Cold Comfort

I walked into a kitchen with Sicily; someone else was with us, and we were in a kitchen I had seen before, but not mine and not any kitchen I had been in before, so maybe something from a photograph. Now that I think of it, maybe his grandmother’s kitchen. Someone said, “Dane’s here,” and there he was on the kitchen counter, legs outstretched. I dropped what I was holding and ran across the kitchen; he stood in front of the counter and wrapped his arms around me. I was stunned, and kept saying, “Where have you been? Where have you been?” He pulled back a little and said, “I’m right here. Right here. I’m okay.” And then he kept hugging me and all of the sudden I wasn’t in the dream anymore.

His face was peaceful, and he had more hair. He looked younger, but not quite as lean, no dark circles under his eyes, less haunted. He had his goatee, and he was wearing one of his favorite sweaters. This is the first dream I have had of him since two weeks after his death, and it is the only where I have able to touch him, and when he has been nice to me; in all of the other ones he has been yelling at me, but I couldn’t actually hear his voice.

Six months tomorrow. Since months of missing his voice, his arms, his smile.  Six months of grief. The shortest and longest and most unendurable months of my life. A million more to go.