Soulmates, Reoccurring Dreams and one Regret

 

I've had the Winnie-the-Pooh quote at the top of my blog since sometime in 2012, the year my husband died. "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard" made sense back then on a widow's blog but lately I've been think about giving my blog a makeover to better reflect where I'm at in life now. But a quote or meme of a grim reaper peering down my neck would scare off too many people. Except for Dawn, of course, author of the Bohemian Valhalla blog. She has what she herself describes as gallows humor and her images often have me scrolling as fast as my little fingers will go to get past the sculls and other dark-side photos she shares. We live entirely different lives but she's one of my favorite bloggers. 

But I'm getting off track because today I want to explore the idea that maybe I still haven't said goodbye to my dearly departed husband? And do people in the form of their soul-energy stick around after they give up their physical bodies? Enough things happened in the first couple of months after Don died that had me convinced souls to have as much trouble letting go as those of us left behind do. For example I rarely wore my wedding ring when we were married. I kept it hanging on a pin inside my computer wardrobe and Don would remind me to put it on when we'd go out. In all the years it hung on that pin it never fell off…until the day a minister came to the house to help me plan Don's service. After the minister left I found the ring on my keyboard, right in front of the monitor. It fell off that pin several more times under similar circumstances in the first few months after Don died. How could I not believe in signs from the other side after that? It was either believe in and be comforted by the signs or use my sense of logic which finally kicked in and told me to suck it up, that I was slamming the computer door harder and faster for the first time in over a decade and that was causing the ring to bounce off the pin. Still....

In the past few months I'm getting signs again that he's close by and I'm wondering if this is common with widows this far out from Death Day or could it just be common with people who are entering the dying process. (No, I don't have an expiration date prognosis, I'm just feeling old and worn out.) Maybe our dying is more than just the dying of the physical body. Maybe the body and soul parting is a reversal of our nine months in the womb sort of thing? Back when Roe vs Wade was debated in the Supreme Court I followed the testimonies of leading scientists and scholars from the major religions in the world that helped the justices decide the case. None of those experts could agree on when life begins and when a soul enters a fetus to make it human was a big part of the discussion. Scientists have a better understanding on the physical side of the equation now but religious leaders still don't agree and they never will because they are basing their opinions on various ways to translate the Bible. So it stands to reason no one really knows when a soul departs our bodies at the end of life either. And whose to say that it happens at the exact same moment for everyone. 

My dreams about Don are increasing in frequency---almost nightly. But I don't know if that means anything because I'm also dreaming about the dogs I've had over the years as well. I get the dog dreams. In my daytime hours I find myself longing for the companionship of a dog. I watch too many Facebook Short Reels of dogs and I have five dogs living in my building that I see daily from a distance. My next door neighbor has a dog that looks similar to my Levi. He was a Schnauzer and Robbie is a Scottie Terrier. But it breaks my heart that Robbie doesn't like me. To be fair he doesn't like most people but he literally leaves the room when I come into their apartment. Maybe the reason I've started reading romance books again is a longing for the found-your-soulmate vibes you get from those kinds of books? Two people fitting together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, what's not to like? Don't read that as I want another man in my life. No! Way! Jose! Great relationships take time to build and I'm running out of time.

Sometimes when you read a widow's blog you can get the impression that the marriage was all hearts and flowers and hand holding. I call it the 'Pedestal Versions' of the marriages that widows tend to present. And I was guilty of doing that, of writing mostly about the peaks and ignoring the valleys. But damn it, in our defense those of us with Pedestal Husbands found out that when our guys were alive we often took them for granted and all those annoying things we might have complained about simply were not important in the grand scheme. (Let that be a cautionary tale if you still have a spouse.) My husband was far from perfect. He did stupid guy stuff like hold the blankets over my head while he farted in bed. I read a scene like that in romance book last month and I burst out laughing, then I almost cried. Who would have ever guested you could miss a fart! 

But the worst guy thing Don ever did was once he yelled at me (instead of a neighbor) when the neighbor backed his car into my parked car, doing hundreds of dollars worth of damage. “You should have known better than to park directly across from a driveway!” Don shouted. The next day when I called him out on the fact that I was legally parked he said words to the effect that he was just trying to use it as a "teachable moment" for the teens who were helping us paint a house that day. "Sure, Don," I shot back. "You just taught them its okay to raise your voice to a woman, you yo-yo! And for a stupid-ass unfair reason!" Those teens were fatherless boys who looked at Don as a role model. And to this day I regret that I didn't defend myself on the spot and that he unfairly pinned the blame of the accident on me in the first place. I console myself with the fact that for three years we could barely ever leave the house without those neighborhood boys tagging alone and with a few notable exceptions, we role modeled the hell out of them as to what a healthy male/female relationship looks like.  ©