2008-03-04 - 4:06 p.m. - there is always something there to remind me...
Although most of the details have already faded, this morning, I woke up to another dream of Ray, my best friend who passed away almost 7 years ago. It's weird, because although I don't remember the particulars, the feelings that remember from it seemed so real. I don't really know how to describe it other than having the very real feeling that he was actually there with me and we were just having this normal conversation, as if we were simply picking up where we left off and this silly death thing never happened.
I've had dreams like this before, almost too many to count. What seems to be missing, or at the very least, what seems to be less prominent however, is the painful feeling of the realization that the dream is not real and my best friend is gone just like he has been all this time and he's not coming back, at least not in the way it was before he died. I think that is always the weirdest moment of those dreams, when the lucidity comes in and the realization that although he seems very real in the moment of the dream, like he was never gone the question of where has he been all this time and the confusion that comes along with it just shatters the dream and brings me back into my waking state.
Instead of reeling from the "more bitter than sweet" pain that I used to feel whenever I get these dreams however, I felt somehow gifted, even blessed, similar to the feeling you would get when a true friend has come by to cheer you up at just the moment you need it. Well, I guess it is only natural, he was after all my best friend and his presence, even if it was just a dream just seems to have made me feel better.
Although I am starting to get over the pain of his death, I am glad that somehow, even after almost 7 years since he passed away, that I have not completely forgotten how to appreciate the friendship we once had and in many ways still feel that I have with him. I'm glad that these dreams feel much less haunting than they have felt in the past. I also appreciate how those dreams provide a way to somehow remind me of how good a friendship can be, even after a silly thing like death because I know that I can get easily wrapped up and even overwhelmed by the infinitude of mundane things of life. It's good to know something better is there, I know because I've experienced it.
I also know that even with something as grave and as final as death, although it might be obscured, something that good can never be completely destroyed. I can only hope that when I stop breathing and I'm six feet into the ground or some pile of ashes in a nondescript urn that I can leave people with the same impression that Ray left me and give people some semblance of happiness both when I'm alive and long after I'm gone...