You're With Me Now

Amazing Dream from Tommy I had this afternoon.

In my dream, I was back in New Mexico. I traveled around the city through the places I used to live. This time, I did not wince at the bad memories, I saw the growth instead and actually smiled as I drove.

I met Tommy at this really neat looking place. It was a house and a business and big but cozy. There were lots of people walking around with things to do. Good music and really fun products being developed. It was messy, but organized. Tommy took me to this great room that had a big table in the center. Tommy had an assignment and I was part of it. The documentation for the assignment was on this long table in a specific pile. He knew just where it was and I would have missed it had I been looking, because nothing was labeled. But there it was - like I said, it was messy, but organized.

Everyone was working, but it didn't feel like work. It was exciting. Good energy all around. The place looked very much like what you'd see when you walk into World Market. Every part of the world was represented there - a fun and eclectic mix of every culture. I looked up and even saw those cute little knitted sweaters you see as xmas ornaments - small enough for a mouse to wear. These were gifts and they were fun and silly but important. Something like the proceeds going to places that needed it most.

Tommy picked up the stack and said, "You and Peter are with me now and I'll be guiding you. Come on and I'll show you!"

"But what about Mom and Dad and home?" I asked.

"They're doing their part and sending tuition checks for both you and Peter. But you're moving out here and we're working together. You're with me now."

I was so excited to be free. To be on my way. To do good work. God's work. That's what was on that table in the great room full of fun stuff and ideas and movement. It was God's work. My work. Tommy's work.

And Tommy was my link to the now, not to the past. We were moving ahead to the future. Mom and Dad had let us go and were and had been supporting us the best way they knew how. They'd sent us to college, kept us safe while growing up - made the three of us, their children, and kept the family financially secure enough to launch us. They'd done their job and now it was my turn and man, was I excited.

I was just about to ask Tommy how he'd felt about this assignment and the small amount of fear I'd felt when I'd realized my parents were saying goodbye - or at least that they could not and would not come on this journey with me.

But at that moment, I woke up from my nap with Anton. Doug came home and was looking splendid. I told him so. "You look cute, honey. You look alive." And he smiled. And the three of us started our evening together this way.

I went downstairs to make a pot of coffee because tonight I'll be doing book and box work. I sat down to look at my calendar. Sure enough, today was the day Tommy took his life in '97. And this dream, he gave to me.

It reminded me that he didn't really die, he crossed over and is still available to me. The dream was a perfect metaphor for where I've been, where I am, the healing that's taken place and the possibilities ahead.

Today's also the day I finished my scarf I knitted with Harriett, my healing angel. My first journal is almost done, too - where I've chronicled the work I've done with Debra so far. We're soon to open the next one, which Tommy helped me make.

What a day. A beautiful, beautiful day.

So all of this is working out as it should. The pain is part of the process. I just went through a very painful two week depression about moving into a new understanding of God. That meant I really needed to let go of the old one and grieve that loss. I am on the other end of that first big step into the arms of the new God. Pain and being uncomfortable are part of it. It's a sign of movement - the chaos is okay and the structure of it is really hard to see when you're inside of it.

This grieving God had launched me into phase two and Tommy's dream and his book is the beginning.

I've got more work to do. God's work, My work. And I will carry on in joyful responsibility for myself, forgiving the past, loving the gift is was to me, letting it stay where it is, so I can move forward.

I forgive the past. I forgive myself.

I can move forward.