheeks to pool onto my pillow, as the darkness of an evening sky slowly allowed the morning to creep through the window into our room. Outside the wind howled while it danced through the threat of rain and snow upon this solemn day that awaited all of us. In a few short hours another brother-in-arms would be placed into the earth as his soul goes home to be with our lord and savior. A day that we had all been warned about - feared - and prayed that the angels would make an exception and grant us a miracle that once again, this brother-in-arms, would be healed and be as he once was before stricken with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). I try to close my eyes and convince myself that I have only awoken into a dream that is not of any reality and that when I awake again, I would find myself home in our own bed and no illness has taken anyone from us.

 My husband rolls over and pulls me deep within the loving embrace of his arms. A temporary feeling of calm and contentment warms me while I rest my head on his chest listening intently to the sound of his heartbeat. I begin to think about a wife who no longer can do the same – again the tears fight to become present.  I tell myself, I must be strong, that tears must be kept aside, but the pain that my husband’s best friend – a mother’s son – a wife’s husband – a child’s father – a child’s grandfather, will no longer live in this present life and no longer be a phone call away. It gnaws away at my strength exposing my soul to the unanswered questions of what lie on the other side of life. To know that he will always be alive in our memories, pictures and stories provide me no comfort at that moment – I’m angry! – He’s too young! – He fought a war and came home to later have to fight a new war, twenty-two years later, against his health! I just don’t understand! My face remains expressionless, while my eyes tell a different story and reveal that I am overwhelmed with my emotions – but my husband knows and understands my struggle with grief and holds me tighter as he lets out a sigh of sorrow.

 

Outside the bedroom door, the house is still, no movement, no sounds. I wonder if this family is thinking as I have, that it is all a dream and that to sleep is to awaken to the sounds of our brother-in-arms, walking through the front door from a morning of hunting and free from illness. I listen while secretly hoping for those sounds of this man’s life to be upon us once again, but the house remains silent and still inside while outside the wind wraps itself tightly around it. Eventually the family finds their inner ability to rise and prepare themselves for the drive into town for a morning funeral service.

We follow the family in our own vehicle to allow them their privacy. The ride feels longer than ever before as the weather in the area, as we drove to Yale, Michigan, has the same wet, windy and raw, appearance as hunting seasons where I grew up in New Hampshire. I find myself breaking the silence by stating this resemblance that I have noticed and feel it was a way that the heavens were telling us that our bother-in-arms, no longer suffered from the illness that disabled him here on earth. A brief, yet tender smile finds a place on my husband’s face.

Our arrival to the funeral home is met with a friendly and professional staff member who is both kind and focused while guiding us to our parking location while arranging the car line to prepare the funeral procession. My husband parks the car where instructed and then sits for a moment to collect his thoughts. Without any words - I reach out to touch him – I’m there for him. He is suffering a tremendous loss and I feel helpless when I finally muster up the ability, through the knot in my throat, and ask is there anything I can do for him. In a whisper filled with deep sorrow he replies, “You can bring my best friend back.”

From the area that we chose to sit, during the service, you could see our brother-in-arms at rest and dressed in his military dress blue uniform.  The minister speaks from quotes from the bible, but I can’t hear the words through the noise of a thousand questions all screaming for an answer in my mind. My husband sits next to me as we hold hands. For years we have had our own way to talk to each other through various grips, and this time would be no different as we helped one another deal with the loss of our dear friend and its effect on the family and friends that remain behind. Special moments were added to the service with music chosen by the wife and her family. How beautiful it was, and I couldn’t help but wonder how difficult it must have been on all of them to go through old pictures and then find the right music. They certainly had more strength than I. As the service concluded, the congregation stepped into the adjoining lobby as the attendants and the minister prepared for the final journey. As I stood in the lobby, trying to console my husband and a favorite uncle of the family, a player grand piano, began playing a melody I knew all too well and was a symbolic piece, and an emotional trigger, to a time when I myself struggled with a Cancer illness and feared what would become of my family if a cure was not found.

 I’m listening to this right now, to help with the next several paragraph that for some reason my mind wants to lock away and not deal with the pain. For me, I have found that writing is the only way I can share my true feelings –especially when it comes to a deep feeling of sorrow. So hold on and listen with me as you read. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcdcwnBUowc&list=PL752FB5D5DEBCB651

I saw years of great times, hardships, losses of friends and family, births of my boys, life in the military, California, Port Hueneme, and the first time I met my husband’s best friend and his wife Shelly - my whole world. I couldn’t hold back the emotion that was rushing in like a small town in the path of an unexpected flood. I looked up at my husband as my eyes welled with tears and told him, I needed closure, I needed to say what I needed to say, before his friend was lay to rest and I needed to do this on my own and alone.  Quickly I excused myself through the crowed room to the back and entered through a set of open doors to find myself standing beside the open casket.

Our friend was gone, and I felt so guilty that a cure had not been found for him. I put my hand on his and found the ability to just speak out loud through the cracking of my voice and from my heart. The funeral tenant granted me a moment with him and stepped aside to move the lovely arrangement of flowers to the side of the casket as the minister watched on.  I’d  like to think they knew I had not taken this moment during the viewing the day before, but desperately needed this time to help me understand what was happening and chose to deal with the situation instead of trying to block pain and hurt like I had taught myself to do for many years. I began to just let my feelings out and speak.

“Fred, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do? I don’t know how to help these people though this, but I’ll keep my continued promise to you if you keep your promise to me. I will do all that I can to help your family and watch over them, if you could just find the strength up there to watch over Ron and help him fight the war of a memory of war in his mind and the pain of losing you. He is such a wonderful person and no matter what happened over there in the Gulf, and I may never know, the fears that you both faced together, the worries of not knowing if you’d come home, what I'm trying to say Fred - he still needs a guardian angel and that angel has always been you.” I’d like to think that somewhere deep down I heard an heavenly angelic voice that replied, “Thank you and I will always be there.”

I then leaded over him, and as I had done during that July morning when I had last seen him, before my family and I headed back to Maryland, I found the strength to give him a good-bye kiss on his forehead and said, “I love you Seabee, you are so going to be missed, rest in peace.”

I wiped the tears from my eyes and then turned slowly to walk back to find my husband standing with several other veterans who were asked to be pallbearer’s. There was something about my husband, that captured my attention, and help me focus and finally see completely what it was and still is, that has me so deeply in love with him. I saw it, a moment in time that I had not seen for many years. A moment of the first time I feel in love with him mixed with a special ingredient. If you had ever been in the military you would know what the special ingredient is, as the other veterans wore the same – Military Bearing. You could feel the sense of honor, duty, pride, respect, and determination - that no matter what lay outside those doors of the building that day, no matter the weather, no matter what dangers may linger, they would see that this fallen brother-in-arms would reach his final destination.

Only the pallbearers were asked to accompany the funeral director back into the room the same way that I had chosen to enter, while the entry doors to the parlor still remained closed. I stood there, looking at the numerous faces of grief, by friends and family members that wore shrouds of bravery, to ward off the sorrows temporarily, as they anticipated the flag draped casket that would soon appear as the doors opened. They stood in silence as they watched as the Veterans escorted their brother-in-arms through the lobby. The Veterans made no eye contact as they slowly and carefully made their way to the gloss black hearse that awaited them outside. Never once loosing focus, their military bearing was at full attention to uphold the honor and the duty that had been bestowed upon each of them by the grieving family.

As I stood by the doors, I watched my husband’s face try to fight the pain he was feeling as they closed the doors to the hearse. I wanted so much to go over and put my arms around him and tell him that everything would be OK, like he had done for me for so many years, but this time it wasn’t OK - His best friend and war buddy would not be there when he needed him or just needed to hear his voice.  I knew that the only thing I could give him at this moment was time. There was nothing I could say or do as the hardest part was still ahead of him.

We walked back to our truck and waited for our time to pull into the funeral procession that would follow the hearse to the cemetery. As we drove, I saw something I have never in my life seen before. Vehicles one-by-one pulled off to the side of the road. There were no cars in a hurry to get anywhere. Nobody cut through the line. These people, who may or may not have even known who lay inside the flag draped casket, still honored him, as they sat on the side of the road in their cars with their heads down. I don’t know if they did this because it was Veterans Day, or if life there is just different and it didn’t matter what day it was. There was just a sense of utmost respect that I had not seen like that - in person – ever.

We arrived at the cemetery where the family had already taken their seats beside the grave site. My husband, without delay, immediately found his place at the head of the casket. I stood beneath a rainbow colored umbrella that clearly was out of place against the traditional brown and black ones used by others. I watched as the Veteran’s lifted the casket and carried it against the wind and the rain. None of it seemed real as I told myself to make a mental note of what I was witnessing. My husband, in spite of his daily back pain, with no jacket, no rain coat, no protect from the elements, wasn’t feeling anything but sorrow and the determination to be sure he would help be the one to see his best friend laid to rest – anything else – didn’t matter.

It was a full military funeral, and I wouldn’t have expected anything less. As the Active Duty military personally took their positions at the casket, the command was given to stand and those who were military or retired military could render a hand salute while the soft somber tone of taps being played accompanied the wind. Every one of us Veterans stood at attention and provided our best hand salute. I don’t remember when the orders for the 21 gun salute was given, but I do know that it is a haunting feeling that I had only felt one other time when my step father George had passed away in 1991. Something about that sound makes things seem so final, and that all that is left are the memories and mementos that are left behind.

To watch the strength of this now widowed wife, and longtime friend of ours, accept the perfectly folded flag seemed more like a movie that my brain kept waiting for the film director to yell, “Cut…that’s a wrap.” I didn’t want to leave; I didn’t believe that any of this was happening and I just wanted some kind of sign to tell me that although our dear friend has passed, that he no longer suffers from the horrors of ALS. I believe that those who have passed on have ways of connecting to us, we just have to be opened minded rather than brush things off with the thinking it is merely a coincidence - it's not, it is so much more. I got my sign as I had hoped for as I sat with my husband at a banquet hall at their local golf course. The family decided to put together a gathering for friends and family to come together to enjoy a warm meal and talk about the life and times of their lost loved one.

I have five loves, my husband, my two boys, family, and snowflakes. As my husband and I sat at a table drinking coffee and speaking with the minister, something outside the picture window had caught my eye – snow – the cold and dreary rain had turned to a soft billowy snow that danced effortlessly upon the wind and feel softly on the autumn leaves that had not found their way onto the earths floor.

My question had been answered. Rest in Peace – Fred, Rest in Peace.

Fred and My Husband Ron - Feb 2010