Sunday, April 23, 2017 The Mask, Part 2

I had another short dream of Irene, she was in her blue overall shorts with a t-shirt and we were at the small house we lived in for many years and she was fixing something on the wall above the couch. She said something, I don’t remember what.  I didn’t even try to interact with her in the dream, just walked by into the bedroom.

A couple of hours later I lay back down to sleep and I had another prolonged envisioned interaction with Irene, before I went to sleep, that was very vivid. In my mind I could see her and feel her for prolonged periods of time, much better than before.  Towards the end when I fell asleep I was remembering things about us that I had forgotten.  The pictures help with this, but I remember she would curl up in my arms while we were sitting on the floor or on a couch and I remember her wearing a white short-overall with a pink shirt and also a pink and brown top. I specifically remember being with her while she was in that outfit.

This morning I was looking at that “glamour” shot of Irene and I and I was just so glad I had it, because she is just so beautiful in that picture. I love to look at it. I feel like looking at photos of her and watching videos (there are very few) and listening to her voice helps me to better establish and maintain her presence in my life. I found myself wishing I had more photos like that. There was a sadness I was starting to feel, of missing her.

I took my ski exerciser apart for Freya and started moving some furniture around.  When I swung one of the hallway double doors open I saw the glamour shot of the whole family up on a little corkboard hanging behind the door.  It was a different shot, one of all of us about 21 years ago. Good grief, we looked like a roving band of gypsy models.  What a picture!  I was very happy that I found another picture of Irene and after I scanned it in realized it was high quality and I’ll be able to blow it up really big and not lose quality.

While I’m moving furniture around, I kid around with Irene about the mask that disappeared, wondering why she took it,  saying it would be nice if I could find it.  A little while later I sat down and was flipping through some channels to find something Irene and I like to watch together, and I run across Long Island Medium, which is one of her favorite shows and we have watched it together many times.  The medium's daughter was doing Teresa's (the medium) makeup and at one point she says, “I can’t find the mascara” and for about 5 minutes they’re doing exactly what we had been doing with the mask and saying the same things, asking the same questions, only it’s “What did you do with the mascara” and “we just had the mascara” and “is it in your pockets?”  Instead of "mask", they were saying "mascara".

The next show they had a scene where Teresa was telling this woman about her husband and it affected her in what appears to be the same way Irene affects me when she is around and touches me. It looks like grief and sadness but it isn’t, so I was telling Irene, pointing at the TV and saying “See? You think she’s sad that her husband is still with her and said all those comforting thing through Teresa to prove to her he is around?  That isn’t sadness.  It's something indescribable - happiness, joy, relief, confirmation, reunion." It was a perfect example of that sensation when Irene touches me with that profound emotional content.

Teresa then went on to tell her that her husband said he was always going to be with her everywhere she goes and that he will be there to greet her when she passes, and then said that the soul bond of love couldn’t be broken. That was the first time I’d ever heard her say that. It was extremely validating.   Later, in another show, she told someone that the feeling of their loved one being around diminished because the pain heals, but they were still around.  This validates some things I was thinking about how it is really a lack of attention and interaction that begins to diminish the sense of presence, and that both sides may do it in order to “heal” and decrease the pain. The person on the other side might think they are causing pain by being around or are scaring people or are troubling them.

All of this pushed back the sensation of sorrow and missing Irene, as I talked with her, wondering what might happen if both people – the one on this side and the one on the other – both work to keep the connection strong?  What if they both commit themselves to working through the pain and grief and all the problems and challenges that such a relationship might entail?