I See You All the Time, But It's Only In My Head

I’m not sure if it’s a denial mechanism to protect my heart from the ongoing pain of missing Connor, but I oftentimes will see him while doing things.  In reality, I guess I’m just imagining him.  For instance, while hiking in North Carolina early one morning, the sun was shining perfectly through the trees casting a beautiful hue.  It was like I could see him hiking with me. I imagined watching him looking up at the trees, being skittish at movement in the woods and wanting to talk about what was on his mind.  Maybe it was being in the woods. Maybe it was the God-like light shining through.  Maybe it was my imagination.  But, I felt him and I didn’t want to let it go.

I see him in his brother too, especially the older his brother gets.   Facial expressions, general gestures and even the way he eats.  I was checking out at the grocery store the other day and he needed to grab one more thing.  Over the register, I could see the top of his head running back to me and the way his hair looked on his forehead and how it flopped gave me chills. I swore it was Connor.  Of course, I never say anything because I don’t want to make him uncomfortable.  But I’m afraid it’s an unknown burden he will always carry.

I’ve read of people who long for dreams of their loved ones.  I’ve been blessed (at least so far) to have regular dreams about Connor.  Some are short.  Some leave me confused.  Some I can remember more details than others.  But, in all of them, I find myself elated that he’s alive!  In every dream, I feel this need to tell him that he’d already died once and that he needs to be careful so it doesn’t happen again.  I even went as far in one dream walking through all the logistics we had to do to get his social security number re-instated.   Sometimes I wake up feeling good, especially if I received one of his amazing hugs or if he seemed happy.  Sometimes I wake up uneasy because I couldn’t get to him or unsure why he didn’t seem happy.  However, every time I wake up grateful for the dream, but sad that it wasn’t real.  ∞