Where's Sylvia Browne when you need her?

Yesterday when I woke up I told B that I'd had quite vivid dreams all night. I described what I could remember and we got a laugh out of how silly they seemed in the light of day and then B said "I had a very vivid dream last night too. Very vivid."

"My dad was at the door [B's father has been dead for ten years] and he was dressed in the same heavy jacket he'd wear to work. He came in and my mom and I were both so surprised to see him and he said 'Oh I can't stay. I just came for a little visit. Burkhard, I wanted to let you know that there will be an opening for you with me next year.'. I replied that I wasn't really interested - that I liked were I am now - and my dad replied something like 'Well the opening will be there for you.'. I woke up after that."

B didn't seem necessarily upset but was almost amazed at how vivid the dream seemed to him. I gave the standard and likely non-comforting reply that it was just a dream and didn't necessarily mean anything and we didn't speak about the dream any further.

This afternoon just before B's physiotherapist came over for his appointment he and I got into a bit of an argument. I was annoyed that he wasn't listening to what I was trying to say and he was annoyed that I was raising my voice. As fights between married people go it probably wasn't so bad - and in some marriages it would qualify for standard conversation - but we hate it when we get cross and irritable with one another. We decided that we were just misunderstanding one another and not being very patient and so we apologized to each other and B said "I hate it when we fight. Life is too short for us to be fighting like that. We shouldn't spend our time fighting when time can be so short.".

B doesn't normally talk like that. He's not normally one of those people who talks as though he learned to speak from Hallmark cards and bumper stickers so it caught my attention right away.

"Honey, is that dream still bothering you?"

He admitted that he was still thinking of it and I was worried that he was worried that he'd die next year. This is even more unlike him because, while he's a realist and he knows that quadriplegics can have complications like pressure sores or infections that can cause death in very little time, he's also not one to believe in premonitions. He scoffs at the psychics one sees on TV and he's not one to believe in omens or signs.

And you know, I have to admit that I was worried about it as well but was trying to not recognize it. I'm not really one to take stock in psychics either but I can't discount them because I do believe there's a lot more going on beyond our scope of consciousness than we know.

But what good would worrying do? It won't change anything. We already do the best we can to keep B as healthy as possible - always being diligent about avoiding pressure sores and keeping him away from people with colds or the flu. He sees two physicians a month and I'm just not sure what else we can do to keep him around with us for as long as we can.

After talking about it we've chosen to believe that if we were getting some sort of "sign" from the dream that it didn't necessarily mean that B would die next year. Instead we've chosen that if the dead can come back and give us messages that B's dad was telling him to enjoy his life as much as possible and to not spend it bickering over petty things that don't matter anyway. To spend our time together with as much happiness and passion as we can muster because life is fleeting.

We're just going to stay together for as long as we're able and hope to have as much love as we can hold between us.